How to Manage Multiple Calendars in Fantastical

Edited 2 months ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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Managing your schedule effectively in today's fast-paced world often requires keeping multiple calendars together. Whether it's keeping track of personal commitments, work deadlines, or family activities, organizing all these different schedules in one place is crucial to maintaining sanity and productivity. Fantastical, an advanced calendar application, offers robust features that allow you to manage multiple calendars effortlessly. This guide aims to help you understand and leverage these features to keep your life organized and stress-free.

Understanding the basics of Fantastical

Before learning how to manage multiple calendars, it's important to understand what Fantastical is and how it can benefit you. Fantastical is a calendar app created by Flexibits that aims to focus on ease of use and powerful features. It's available on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, making it a versatile option for Apple users. Its natural language parsing capability allows you to quickly create events by typing sentences like "Lunch with Sarah on Thursday afternoon" and automatically convert them into calendar entries.

Setting up multiple calendars

To start managing multiple calendars in Fantastical, the first step is to set them up correctly. This application allows you to integrate various calendar services such as iCloud, Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange and others, ensuring that all your events are synchronized in a single application. To set up multiple calendars:

• Open Fantastical and go to preferences by clicking 'Preferences' from the Fantastical menu.
• Go to the 'Accounts' tab.
• Here you can add all the accounts you want to integrate. Click the '+' button, choose the account type, and follow the prompts to log in.
• Once logged in, select the calendars you want to display and manage within Fantastical.

Color-coding and customizing multiple calendars

Once you've set up multiple calendars, you can easily differentiate them by customizing and color-coding each one. This visual distinction is important when looking at a crowded calendar screen because it lets you immediately know which events relate to which part of your life. To color-code a calendar:

• In the calendar list, right-click the calendar you want to customize.
• Select 'Get Info' (or just 'Info' on some versions) and choose a color for your calendar.
• You can change the name of the calendar if needed and also add a description.

Create and manage events in calendar

After you've set up and customized your multiple calendars, the next step is to create and manage events. Whether you're planning meetings, setting reminders, or scheduling personal time, Fantastical makes it seamless:

• Create events: Use natural language input to simplify event creation. Simply type details like "Team meeting on Monday at 3pm" into the entry field, and Fantastical will create the event in the selected calendar.
• Managing events: To edit or delete an event, simply click on it in the calendar view, make the necessary changes, or delete it if it's no longer needed.
• Moving events: If you placed an event in the wrong calendar or your scheduling preferences have changed, drag and drop the event between calendars.

Use calendar sets for better organization

Fantastical offers a unique feature called “Calendar Sets,” which allows you to group calendars based on context, making it easier for you to manage multiple calendars:

• Create a calendar set to ‘Work’ that includes all business commitments, meetings, and deadlines.
• A 'personal' calendar set might include birthdays, family celebrations, and personal interests or hobbies.
• To create a calendar set, go to the 'Calendar Sets' section in Preferences. Use the '+' button to add a new set and choose which calendars to include.

This feature is useful for situations when you need to focus only on work or you want to view only personal tasks without any distractions.

Notifications and alerts

Managing multiple calendars also requires setting up proper notifications and alerts so you can keep track of your schedule without any hassle. In Fantastical, you can customize notifications for each calendar or calendar set:

• In Preferences, under the 'Alerts' tab, you can enter how and when you want to be notified about upcoming events.
• Set default alerts for new events so you're automatically prompted a specific time before an appointment.
• Adjust alert settings based on the time of day or specific needs.

Sync between devices

One of the most beneficial features of Fantastical is its ability to sync across all your devices. By having Fantastical on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can ensure that you're always up to date with your schedule, no matter what device you're using:

• Make sure Fantastical is installed on multiple of your devices and that each version is linked to the same calendar accounts.
• Set up syncing via iCloud, Google, or another compatible service to maintain consistency across platforms. Fantastical will automatically sync the changes you make across all devices.

Share the calendar with others

Collaboration is often a vital necessity in both personal and professional situations. Fantastical allows you to share calendars with family, friends, and colleagues, ensuring everyone is on the same page:

• To share a calendar, go to 'Calendar sharing' in Preferences and choose how you want to share it: by sending an email invitation or by providing a sharing URL.
• Set permissions for others joining your shared calendar, allowing them to just view, or even make changes if necessary.

Advanced features for power users

For those who want to dive deeper into calendar management, Fantastical offers advanced features like templates and tasks:

• Templates: Create event templates for repetitive tasks or meetings. This saves time and ensures consistency in scheduling.
• Tasks: Integrated task management allows your to-do items to be seamlessly synced with calendar events. The Tasks feature syncs with Apple's Reminders, ensuring you can keep track of everything in one place.

Customization options

Fantastical's customization options allow users to customize the interface to suit personal preferences.

• Adjust the look of the calendar, including light or dark theme settings, font size, and more.
• Customize list and day view settings to simplify the way you view and interact with your calendar for different contexts.

Practical use cases and tips

To get the most out of Fantastical when managing multiple calendars, it's helpful to consider your specific situation:

• If you travel frequently, consider setting up time zone support to avoid confusion in events.
• People who have multiple meetings can take advantage of notification plans to effectively manage the time and duration of pre-meeting preparation.

As you incorporate Fantastical into your daily routine, make it a practice to review your calendar set in the morning and before the end of the day to stay on top of upcoming events and tasks.

Conclusion

By taking advantage of the extensive features Fantastical offers for managing multiple calendars, you're setting yourself up for more organized and efficient daily operations. Whether using calendar sets, color-coding, shared calendars or event templates and task-matching, Fantastical offers a robust platform to suit any scheduling need. Implement these strategies to optimize your calendar experience and ultimately increase your productivity and peace of mind.

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