Color-coding calendar entries

Longstreet

Longstreet

Professor of microbiology and infectious diseases
How many of you color-code your calendar entries? If you do, what categories do you use? Some people say that color-coding let's you see what type of commitments you have over the week and how you are spending your time.
 
Yep I do that :)
I have categories for things like 1:1 client work, internal/external meetings, and general time blocks for things like general to-dos (just cranking through my todo list) or for deeper project work stuff.
 
My job is broken into two streams, so I have a different colour for both of those as well as for personal and for the couple social clubs I'm in. Since I have to switch gears/code switch a bit I find that helpful.
Though really like @Cpu_Modern for information vs action
 
I have a color for regular events that happen every day or week, one for appointments (ie not reoccurring), and one for information (things I may or may not need to do something for, but I want to be aware of. I call this one my community calendar).
 
I use colours for the different calendars in my view: my wife and I can see each other's calendar's and I run/share more than one for the multiple roles I have!

My work and personal calendars are green.

My wife is blue

Family commitments like church, play dates, date night in Orange

Band work - rehearsals, gigs in Purple

Anything in Brown is a "pencil" - a shoot that client has optioned me for - so I need to be aware of - but not 100% committed to until contracts signed - allows me to hold the commitment but also chase for closure if another client is enquiring about my time.

Finally, Liverpool Football Club fixtures are of course in RED ;)
 
Marcus Ramtohul said:
I use colours for the different calendars in my view: my wife and I can see each other's calendar's and I run/share more than one for the multiple roles I have!

My work and personal calendars are green.

My wife is blue

Family commitments like church, play dates, date night in Orange

Band work - rehearsals, gigs in Purple

Anything in Brown is a "pencil" - a shoot that client has optioned me for - so I need to be aware of - but not 100% committed to until contracts signed - allows me to hold the commitment but also chase for closure if another client is enquiring about my time.

Finally, Liverpool Football Club fixtures are of course in RED ;)
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I like the idea of a different colour for things that are provisional only. At the moment i put them in brackets or with a ?, but I think I'll try the colour version
 
RuthMcT said:
I like the idea of a different colour for things that are provisional only. At the moment i put them in brackets or with a ?, but I think I'll try the colour version
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Works really well for us to see those things at a glance - as we have so many of them in my world!

I also tried different colours for each site I managed - but this was overkill - unnecessary extra step in clarifying and organising that just slowed me down.
 
Longstreet said:
How many of you color-code your calendar entries? If you do, what categories do you use? Some people say that color-coding let's you see what type of commitments you have over the week and how you are spending your time.
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I do. I have a color for my many different hats: benefits, committees, personal dev, prof dev, on-off boarding, grant work, staffing and emp relations. I even have a color for my weekly review. :)
 
Four Areas of Focus:
Gold/Yellow: Divine, Spiritual-Health Extrinsic / Intrinsic [Intellect {Conscious, Truth}, Volition {Intentions, Habits/Skills}]
Red: Corporal-Health,Vitality Extrinsic All Relationships (Antagonists/Protagonists {Acquaintances, Clients, Family, Friends, Providers}), Intrinsic Body, Dental, Emotions {Aversions-&-Desires}, Exercise, Habits/Skills, Hydration/Nutrition (Medications, Supplements), Sleep, Phantasm (Imagination-&-Memory)]
Green: Fiscal Internal Expenses, Insurance, Taxes, etc.
Blue: Tools External Car, Cell, Coordinates [All, NE, NW, SE, SW], Internet, Internal Calendar-&-Tickler, Computer, Home [Basement, Bathroom, Bedrooms, Kitchen, Office, Laundry-Area], etc.
 
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I also use colors in my Outlook calendar. Mostly based on conditional formatting to avoid the manual assignment which I would often forget. Examples are (calls, in person meetings, travel, sports, private).
 
I also use conditional formatting rules in Outlook to help avoid the tedium of manually coding. Some examples:
Red- means I am off-site somewhere on another campus or something (helps me block travel time during weekly review)
Gray - travel time - based on the words "walk, drive, or travel" in the subject field. (e.g. "drive to west campus")
Orange - calls *based on the word "call" in the subject or location fields.
Yellow - turns on when I start an all-day event with FYI - draws my attention to "day-specific information"
Blue - means it is a web meeting - based on the words "zoom, skype, webex, etc." in any field.
Teal - means its a personal event, based on my clicking the "private event" button

Probably took about 45 minutes to set up the conditional formatting and it helps have a good idea whats happening at a glance. Especially with the off-site and travel-time.
 
Longstreet said:
How many of you color-code your calendar entries? If you do, what categories do you use? Some people say that color-coding let's you see what type of commitments you have over the week and how you are spending your time.
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I do Color-Coding since I do GTD on my Outlook Calender. For me, it has shown to be helpful having that information ´on one glance´.

Current Categories are e.g.:
@work : red
@in town: brown
@telephone [i.e. calls to make]: yellow
@anniversaries [like friend´s birthdays]: purple
@fun / recreation: blue
@GTD [like: weekly review]: orange
@spiritual/worship-related: greene


By the way: I always use a set of pens underlining in paper-based texts in order to color-code since my College years.
I´like to use the same (range of) colors on my iPad, but till now I haven´t found an adequate program offering the variety I´m looking for. Hints appreciated.
 
I have too many categories, about 10, to make good use of. Mostly it’s Zoom, Home, Out and Info these days. I’ll clean it up for the post-pandemic world at some point.
 
Longstreet said:
How many of you color-code your calendar entries?
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I do. I use Apple calendar and each of the various calendars is a different color. Black for the farm and shep stuff, yello for the Sheep registry work, pale blue for Lambracker and AnimalTrakker programming, orange for household maint. work, purple for misc. computer work, red for email and forums (because I am trying to limit them), cyan for personal. pale green for my archivist AOF work, green for errands and work on our other properyy, dark blue for ditch company work, brown for historical society work.

I have one shared calendar with my employee where we each put stuff that is planned. Because she only works for us part time and not at regular hours it works better for her and me to set out what dedlines and things have to be done and she fits them into her other work. She's working 3 separate part time jobs so it takes some juggling.
 
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