Calendars and keeping them in sync
I have spent a lot of effort considering my personal productivity with mixed results.
Wearing a number of different “hats” I have several professional calendars that need to be connected in some way and I have kissed some frogs in this particular area.
People share and sync calendars in loads of different ways, and although there are plenty of free ways that might get you close to what you want, I have found most of them eventually become hard to work with.
In this post I want to share what I am currently using a point out some short comings as well giving you a tour.
First off, you may have to decide on a “master” calendar. A lot of my clients give me a “work account” (email and calendar) for the purposes of a particular engagement and while this usually leads to more diary complexity it is rarely their account that becomes the master.
Warning: large companies that make it unnecessarily hard to “access” their email and calendars make this whole problem even more miserable. Strong iPhone passwords or aggressive mobile device management policies/platforms can make these efforts futile. Sometimes I don't even try.
You may find a master is not necessary (depending on your use case) and I have experimented with “phantom” masters to make things easier which can also work.
For now, I am working with trusted colleagues that would like to be able to see my availability so it is this account that I currently use.
I also have 2 other personal work related accounts and client provided account (that I can access fully online without any unnecessary/additional authentication).
I am using CalendarBridge to perform all the background syncing, so all my meetings are consolidated into a single chosen account. It costs, but the solution to this problem is not free and people making useful software get paid should get paid. It costs $94 - and for $8 a month I am willing to stop wasting my time.
In addition to syncing calendars, a nice bonus feature is that you a create custom branded online schedules that allow anyone (you provide the URL) to see my availability without seeing my calendar. Go ahead book a meeting with me!
Here is quick tour:
If you do decide to take a look at CalendarBridge you can use my invite code: DNI7V to get your first month free.
I would be interested to know what you have tried and how you manage around this in your life. Oh to work for one company doing one job!