Google Calendar is getting smart and more intelligent on its tenth birthday (yes, Google Calendar has been around for the last decade). A new feature rolling out to the app on Android and iOS called Goals in Google Calendar, will endeavour to understand Calendar users and play a much bigger role in helping them accomplish their personal goals. Those goals may include anything from shedding a few pounds of flesh or maintaining that sleek figure for the fitness-minded to just about anything else.
Clicking the “+” button in the Google Calendar app usually results in two options showing up: Event and Reminder. These allow users to either create a reminder or add a new event to their calendars. When users get the update through their respective app stores, a third option will become available: Goal.
Selecting the Goal option results in the user being walked through a series of prompts to determine the nature of the goal like what it is, the duration and so on. The beauty of it is that using generic terms like “do more exercises” will end up with the right entries still being made. Calendar will then, intelligently, sift through the user’s calendar and find the appropriate slot for the goal. From then on, the said goal can be deferred or rescheduled automatically if the user happens to add an event that coincides with the goal’s execution time.
Goals in Google Calendar is likely the result of Google’s acquisition of scheduling application Timeful in May last year.
