How I use ICal
Monday, February 5th, 2007
This is a short writeup of how I use ICal.
The first two calendars are what David Allen calls hard calenders, they are places I need to be at certain times. This is what you expect from a calendar. I use spanningsynch (it is still in beta, but if you go to the blog you can sign up) to synchronize these two with gcal calenders.
The first one, Entourage, also synchs with my Blackberry. I don’t actually use Entourage anymore, but it syncs with that too, and is my default calendar for all of these synchronizations. (Most sync programs require a default, because it needs a place to dump items from say, the blackberry, which can only handle one calendar.)
The second calendar, Gret and Ted is generally like the first, except it is also a shared Google calendar. This calendar is where both my wife and I plan our social lives or anything that impacts both of us. Again, it syncs with ICal, so its accessible on my computer or from any computer.
The next four calendars are made into a group so I can turn them all on and off at once. Each of my classes has its own calendar with the due date for all of its assignments. Each also has its own color, to make it easier to track. Turning the group off lets me concentrate on other scheduling, but I don’t need to do it often.
The other calendars are all generated by KGTD. The GTD system works in contexts, the idea being that the things you need to do may require a specific mental state or physical location. I can’t clean my apartment from the library, and there are times when I’ve got a great flow for writing, and others where I would do well to clean or to study. KGTD synchronizes each of my contexts with the calendar of the same name. Again, by clicking or unclicking the checkbox, I can make all the to-do’s for that calendar disappear or reappear. This lets me block out things I can’t do at the time. I may make groups for some of these, so I can show or hide them at once. Merlin Mann used to recommend this, but I agree with his later point that needing to do that may be a sign that you have too many contexts. I may consolidate some of my contexts, like handwrite, which is used for thank you notes for interviews and gifts and email into one category. Writing is actually for writing blog posts and articles, so it’s a different context altogether.