Your Calendar is the most powerful tool in your productivity tool kit. Your calendar does not lie. I learned this from following Carl Pullein and also from bitter experience. If you want to follow someone and learn a lot about productivity in the real world – Carl is your man. Your To-Do list can tell you that there are 78 things to do today and makes no comment on how realistic that is. Your calendar gives you 24 hours in a day. It will not over estimate how much time you have. Does that mean therefore, that we should spend more time choosing right calendar application than we do any other app? When we look at all the different available calendar applications – how do they measure up?
The features you need are pretty basic
Honestly, spending time choosing the right app here is not always time well spent. That’s my opinion. The reason is that the features you need are pretty basic. I have yet to meet a calendar app that doesn’t do the basics. Schedule events to a slot of time would be the main one. Giving you different views of your time would be another. They pretty much all do this.
Increasingly I am seeing calendar applications that offer AI scheduling and task management functionality. The former is a bad idea. If you want to understand why an AI computer should not be entrusted with this then just read my post Manage your Energy – not just your time. As for the latter, task management on your calendar? You can do this. But, if your line of work is such that you have many smaller tasks to do, blocking these on your calendar is a visual nightmare. As well as that, the great strength of your calendar is that it does not lie. If you throw loads of tasks onto it that you may or may not end up doing, this ‘power’ is nullified.
How do you judge a calendar app?
So, given the features we are looking at are pretty standard, what’s the point in asking the question at all? It doesn’t matter right?
Yes and no.
You could use any calendar application available on your device and be functionally happy. That said, there are a few things that make or break a calendar app, even if it has all the right features:
- Accessibility – what devices can you access it on?
- Visual accessibility – How easy is it to see what you need? What different views are available?
- Ease of entering events – Can you do this quickly?
- Ease of moving events – can you do this quickly?
- Visual Aesthetic – do you like it?
- Integrations – does it play well with others?
The two types of calendar app
One type of calendar app would be the type that provides the actual calendar itself. The main players here would be Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar. The other type of app is intended to be just an interface to display one or more of those three calendar providers.
You have to choose a calendar provider app AND an interface app.
Choosing a provider
The wisdom here is to keep this simple. Google Calendar is the most widely available and works well with most other calendar applications in a way that Outlook and Apple calendar do not. Therefore, the default for us all is probably Google. That said, if you have an iPhone, iPad and Mac and you use these as your main devices, it is well worth considering Apple calendar for the integration it offers with other Apple apps.
Outlook is really designed for workplaces in my view. If you use Outlook as your base calendar provider, then finding an interface application that works well with it is that much harder. Plus, if you use Outlook itself as the interface app then you have a bigger problem in my view. I would only advise you use Outlook if you have to for your work.
So, the verdict here is to stick with Google, unless you operate in an all Apple Ecosystem.
Choosing an Interface app
Well there are so many options to choose from! For the purposes of this post, I will list all the apps I have used and few brief comments on them. Here, I am only considering desktop or web apps. I might write a separate post for Android calendar apps and I don’t have a lot of experience with iOS apps.
But before we dive in, let’s all take a moment and raise a glass for an app that is no longer with us – Sunrise. If Sunrise were still here, this would be a much shorter post and it would be called ‘Use Sunrise!’
We could also have a moment for Woven another belter that bit the dust.
Google Calendar
Things to Love
- Accessible EVERYWHERE
- A number of powerful ways to use the application – Check out Simpletivity to see a lot of them.
- Very easy to use
- Totally free – but remember what they often say about ‘free’ stuff
Things to HATE
- It’s not the best looking application and there is no dark mode
- The features and functions are not well promoted so most of us won’t know about half of them
- Not a native desktop app so a lot of potential features are impossible
Verdict
Honestly this would be my go-to recommendation for most people. It works. Even if you choose another app as your interface, I would recommend learning about using Google Calendar as you never know when you might need to use it to access your calendar
Outlook
Things to Love
- Integrates really well with other Microsoft apps within Outlook.
- The ‘new’ Outlook actually looks quite good, esp. in dark mode
Things to HATE
- The full desktop version is pretty ugly and clunky to use.
- It is within Outlook so whether accessing online, in the ‘new’ version or on mobile, it takes you to your email first.
Verdict
I really want to use Outlook but I cannot. It is not as powerful a calendar as Google and it doesn’t play well with others. On most of the versions of it that I would use, I need to go through my email to access my calendar and that is a big NO.
Apple Calendar
Things to Love
- Possibly the best looking of the apps
- Does everything you need it to and is well featured
- Integrates EXCEPTIONALLY well with other Apple apps.
Things to HATE
- Apple only – there is a web version available but in my experience it is a bit slow and clunky with recent developments in security requirements, really you need an Apple device to access it.
Verdict
Honestly, if you are in the Apple ecosystem (all your devices are Apple) then you need look no further. But if you aren’t then I wouldn’t even consider it.
Cron – Now Notion Calendar
Things to Love
- Has lot of flexibility with respect to the different ways you can view things
- A good looking application
- Integrates with Notion databases pretty well and this is improving.
- Currently free
- A good variety of keyboard shortcuts
Things to HATE
- Only shows Google calendars and Notion databases
- A side bar on the RHS cannot be hidden which is pain on smaller screens and makes having a narrow bar of your schedule/plan for the day impossible.
- It can be a little tricky to get the different sizing options right to view things well
Verdict
If you use Google Calendar but don’t like the interface, then Cron is probably the next best thing. If you use Notion and want to integrate with your calendar, then this is the way to go.
One Calendar
Things to Love
- This is the only one I came across that works well with Outlook calendars and Google Calendars. So, you can have both a work Outlook calendar and a personal Google calendar on the same app.
- There is a mobile version as well
Things to HATE
- The ugliest app I have come across in this regard.
- The hardest to use I have come across in this regard.
- The pricing is confusing. You have to pay to unlock features basically but you cannot try the features before you pay.
Verdict
AVOID!
Morgen
Things to Love
- Good task management features if you want this in your calendar – and it integrates with a few task services to bring those into the app (inc. ToDoist, ClickUp & Notion)
- Good features for quick entry of events and powerful shortcuts
- This one has a mobile version as well
Things to HATE
- The best features and integrations cost money – and I feel it’s pretty steep for a calendar
- It feels quite resource hungry to run it
Verdict
This is a fantastic application. The free version is actually really good in its own right and well worth a look. If you have the spare cash to pay for it, and value tasks then it is probably the way to go.
Fantastical
I’ve not really used this one that much but did try it briefly
Things to Love
- Natural language parsing in the quick entry of events is a nice feature.
- Another good looking calendar app
Things to HATE
- Another Mac only application so if that’s not for you then avoid it.
- This one also costs money for premium features. They have revised their pricing in recent years meaning the free version is useable.
Verdict
It’s hard for me to comment as I haven’t used this one that much. I like it and its good to work with, but I don’t want to claim experience that I do not have.
Calendar Applications – How do they Measure up?
There are a lot of great calendar applications out there. This list is far from exhaustive. My best advice here is to stick with a free application for your calendar. The features that you get when you pay, don’t really improve your calendars ability to do what needs to be done with it. So, after examining all these calendar applications – how do they measure up?
My advice, for what it is worth, would be that if you are fully in the Apple ecosystem, with no devices outside of it, that you use Apple Calendar for both your provider and the interface.
For any other set up of devices, I would recommend using Google for your provider and then Morgen or Cron for your interface.
If you find yourself having to use Outlook for work purposes, then my workaround at present is to bring my personal Google Calendars into Outlook. Meetings have to be scheduled in Outlook as they involve others I work with, but they get copied to my Google Calendar.
