Life was easier when you had only one calendar to deal with. If you are like me, then you have made your life difficult by having too many unconnected calendars, causing misery! Here are a list of my calendars:
- iCal (MacBook)
- iPhone
- Salesforce.com
- Tungle.com
I have added Tungle.com today, so that others who want to schedule a meeting with me could do so by finding out my availability. My tungle account is at http://tungle.me/manojranaweera
The trick to all this is being able to sync. Tungle failed to sync with my iCal after many attempts even after Tungle crew came to my aid. My way round this is to sync with my personal Google Calendar, which syncs with my iCal. I still like to think iCal is the master calendar, as it syncs well with my iPhone.
I am yet to sync with my salesforce.com account. Here is my thought process when I am adding an event or an appointment to my calendars.
- Add it to my personal iCal Calendar, which has three calendars splitting my interests: edocr, Techcelerate and Personal.
- Copy all relevant ones to my Google personal calendar (not shared) on iCal which syncs with Google and then with Tungle
- Copy relevant ones to two public Google calendars, these being, UK Tech Biz Events and NWDC Calendar
An event such as the one planned for 24th Feb will have four entries on my iCal as it shows the same (copied 3 times) against my iCal master, Google personal, NWDC calendar and UK Tech Biz Events. Irrespective of the clutter, it works.
What this shows is that life is full of mini strategies and plans. Who thought I would need a strategy for maintaining my calendars? Next is to think about integrating Salesforce.com for edocr.com. In this process I must thank Google, which provides the means for achieving synchronisation across many different platforms.
Update 1:
Just realised that I can simplify the process by changing my Google Personal Calendar to be the master. There is no longer a need for own calendar within iCal. Just wondering whether this can be further simplified.