Calendar of varying intensity

August 30, 2017 12:54 PM

Is there a calendar/agenda/task app (web-based ideally, or ios/mac) that can visualize varying levels of importance/intensity? For example, sometimes I schedule weeklong events, like a conference or a vacation, but other times I just want to note that I have Blue Apron scheduled all week, or X movie is playing at the art house all week. I'd like for those low-key events to be displayed differently from the regular appointments.

I'm NOT looking for multiple calendars or color coding, and yes I know that a bullet journal is infinitely customizable, but I'm curious if there's a digital way.

posted by acidic to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

So if color coding wouldn't fit the bill (ie pastel colors for Blue Apron, bright colors for events) what would you picture it looking like? I'm pretty visual so color coding works fine for me (Google calendar) for this purpose, but curious how you'd like it.
posted by LKWorking at 1:02 PM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Differently... how? I tend to color-code based on importance, and it allows for a visual representation. What about that approach doesn't work?
posted by craven_morhead at 1:03 PM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

My calendar app (I use one called "week cal" on top of ical) lets me designate times as "busy" or "free" - things that are "free" are a paler shade of the same color and I can schedule other things at the same time without creating conflict. So, only two levels of intensity but maybe better than nothing?
posted by metahawk at 1:13 PM on August 30, 2017

Response by poster: I don't have anything specific in mind-- there are countless ways to emphasize one piece of text over another (size, bold/italic, background, border, alignment, in a different part of the cell, separated by a line...). Color coding is fine but on its own it is not enough (for me).
posted by acidic at 1:17 PM on August 30, 2017

How do you envision the differences in display representing the differences in prioritization? Bold, regular, italic? Different Fonts?

You could implement your own on any calendar system you want with ALL CAPS vs Regular vs lowercase (but you wouldn't be able to selectively hide those from view, because it's not actually supported by the system)?

Google calendar and Outlook displays "All day" events differently than appointments, that might fit some of the bill.

While its not perfect because its not accessible to those with varying degrees of colorblindness, Outlook and google calendar both use colors for categorization, and those are the only two I'm familiar with. Google calendar using multiple calendars and with each calendar a different color is the best solution for me, because I can choose to hide calendars if I don't want to see "low priority" calendars like a sports team schedule, or the moon phases, or personal vs work, and I can change the default notification settings on a calendar by calendar basis.
posted by czytm at 1:19 PM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

ALL CAPS and Not all caps?
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 1:19 PM on August 30, 2017

Additionally, you could preface every appointment with your own meaningful abbreviations, ex:

w = work
f = food
e = entertainment
h = housework

and then your event titles would be something like:

w - Meeting with Boss 2:00p
f - Blue Apron
f - Reservation at Nice Restaurant 8:00p
e - Good Movie Title 7:30p
h - Pest control 8:00am
posted by czytm at 1:24 PM on August 30, 2017

Google calendar has "events" and "reminders," the latter of which is less prominent.
posted by rhizome at 1:25 PM on August 30, 2017

Things that are scheduled "All Day" and don't have a reminder are easy for me to miss on Google Calendar, so I wonder if that would work for your less important items. Try marking them 'Free' as well. For the important stuff that is truly all day - you could make it recurring everyday from 12:01am-11:59pm and 'Busy'.
posted by soelo at 1:37 PM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Outlook also has 5 "show as" options which you could repurpose for additional categorization (outside of the normal colors they provide). These options control the vertical line that appears at the beginning of every event/appointment:

Out of office - solid dark purple vertical line
Busy - lighter purple vertical line
Tentative - diagonal line pattern as background of vertical line
Working Elsewhere - small dotted background of vertical line
Free - White background of vertical line

Example: http://imgur.com/a/CEMEZ
posted by czytm at 1:37 PM on August 30, 2017

In Outlook you can add a secondary calendar which you could use for the less important events. The two calendars can be displayed overlaid or side by side. If overlaid, then bringing the primary calendar to the top will make the secondary calendar items show as slightly greyed out.
posted by jonnyploy at 2:33 AM on August 31, 2017

When you enter an item that is important, first put something like >>> or ***?

So, a dentist appointment that is super important would look like:

>>> App't w Dr. Dentist
posted by merejane at 1:25 PM on August 31, 2017