Organization for pregnancy: Google Calendar

My wife’s energy level has begun to dip noticeably as she rounds the corner into her third trimester of pregnancy. She is actually sitting in a chair next to me snoring as I write these lines. As she’s been decreasingly able to do things, I’ve had to pick up the slack in certain areas.

As my schedule fills in with extra tasks that I’m picking up, it becomes more of a balancing act to find enough hours in the day to accomplish everything while not letting responsibilities fall through the cracks. One of the best organizational tools in my personal productivity arsenal is Google calendar. I use it to keep track of everything from my dog’s heartworm pill schedule and monthly bill paying reminders to birthdays and anniversaries.

While there are countless electronic and paper-based calendars out there, I find Google Calendar (or GCal) particularly useful for a few reasons:

1. It is web-based. I can access my calendar from any computer with Internet access.

2. I can add items to my calendar via text message (SMS) from my cell phone. If I need to add something to my GCal, I just send a text message to 48368 (”GVENT”) with the item details and it’s on my agenda.

3. I can check what is on my calendar with a text message from my cell phone. If I’m not near a computer I can find out what is on the my agenda by texting ‘next’ to 48368 for the next upcoming event or ‘day’ for the days list of events.

4. Google Calendar lets you set up reminders. For any event you can set up reminders to be sent to you via email or text message to your phone. This helps make sure you remember any important scheduled events when you’re not in front of a computer or don’t have a paper organizer around you.

5. You can share your entire calendar or just selected events with another person. For example, my wife can enter in her doctors appointments in her own calendar and share her calendar with me so I know when and where I have to meet her.

Whether you currently have kids or are expecting, Google Calendar is a great, FREE organizational tool for managing hectic schedules. For more information about Google calendar visit http://www.google.com/support/calendar/?hl=en. For those of you with a GMail email address, you’re already signed up, you just have to activate the service.