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June 24, 2007

Same Planet, Different Worlds

One thing that's surprised me about the whole moving-in-together thing has been how much time I spend checking my calendar.

Elaine and I are both pretty social, and as such we're forever trying to schedule ourselves or the other for dinners, lunches, walks around Greenlake, barbecues, Storm games, and the like. Until about a month ago, we generally did this with e-mail, which was like this extended game of Battleship:

G: "I'd love to have Bill and his wife over for dinner. How's the 18th?"
E: "No, I can't do the 18th. I have a thing with [insert group of friends here]."
G: "Hm. Weeknights are tough for them, so it's gotta be a weekend. How about the next week?"
E: "Uh ... well, Sunday might work, but we have that party with [insert group of friends here] on Saturday night."
G: "Drat, I forgot about that. And Sunday won't work, because I'm going out with [Microsoft people/MBA people/others] for drinks."
E: "Well, we could try ..."

So the conversation continues like this over several more exchanges, and, eventually, we locate a date that seems to work ("You sank my battleship!"). Then I just have to see if Bill's OK with a) the weekend we've chosen, and b) being scheduled out two years.

And then, a month ago, we tried switching from e-mail to using a series of shared Google Calendars.

It's like going to heaven.

If you've not tried it, Google Calendar is a terrific Web-based calendar. It's very simple, very usable, and very powerful -- a great Web application that feels a lot like a desktop app. However, the secret sauce of Google Calendar (much like the secret sauce of most of Google's Web applications, like Docs & Spreadsheets) is that Calendar makes it possible to share your calendars with others.

The scenario breaks down like this. I log in to Google Calendar and populate a calendar with a handful of my personal appointments. I want to share this with Elaine, so she knows where I am (and whether to expect me for dinner). So in the Calendar, I click on the options drop-down, select 'Share this Calendar' and then enter Elaine's e-mail address. She gets an invitation in e-mail to look at my calendar, which, when clicked, adds my appointments to her Calendar interface. Simple.

We've set up a few different calendar files, based on the context of what we'll be doing. Our "big three" are:

• At Home. (What's goin' on at the house?)
• Social Engagements. (Who're we hanging' with?)
• Travel. (Where are we?)

We also have the Storm Home Game calendar, and I've put up a calendar for my hobby stuff (e.g., singing).

Since we're now both working on the same calendar file, we have a need to let the other one know if a given event is for one or the both of us. Thus, we flag appointments with "[G]", "[E]", or "[G+E]" to indicate whether the appointment involves me, her, or the two of us. (Entries have titles like, "[G] Drinks with Jon".)

We're about a month into using this system, and I can't go back to e-mail. Having everything consolidated into a single view (that I can get from any Web browser!) is fantastically convenient, and saves time. Bill can walk in to my office, talk can turn to that dinner we've been trying to plan, and I can give him some good dates right away, rather than playing the, "Uh, let me e-mail Elaine and see what her calendar is like" game.

Now right about now, I'm sure a few of you are asking, "But what about iCal? I thought you were all hot on your GTD, iCal-as-dashboard system! How does iCal know what's going on with your Google Calendar?"

This is a great point. One of the big challenges I've had with Google Calendar has been interoperability with iCal - out out of the box, iCal can subscribe to calendar items in Google Calendar (change it in Google Calendar, and iCal gets the change), but this is a purely one-way relationship - I can't use iCal to change what's on my Google Calendar.

And then came along Spanning Sync, and everything got better.

Spanning Sync closes the loop between Google Calendar and iCal. It's a Mac OS X Preference Pane that keeps selected Google Calendars in sync with the calendars on iCal, and vice versa. As a practical matter, this means I can continue working in iCal as I usually do - dragging around appointments, changing things - and Spanning Sync lets Google Calendar know, so Elaine gets the latest, freshest, most-up-to-date information. When I'm at home, I can work on my Mac; when I'm at work, I can use Google Calendar through the Web. It's seamless, slick, and, like all great Mac software, Just Works. It also allows me to keep using KGTD, MailTags, and all the other great stuff I rely on to manage my projects. Spanning Sync isn't free (I pay $25/year for it), but it does come with a 15-day trial to let you know if you'll like it or not.

(I liked it.)

So there it is. I know a lot of my fellow Geek Couples wrestle with this problem, too, so folks, lemme tell ya - give it a try. I predict you'll be able to leave "Battleship" where it belongs - at Game Night.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 24, 2007 10:57 AM. Posted to Apple | Geek.

Comments

Posted by: Mr. Sharumpe at July 1, 2007 2:20 PM

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