Take control of your work life again with ‘Time Insights’ for Google Calendar

Want to get personalized, analytical data on the meetings and collaborations you’ve been a part of? What, am I the only one? Google is rolling out what are called ‘Time Insights’ in Calendar that will help you do just that and while it may not be the feature everyone thought they wanted, it may be exactly what we all need in order to take control of our time and re-center on what’s important.

Available only on the web at this time, Time Insights provide you with a breakdown of your collaborative efforts across Google Workspace. For example, you can see a chart with information on how long you’ve spent in meetings per day, which day you’ve been in meetings the most, meeting frequency, and what your daily average is. See the image below for more information!

Now that everyone is hopped on on the hybrid workplace and the whole work from home model thanks to the new normal dictating its necessity, I’m sure many of you feel like it’s getting harder and harder to be in control of your time. Planning effective ways to spend your workday is essential to your success, and these tools seek to put you back in the driver’s seat.

Another great feature baked into Time Insights is the ability to see who you’ve spent the most time meeting with. You can also pin key contacts so you can circle back around with them frequently. Hovering over an individual will let you highlight meetings with them on your Calendar. This is probably my favorite aspect of this update since anything relationship-centric is the future, in my opinion.

Time Insights are only available to the individual viewing them – not to their manager. This means that you can assess where you may be wasting time and course-correct on your own. The only time someone’s Insights may be viewed by another is if one person manages another’s Calendar and has ‘manage sharing access’ permissions to it.

Look forward to Time Insights in Google Calendar over the next two weeks for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains across the Workspace tiers found below. I’ll also list which tiers will not yet be receiving them, but fear not – Google has a knack for expanding the availability of features that do well with the initial group.

Business Standard
Business Plus
Enterprise Standard
Enterprise Plus
Education Plus
Nonprofits

Available

Workspace Essentials
Business Starter
Enterprise Essentials
Education Fundamentals
Frontline
G Suite Basic
G Suite for Business

NOT Available