Shishir's Color-What-Matters Calendar Guide

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Assign Categories to Colors

Get started by renaming the category for each calendar color. You'll use these to categorize all your calendar events.

Time for the key step. Remember:

We should use names as proxies for colors, not the other way around.

So it’s time to break the habit ー what does tomato really represent? This exercise will help you identify a Category for every color.

The table below has a row for each of the Google Calendar colors. Remember, because Google Calendar only

supports⁠

10

⁠

colors (well, 11, if you count the

@Default⁠

color), you’ll need to limit your list to that number of unique categories.

Pro-tip: You can change the default color in Google Calendar

See instructions

here⁠

. Note: if you changed your default color from Peacock, you can update the hex code below, and change conditional formats to match.

Now time for your key step: Change the category name to be something meaningful to you. A few tips:

You could “derive” the name you’re currently using for colors. The table below shows a sampling of

000

⁠

of your current events with that color. How would you describe that group?

Or you can just start from scratch. Make a list of the (up to 10) key Categories you’d like to use. I personally use the same colors from my

ToDo list⁠

. In the next step, you can use this doc to recategorize events to match.

I avoid treating “Default” as a category. I aim to have no meetings with that color ー that way I know when I have finished coloring my calendar. So just leave "Default” as is - no need to rename it.

⁠

Rename the categories below to something meaningful to you

Color

Category Name

GCal Color Name

GCal Hex Code

Google Calendar Events List [subset]

Work time

Banana

#f6bf26

⁠

Deep work block

Hiring, managing, and growing talent

Sage

#33b679

⁠

All hands meeting

⁠

Virtual lunch with mobile team

Managing the product

Grape

#8d24aa

⁠

Weekly product kickoff

⁠

Infra review

1-1 meetings

Flamingo

#e67b73

⁠

Lola <> Maria 1-1

⁠

Adam <> Lola 1-1

Board of directors

Lavender

#7986cb

⁠

Board meeting prep

Personal

Graphite

#606060

⁠

Meditation & reading

⁠

Gym

Misc 1

Tomato

#d50000

Misc 2

Tangerine

#f4511e

Misc 3

Basil

#0c7f42

Misc 4

Blueberry

#3f50b5

Default

Peacock

#049be5

There are no rows in this table

⁠

Finished mapping colors to categories? You're ready to
`Color Code your Calendar`⁠
.

Gallery

Want to print your doc?
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Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.

Assign Categories to Colors

Rename the categories below to something meaningful to you

Finished mapping colors to categories? You're ready to Color Code your Calendar⁠.

Finished mapping colors to categories? You're ready to
`Color Code your Calendar`⁠
.