Google Calendar wants you to stop procrastinating and meet your goals

Alan Martin April 14, 2016

Google Calendar just turned ten. If you’ve been using it for all of those ten years and still haven’t managed to get in shape or learn Mandarin, Google’s latest Calendar update may finally make you do something about it.

The company explained that the change in Calendar is designed to avoid the conflicts and last-minute change of plans that often derail the best intentions. “

Just add a personal goal – like “run 3 times a week” – and Calendar will help you find the time and stick to it,” explains the blog post by project manager Jyoti Ramnath.

The thing is, you could always add “go running” to your calendar as a recurring event, but doing so lacks the flexibility to deal with life’s unexpected events. You could manually reschedule, but when you’re already pushing yourself to do something for long-term rewards, sometimes it’s easier to let fate decide you couldn’t make it on a given day.

Do that too often, and the best intentions simply fizzle out.

Calendar goals won’t let that happen. If you add an appointment over the top, Calendar will automatically reschedule. Or you can simply tap “defer” and the can will get kicked along the road for another day.

Obviously the weak point in this equation is still you: if you really want to self-sabotage, you could keep on deferring workouts. But Google Calendar sees the best in you, and works to the assumption that on some level you must want to change. From now on, it’s going to try and make that happen.

You can set your goals today by downloading the Android or iPhone app.

Image: Yezi9713 used under Creative Commons