Sync Up Google Calendar & Outlook

Ok, I use Outlook, and I am so excited by what I today. Peggy Duncan posted about linking Google and Outlook here. Google calendar and Outlook now sync! It’s possible I’m dense or just plain not paying attention, but I was literally jumping up and down when I found this little gem. I was eager to try it out, so about a week ago I set it up. If you’d like to try it out, here’s how you can do that.

I had used Plaxo to sync the two in the past, but this feature is new. I now have an icon in my desktop tray that looks like this:

During the sync, I did have a little trouble with some duplicate entries, because I didn’t delete the calendar before I started (oops). So, my husband was giggling when I was going thru and deleting all those on wonderful dupes (sigh). Anyway, other than that it was pretty seamless.

So why is this helpful?

I use Outlook, and there are times when I’m not at home (travelling), don’t have my laptop (gasp) and even worse I don’t have email access on my Blackberry (I want to be reachable, but not THAT reachable if you catch my drift). So, this provides me access to my calendar anywhere in the world that I can find an internet connection. The other cool thing is the ability to share my calendar (full details or just shaded blocks of time) with whomever I choose. Being that I have a radio show in the works, this was handy for my co-host, Krista, and I. And, I can see the two calendars overlapping at the click of a button. Cool, eh?

Another backup.

Most of us have been there, total crash, lose everything. *Cringe* NOT fun. In addition to regular backups to an external hard drive, online backup service (I like Carbonite) or PDA, this additional backup helps me with another place that my calendar is saved. That’s some serious piece of mind, and as Sparkpluggers, losing a business calendar to a crash can be a business, income and credibility killer. Yikes!

So, should you sync your Outlook and Google Calendar? That’s a question only you can answer. For me, I’m lovin’ it.