A work calendar is an essential tool for keeping track of your projects. It helps you manage meetings, deadlines, and important events in one location. But with so many calendar platforms available, it can be overwhelming to find the right one.
Don’t worry — we’re here to help!
In this article, we’ll share our top picks for the best calendars for work in 2023. From customizable features to integration capabilities, these calendars are designed to help you stay on top of your schedule and increase productivity.
But first, let’s clarify what a work calendar is and why it’s important to use one.
What is a work calendar?
A work calendar is a tool for managing your work schedule. It typically includes tasks, work-related events, appointments, meetings, deadlines, and any other important dates. It may also cover additional information, such as meeting locations, attendees, and reminders.
A work calendar helps individuals and teams track their schedules and prioritize their tasks when used well. It improves organization, increases efficiency, and reduces the risk of missed deadlines.
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There are two standard formats for a work calendar. The first is a physical format (such as a paper planner or a whiteboard), and the second is digital (such as an online calendar).
Out of the two methods, a digital work calendar is more efficient — especially if it’s cloud-based. It’s quicker to update, easier to change, and helpful for teams that want to share updates about their schedules. It also provides a common space for scheduling and sharing information, which helps teams to communicate about work tasks and schedules.
What is the importance of a work calendar?
Some of the benefits of using a work calendar to manage your schedule include the following:
- Improve time management. Work calendars are a great way to improve your time management. They help you schedule tasks, meetings, and deadlines, which enables you to split your time between tasks and complete your work on time.
- Increase productivity. A work calendar provides a structured schedule. You know exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it, which helps you stay focused and productive.
Find out more about boosting productivity in this article: How Motion Users Finish Work 2 Hours Faster Every Day (2022 Productivity Statistics)
- Better organize work. A work calendar is a great way to organize your work — especially if you have a hectic schedule. You can plan every task in your workload, helping you get a handle on your schedule and deliver tasks on time.
- Reduce stress. Mental clutter can cause stress. There are studies out there that prove it. With a work calendar, you can organize your busy schedule and structure your daily work. As a result, you’ll be less stressed and more likely to complete work on time and to a higher standard.
The 8 best calendars for work in 2023
Our list of the most effective work calendars is based on our review of the following features and functionalities:
- Usability. Is the calendar easy to use? Does it require training, or can you start using it instantly?
- Integrations. Does the calendar integrate with third-party tools? If so, how many and which tools?
- Flexibility. Is the calendar customizable? Can you design a calendar that’s perfect for your schedule?
- Automation. Can you automate tasks from your calendar? Does it automatically reshuffle tasks if you have to rearrange your schedule?
Using these areas as our guide, we’ve narrowed our choices down to 8 of the best online work calendars for 2023. Let’s take a look at what they are!
1. Motion: The best online work calendar for automatically updating your schedule
Motion is an online, AI-powered task management and calendar platform. It helps busy people and teams to manage their work with an efficient, simple, and intuitive calendar.
Our AI software helps you plan your schedule based on different variables, such as deadlines, work hours, priorities, and length of tasks. You’ll add your calendar entries, input the relevant information, and we’ll schedule it for you.
Our Intelligent Calendar will automatically reshuffle your work if you need to amend your schedule. This feature means you spend less time manually planning your schedule and more time doing the work.
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You can also integrate other calendars with your Motion calendar. You can combine your Gmail and Outlook calendars into one view, allowing you to visualize your entire schedule on one screen.
Motion is also a helpful planning tool for businesses of different sizes. From startups to executive teams, our platform can support businesses of all shapes and sizes — and from a range of industries, too (including IT service providers, marketing agencies, and more).
Pros: An intuitive, simple-to-use scheduling tool that automatically updates your calendar when you make changes or set priorities.
Cons: Doesn’t integrate with everything – yet! (Don’t worry, we have more integrations coming soon).
Pricing: Starts at $19 per month when billed annually.
2. TeamUp: The best for making simple, collaborative calendars
TeamUp is an online calendar that helps teams organize, plan, and share their work schedules. It has a simple interface that’s easy to use, customizable, and visually appealing.
For global or distributed teams, TeamUp can be a useful tool for communication and collaboration. For example, users can add comments to tasks to share updates, ask questions, or generally keep in touch.
Despite its handy collaborative features, some customer reviews say the color options are too similar. With a busy schedule, this can make it hard to distinguish between the types of tasks.
Pros: Easy to use and collaborative.
Cons: Lack of color options for categorizing tasks.
Pricing: Free for up to 8 sub-calendars.
3. RotaCloud: The best for planning shifts and rotas
RotaCloud is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses create and manage employee schedules. Some of its features include shift planning, time and attendance tracking, and absence management.
The platform also integrates with external software, such as Sage for payroll, Breath for HR, and Zapier for automation.
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Employers can use RotaCloud to create schedules that incorporate employee availability, shift patterns, and labor laws. Employees can also use the platform to view their schedules, ask for time off, and swap shifts with colleagues.
However, the platform does have some limitations when it comes to granular details. For example, you’re unable to view the daily-hour total on a weekly rota. In the grand scheme of the platform, these details are small, and it’s still an efficient tool for managing shifts.
Pros: Easily schedule and manage employee shifts.
Cons: Limited amount of granular details.
Pricing: Starts at $10 per month for one employee.
4. Jolt: The best for managing employee schedules
Jolt helps businesses in the hospitality and retail industries to manage their operations. It’s a cloud-based system that allows employers to manage employee scheduling, track time and attendance, and manage tasks.
Jolt also offers inventory management tools to help businesses track their stock levels. It reduces waste and gives you a clear picture of your stock and resources.
Although the platform is great for managing employee schedules, the interface can take a while to get used to. It’s easy to use once you’ve wrapped your head around it, but it takes a bit of time to figure out exactly how it works.
Pros: Manage employee schedules and track inventory on the same platform.
Cons: The interface could be slightly easier to use.
Pricing: Contact Jolt directly for a quote.
5. Google Calendar: The best for time blocking
Google Calendar is a free online calendar that helps businesses and individuals plan their events, appointments, and tasks. It’s simple to use and has various features that make it helpful for work management.
For example, you can add recurring tasks, allow notifications, and integrate with other Google services (such as Gmail and Google Meet). Users can also create multiple calendars, share them with others, and synchronize them across multiple devices.
Google Calendar users will typically use time blocking to plan their schedules. Time blocking involves scheduling your day into blocks. It helps you visualize when to do your tasks and how long they should take — but using this method with Google Calendar does have its challenges.
For example, you have to manually prioritize tasks yourself, which can be time-consuming if you have a busy schedule with conflicting deadlines. Plus, if your schedule changes, you have to reorganize everything yourself.
In other words, it’s not as efficient as using a calendar that automatically reshuffles your schedule (like Motion).
Pros: It’s simple and free to use.
Cons: It doesn’t automatically update when you make changes.
Cost: Free to use.
6. Digical: The best for creating stylish and eye-popping calendars
Digical is an Android calendar app that syncs with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Exchange. It uses widgets to create stylish calendars across multiple devices. The customizable calendar widgets breathe some personality into your work schedule, making it fun and easy to plan your work activities.
You can also choose from a variety of calendar views to select a format that works best for you and your team.
Although the widgets will make your calendar look pleasant, they can make it hard to visualize all your tasks. Because of the structure, your calendar can quickly appear overcrowded, making it harder to track and manage.
Pros: It creates eye-popping calendars that are fun to make.
Cons: It can get overcrowded, making it harder to manage your work.
Cost: Free to use (in-app purchases available to upgrade and remove ads).
7. Timepage: The best for accessing unique calendar features
Timepage is an iOS calendar app with a sleek and simple interface for managing your work schedule. It was created by Moleskine, the Italian brand known for producing high-quality notebooks and stationery products.
The app has a few features that make it unique. For example, it has a horizontal timeline that allows you to view your calendar app tasks in a linear format. It also has a heat map that shows you which days are your busiest, which is a valuable feature for figuring out which days you have available capacity.
The main downside to consider is that if you want to use Timepage, you have to subscribe to the entire Moleskine Studio (which includes Actions and Flow).
Pros: Highly customizable.
Cons: To use Timepage, you have to pay for Moleskine Studio.
Price: $2.49 per month.
8. Vantage: The best for creating an interactive calendar
Vantage is an online calendar app that helps teams and individuals to plan and schedule their work. It uses visual cues (like colors, stickers, book covers, and stacks) to create an engaging scheduling experience.
Of all the features Vantage has, the scroll view is the most unique. It allows users to flick through their calendar by scrolling up or down on their screen.
Despite its unique calendar views, Vantage still has room for improvement. Some customer reviews suggest that there are have been some technical glitches that prevent a totally seamless experience.
Pros: Unique calendar views.
Cons: Some users have experienced technical issues.
Price: $9.99 one-off purchase.
Key features to look out for in a work calendar tool
As mentioned, it helps to know what features to look for when searching for the right work calendar for your business. We’ve outlined some of the most helpful calendar features to get you started on the right foot.
- Automation. Automation is an incredibly valuable tool when planning and managing your work calendar. It prevents you from spending unnecessary time doing repetitive tasks, freeing up your time to focus on other areas of work.
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- Ease-of-use. The calendar should have a user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate, add and edit events, and view your schedule. Take a look at Motion’s calendar as an example. You can easily drag and drop tasks, automatically update your schedule without manually moving things around, and even categorize and label tasks to help with prioritization.
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- Merging calendars. Ideally, your work calendar should sync with other calendars, including the shared team calendar and the individual calendars of team members. This means that everyone can instantly access information about team schedules. For example, if an employee wants to book a meeting with you, they can review your calendar to see when you’re available.
- Collaborative. A work calendar should be collaborative and allow team members to work together. With Motion, for example, users can add comments to tasks in their calendars. This feature enables team members to communicate and makes it easier for remote and hybrid users to keep in touch and discuss work tasks.
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Which is the best calendar for your team?
It’s hard to say. There’s no ‘best calendar’ because the right shared calendar for your business depends on the features you need and the type of work you’re managing.
For example, if you’re looking for a simple and low-cost option for managing your team’s schedule, Google Calendar will probably be your best option. However, a platform like Motion could be a better choice if you want something more intuitive and flexible.
With our calendar, you can track and organize the entire team’s tasks in one location. Plus, you can view the team schedule based on who’s responsible for certain tasks.
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And because our calendar is powered by AI, any changes to the team’s workload automatically reshuffles the schedule. You and your team will instantly see the changes, meaning that everyone knows precisely what their workload involves and when tasks are due.
So although there isn't one 'best shared calendar,' there are calendars best suited to your needs. Spend some time figuring out what you want from your shared calendar and find a platform that has all the features and functionalities you’re looking for.
Use Motion to manage your work schedule
A work calendar is a vital tool for the success of your business. It helps you plan, manage, and organize your workload, allowing you and your team to be more productive with your time.
The tricky part is knowing which calendar is the best option for your business. With so many platforms to choose from, it’s hard to know which software to choose. Hopefully, this article has given you some insights into the calendar software that’s out there and the type of features you should be looking for.
If you want to learn more about using Motion as your work calendar, sign up for a free trial to see how it works.
