Finding time for our own personal aspirations can be hard, and when we do have time, we often conjure up a reason to push it to another day.
Whether it’s exercising, learning a new language, or organizing your home — Google wants to help nudge you to get cracking on those personal goals through a new automated feature in Google Calendar.
“One day it’s ‘I got called into a last-minute meeting,’ Jyoti Ramnath, product manager at Gmail, said in the blog post announcement. “The next day it’s ‘I have a friend in town.’ And before you know it, your goals are delayed or forgotten. In fact, with all the things you need to do in a given week, it’s probably harder than ever to find the time — even when your goal really matters to you.”
To help you find the time, now when you tap the floating action button in Google Calendar, you’ll see a flag icon that will let you set a goal. The app will then find a time in your calendar to pencil your goal in — and it will automatically move it if you schedule another event during that time frame.
When Calendar sends you a notification to get started on your goal, you can defer it or tap complete.
The more you use the feature, the better it works. As you continue to defer or complete goals, Google Calendar will learn and choose the optimal times in the future.
The new Goals feature marks the 10-year anniversary of Google Calendar, and according to The New York Times, Google is also launching another feature that helps two people in the same company find convenient meeting times, with the use of a “software agent.”
The features will be rolling out today — just keep an eye out for updates to your iOS or Android Google Calendar app.