Calendars – Getting Your Time Organised 

Cost: Free with G Suite and Office 365 | Platforms: Desktop, Laptop and Smartphones both Android and Apple. 

I cannot say enough good things about online Calendars for both education and work purposes. Mapping out your time, allocating time to work, projects and task as well as making key dates are an essential skill. 

Both Google Calendar, part of G Suite, and Outlook Calendar, part of O365, are excellent for doing all this and more. 

Most useful for: If you are new to Further and Higher Education, taking the time to track your times in terms of time needed for lecturers, time need to study/ write assignments can be useful to see what time is left over for quality time and work. Try to have a work / life balance. 

If you find it challenging to manage your time then use your Calendar to help you map out and manage your demands and deadlines as well as giving yourself rewards for meeting those deadlines. 

You can only manage what you can measure so tracking your time helps you to make informed decisions about what to juggle or prioritise. 

Calendars key features are: 

• Marking time in half hour or hourly slots. 

• Add a Calendar entry/event and you can add others to that event. 

• For study: enter your weekly lecturers – you can repeat these entries for a semester (choose the number of weeks or repeat until a specific date) 

• Then add daily study periods to organise your Notes/ Exam preparation. 

• Some people use the calendar to make time needed to proof read assignments before the final submission. 

• Add in quality time into your Schedule – breaks and meeting friends. 

• Bild up a picture of your time on the calendar and see how you are using your time. 

• Some people like to add reminders like drinking water and snack times. 

Our Top Tip:  

Keeping calendars can be a new skill so download the calendar that can be linked to your laptop so you can add to your calendar from your laptop/desktop and Smartphone. 

Ask yourself questions about how you spend your time? 

• How long does it take me to research an assignment/ essay? 
• How long does it take me to write a first version of an essay? 
• How long does it take me to proofread an assignment? 
• How long does it take me to format an essay? (These formatting considerations may include adding a bibliography, quotes, page numbers, change font and size and any other changes as well as others). 

Demonstration of Google Calendar in Action 

 

Video source: Emma B YouTube channel 

Demo of Outlook Calendar in Action 

Video source: Simplitivity YouTube channel 

Need Organisation Advice:  

• If you are a student in Higher Education, speak to your Assistive Technology Officer or Disability Officer /Learning Support Officer.  

• If you are a Student in the FET/ETB then it may be possible to speak to an Educational Needs Coordinator, Learning Support Coordinator, Student Access Officer, Student Support Coordinator or a Disability Support Officer for more information about assistive technology.  

• If you are an Employee and are interested in this technology then speak to your Disability Liaison Officer (public service) or your Line Manager to start the conversation.