Use Google Calendar invites

It happens almost every day. Your boss wants to meet about a new project, your sister wants to grab lunch, and your work team wants to have a group meeting about budgeting. Everyone sends email text with suggested dates and times and it's on you to balance the calendar, manually checking dates and arranging the logistics.

There's a better way to do this: Use the Google Calendar invite function.

1. Create your event (meeting, lunch, etc). Include the date and any particular notes (for example: conference call agenda and even attachments!).
2. Invite participants by entering their email.
3. Click Save. 

Now, the invitation appears in the invitees' inboxes and on their calendars. This helps invitees see how the event fits into their calendars. You'll actually know who accepted and declined, in real time.

This is also helpful when meetings times, dates, and locations change, as the user can simply update the information and send to all invitees.

So stop hassling and wasting time, yours and theirs. Calendar invites FTW!

What's your system for managing complex scheduling? Share it in the comments!

Josh Wolf is Director of Data and Technology at NOI

Photo from Joe Lanman, via Creative Commons