Color Code Your Calendar: How to Plan Your Time

Humans are visual creatures, as our brains are wired to process the world around us by what we see. According to the Social Science Research Network, 65 percent of us are visual learners based on color psychology.

And in the day-to-day, we observe color coding within street signs, traffic lights, weather charts, and so on. Thus, you can color code your calendar to show different tasks and plan your time to get the most out of each day.

Time is a Limiting Factor in Our Days, Weeks, etc.

In “The 12-Week Year,” Brian Moran states that:

“Annualized thinking and planning more often than not leads to less than optimal performance. In order to perform at your best you will need to get out of the annual mode and scrub your annualized thinking. Stop thinking in terms of a year; instead, focus on shorter time frames.”

And so, we all have a limited amount of personal resources, including a finite amount of time in the day, week, quarter, year, etc. Thus, you can color code your personal, digital, or Google calendar as a visual way of organizing your time in the short-term. At a glance, the different colors evoke feelings or certain emotions. And tell you what you have planned for that day or week.

The color-code calendar setup can also help us separate different parts of our life from one another. Too much of one color for a specific week or the day ahead can indicate that we will probably get overwhelmed. When you get the right mix of different colors, you can achieve a balance between different parts of your life.

Why Are Calendars Important?

Calendar with a highligher

Photo by Eliza Diamond on Unsplash

Calendars organize time into days, weeks, and months of a particular year. We schedule events into our calendar to prioritze tasks.

Do you feel that you are constantly having to remind yourself of the most important tasks, meetings, and appointments you have during the day? Or maybe, you want to work out, but forget to exercise?

Get the Tasks and Appointments Out of Your Head

In Getting Things Done, David Allen tells us that tasks occupy space in our heads. Thus, we need to remove this clutter from our heads and shelve it in its designated place. He recommends using the to-do list to organize tentative tasks and the calendar to organize your time-specific appointments.

Thus, you should schedule actions or all-day events that have to get done at a specific time or day on a calendar. When you schedule something, you can clear your mind to focus on the task at hand. The color-coded calendar will be there to remind you of future meetings and appointments.

Calendar events can also help you set boundaries on your time in the future. You can remove the commitments from your mind, figure out how much time you have, and lock in periods with purpose. If working out or family time is important to your life, then you can schedule, so it happens.

Also, you can identify the things and people that could prevent your progress and challenge your boundaries. That way, you can use your schedule to tell others what your priorities are and how you want them to behave toward you.

What Digital Calendars Can You Successfully Color Code?

Mac and iPhone showing iCloud color coded calendar

Source: Apple

Most of us use either one or two calendars. If you use one, you are probably thinking it represents simplicity with a bland color choice; however, you are just jamming everything into one, and it can be helpful to separate your life out.

If you use two, they are typically your personal calendar and your work one, you are probably trying to achieve that magical work-life balance. We recommend that you should use more than two or multiple calendars, but the specific number depends on your lifestyle and priorities.

Mike Vardy of the Productivityist discusses using modes to organize your time and prioritize tasks. Generally, calendar events can fit into three categories of event-based modes: Energy-based, Activity-based, and Theme-Based. We can create color-coded calendars that can fit into different ways that we operate each day.

Energy-Based Modes

Energy levels correspond to how we feel physically and mentally. Thus, we can create different color-coded calendars that require different energy modes to accomplish various events.

Meetings

For successful meetings, you need to have high energy to be social with others to focus on important priorities and solve problems. Reoccurring meetings should be held at the same time each week, follow the same agenda, and start and end on time.

Deep Work

In Deep Work, Cal Newport defines deep work as work that forces you to think critically with undivided attention and minimal distractions. So for this high-energy mode, you should have a work calendar for scheduling deep work blocks and using the Pomodoro Technique to help you get into a focus or flow state.

Shallow Work

This work calendar can be used for work done in low-energy modes, or busy work that does not require much brainpower. This work tends to be mindless and includes less important tasks or administrative tasks. For example, shallow work can include household chores, mailing letters, or cleaning your “Downloads” folder.

Activity-Based Modes

We have specific activities in our lives that we find meaning in. We can create color-coded calendars for events using action verbs.

Working Out

For many people, exercise is a vital component of their healthy lives. Thus, you can create a calendar to set aside time to complete your workouts or gym sessions during the week.

Reading

Fast Company says that Fortune 500 CEOs read an average of 60 books per year. It is also widely asserted that reading 20 minutes per day on any given topic will raise your proficiency in that topic. Thus, you can create a personal calendar designating time for reading.

Learning

Learning something new can benefit your mind, social life, and professional life. Thus, you can create a calendar for accomplishing that online course, learning a new language, or conducting brainstorming sessions.

Creative

Creative calendars are an intentional and fun way to express and highlight creative tasks. They can allow us to do creative tasks in unique and meaningful ways, such as making art, recording music, or writing a blog post. Whatever the creative activity, it will add more beauty and joy to your life!

Theme-Based Modes

The theme is the broad idea that underlies several tasks and projects we are trying to do. We can create a color-coded calendar dedicated to an underlying theme of an area of your life.

Personal Development

I use this calendar to schedule activities that relate to this them in my life, as these are important to me. This includes time for doing my morning routine, meditating, and working out.

Family

Many of us have to coordinate our lives with our significant other, roommates, or family members. You can create a shared calendar to schedule events such as date night, house dinners, doctor’s appointments, sports practices, or birthday parties.

Social

A healthy life can include social life, and it may be helpful to put all your social plans on one calendar. It keeps all your enjoyable events with others, including sports, clubs, and nights out. On Facebook, you can export individual Events or your entire Events feed to your calendar app.

Travel

As a frequent traveler, it helps to keep all your travel plans on one calendar. This calendar can contain all your plans when you are out of town, including flights, hotels, and bookings. We recommend the app TripIt, which is detailed below.

Calendar events help you set boundaries on your time in the future. You can remove the commitments from your mind and lock in periods with purpose.

Then, you are better able to focus on the task at hand, and your calendar will tell you what you need to be working on. You won’t miss another meeting or appointment. You can identify the things and people that could prevent your progress, and use calendar events to tell them how you want them to behave towards us.

App Recommendations For Color-Coded Calendars

How to Create Habits with Sunsama – The Sweet Setup
How to Create Color Code with Sunsama

After thinking of what color-coded calendars you plan on using, you need an application to house them. You should get a cloud-based app that syncs across all your devices for ease of use. Additionally, you need an app with reminders and notifications to alert you when your event is happening.

Best Calendar Apps

  • Google Calendar (Web, Android, iOS): This digital calendar app is excellent and integrates well with most productivity apps. When paired with Gmail, the app populates events from emails containing meeting invites and bookings.
  • Apple Calendar (Web, iOS, Mac): This digital calendar is designed for the Apple ecosystem. It integrates well with Apple Mail to populate email events and Siri to help you add events verbally.
  • Outlook Calendar (Web, Windows, Android, iOS, Mac): If you have a PC for your workplace or at school, then you are probably used to Outlook. The app is a pretty standard calendar that is found with the Outlook email client.
  • Sunsama (Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows): This productivity and task management application that allows users to organize and prioritize their tasks and activities using time blocking on its default calendar view.

As I have a Gmail account for my emails, I personally use Google Calendar integrated with Sunsama. It is a reliable app that integrates well for scheduling and color coding your calendar.

Facebook Events For Social Plans

The Events feature on Facebook can help you sync events to your Social color-coded calendar. You can organize and RSVP to gatherings in the real world with people on Facebook.

Typically, you have to log in to Facebook to find your event invites. However, you can sync events to your calendar. Navigate to a page for an event, and click on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner. From the drop-down menu, click “Export Event” to add events to your calendar in the following ways:

  1. Download a Single Event: Sync a single event by downloading the calendar file. Choose the “Save to Calendar” link to download the calendar file. Import the calendar file into your calendar of choice.
  2. Email a Single Event: Sync a single event by emailing the calendar file. Choose the “Send to Email” link to email the calendar file. Typically, you can add the event to your calendar directly from the email.
  3. Subscribe to Events Feed: Sync all your Facebook events by subscribing to the calendar feed. Choose the “Subscribe to all upcoming events” link and copy the link address of this calendar feed. Go to your calendar app and add a calendar with this link address, and it should populate your Facebook Events Feed.

The Facebook Events “Social” Calendar alerts me when my friends are organizing events right in my calendar app. It helps decide on social plans without constantly checking Facebook to know when things are happening. Also, I don’t double-book myself.

TripIt For Travel Plans

The TripIt Travel app is great for frequent travelers. The app organizes all your travel plans and to-dos in one place and syncs well with your calendar app of choice.

For each trip, the app supports many types of travel plans, including flights, cruises, hotels, rental cars, and event bookings. You simply have to forward confirmation emails from your inbox to plans@tripit.com. Then, TripIt creates a master itinerary with the relevant travel information, including dates, times, and confirmation numbers.

The itinerary can be synced to your calendar app by creating a new “Travel” calendar and adding the link address. This “Travel” calendar has been amazing for the many trips I have taken. It has prevented me from missing flights, showed me when I have to check-in, check out, and kept my plans organized.

Next Steps

Now that you know more about how to maximize the use of a calendar through color coding, start organizing your day according to your own specific needs. After all, sometimes it is the small things that make our life easier, and color coding your calendar can be a great way to become more organized in order to achieve big goals.

You can get creative with it as well; assign different categories and organizers however you want! Don’t wait too long or procrastinate – go ahead and start color-coding your calendar right now. Calendar organization can be such an invaluable tool when managing everyday tasks, so don’t miss this opportunity.

Make sure you plan out each day wisely and stay focused on what you have put aside for yourself – remember: organization is key here! So go out there and start working on setting up a reliable system that starts with getting yourself a good old-fashioned color-coded calendar.

Celebrate when you reach your goals – after all, this little technique should help you accomplish anything faster and better than ever before, so give it a try! Go and color code your calendar today!

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