Planning out your regular chore schedule is a time-consuming process. If you have a busy family, then having a single master calendar planner for everyone to use is a must. In this post, I review all the available online calendar planners to help you find the one which suits you best.
Calendar apps have become an essential part of our lives, especially now that they are available for free online. But the sheer number of calendar applications may be confusing to use. Therefore, I have compiled a list of the best calendar applications that are available on the market.
How do you find the best online calendar or calendar app for when there are so many calendar tools, productivity tools, and planners available? It’s no surprise that being organized is directly linked to productivity. Whether you’re a die-hard to-do lister, someone who lives and dies by their paper calendar, or simply need to get all your events, tasks, and work project deadlines in one place, finding the best task organization tool for you can be a daunting task. While you may be tempted to pick up another old-school paper office planner—and let’s be honest, have it collect dust in a drawer yet again—consider upgrading to a planner app instead. These apps replace a traditional office planner and keep your task lists, calendars, and scheduling at your fingertips—right on your smartphone. Read on for our favorite to-do, calendar, and general planning apps, and prepare to get organized.
What Is a Planner App?
A planner app is an app that helps you get organized and keeps all of your organizational tools in one place so you can access them from anywhere at any time. A planner app can replace your old-school paper planner and can store names and contact information, calendars, appointment schedules, and more. You can even create to-do lists and custom headers right in the app.
How Does a Planner App Work?
A planner app is full of templates and blank calendars waiting to be filled in. You can enter your information or upload it from another source and get started using it right away. The app stores your information and organizes it, and it can be customized to your organizational style. The app can create reminders and alarms for important events and even sync calendars and devices.
How Much Does a Planner App Cost?
Planner apps vary in features and functions and, therefore, also in cost. There are multiple free planner apps, including basic calendar ones. There are also ones with a free basic version, but to access more features, you have to make in-app purchases. Other planner apps charge per team member and month, typically around $11.
Is a Planner App Worth the Cost?
If you have a busy life and want to stay organized, be more efficient, and store everything in one digital home, then a planner app is probably for you. Because there are so many free options and some smartphones have built-in planner apps, it may not be worth it to pay for the app. If you manage a team at work or have some specific organizational needs, then it may be worth it to download a paid planner app instead of a free version.
In our experience, digital calendars are far easier to manage than paper ones. Still, there are lots of calendar apps out there. Which one should you choose? In this article, we’ll help you decide.
Microsoft Outlook Calendar
Formats: Mobile app, tablet, watch software, and online
Microsoft Outlook is an information management software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also provides an online calendar, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, and web browsing. Organizations use this software app throughout the company (Microsoft Exchange Server or SharePoint) for shared calendars, mailboxes, folders, data aggregation (i.e., SharePoint lists), and appointment scheduling.
Integrate Outlook with Friday to see your calendar and meetings in one planner.
“The best thing about Microsoft Outlook is that we can categorize our emails very easily. Also, with the advanced search feature, it is very easy to find an email. The UI is also very professional and is much better than Gmail. The flagging feature is also very well implemented.” Varun B.
Pros
- Multi-user software for calendars
- Task management features
- Easily categorize emails
Pricing
- Free
- Basic: $5/person /month
- Pro: $12.50/person /month
- Office 365: $20/person /month
Calendy
Format: Online
At Calendly, they’re excited about improving the way the world schedules. They’re obsessed with providing an elegant, delightful experience for our customers. Calendy is an automated calendar that takes the work out of connecting with others so you can accomplish more. Millions of users benefit from an enjoyable scheduling experience, more time to spend on top priorities, and flexibility to accommodate individual users and large teams alike.
Calendly works with Google, Office 365, and Outlook calendars and apps like Salesforce, Stripe, PayPal, Google Analytics, GoToMeeting, and Zapier for a seamless user experience
“I use Calendly. I like to set up my podcast interviews. There is a free and a paid version. The free version allows you to use one category, while [with] the paid version, you can set up multiple categories. Plus, you can customize the URL.” Networking With Michelle Show.
Pros
- Straightforward automated scheduling tool
- Millions of registered users
- Compatible with Google, Office 365, and outlook Calendars.
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $8/person /month
- Pro: $12/person /month
SavvyCal
Format: Online
With SavvyCal, you and your team will be able to find the best time for scheduling calls and meeting appointments. Remove the hassle of trying to find a meeting time that won’t overlap other meetings and activities, by being able to sync up your schedule and the schedule of your recipients. This scheduling tool helps you save time and have more effective workdays.
Pros:
- Personal appointment links you can send to your recipients
- Block of time to have meetings and to not have meetings
- Overlay meeting schedules to pick which time is best for everyone involved
Pricing:
- The Basic Plan: $12 per user per month
- The Premium Plan: $20 per user per month
Google Calendar
Formats: Mobile app, tablet, and online
Google Calendar provides multiple views of your day, week, and month prioritization, guest invites, web access, and more.
Safely backup data, so you don’t lose your schedule if you lose your device. With Assists, Calendar helps you create events in just a few taps with smart suggestions for event titles, people, and places.
Integrate Google Calendar with Friday to see your calendar and meetings in one planner.
“I love how Google Calendar automatically uploads everything to the cloud. I also love how it suggests locations based on the address one types in (of course it doesn’t do this for private addresses, but it is still a handy feature.) It will set reminders by month, day, hour, or minute, and it also asks if one wants to set up recurring appointments for several weeks, several days, or annually (handy for Birthday reminders.) The app will also convert between time zones across the world—another useful feature.” — G2Crowd
Pros
- Create events in a few taps with smart suggestions for event titles, people and places.
- Events from email are added to your calendar
- Schedule View brings calendars to life
Pricing
Free
Any.do
Formats: Mobile app
Teams can plan their day in seconds with Any. do’s calendar app. Use this helpful application to focus on meaningful action items that will deliver on your goals. Any. do’s dashboard consists of your to-do list, planner, and calendar, allowing you to plan while staying on top of your daily agenda. Drag and drop tasks into your schedule to produce an efficient daily plan.
“I consider the client-friendliness and multi-functionality of any.do is one of its best qualities. I always use Any.do on my mobile phone; I note down jobs nearly every day and personal items that I need to do; the whole collection of objects helps to categorize activities far simpler. It integrated with my computer, making it much easier for the entire process.” — G2Crowd
Pros
- Reschedule tasks, mark them as done or delete them completely.
- Prioritize daily tasks to save you hours of extra work and burden.
Pricing:
- Standard: Free
- Premium: $5.99/p /month
Lightning Calendar by Thunderbird
- Cost: Free
- Platforms: Linux, iOS, Windows
Thunderbird is an open-source software company, similar to Firefox in that it makes developer tools accessible to anyone and lets users report on and fix bugs in the system. They’re part of MZLA Technologies Corporation—a subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation, the company that created the Firefox open-source web browser. The company markets itself as a free and open-source news feed, chat, and calendar client that’s easy for users to set up and customize.
The Lightning Calendar app by Thunderbird is a top choice for Linux users, and it also works on iOS. It manages emails and tasks as well, opening each facet of the app in a separate tab. This lets users switch back and forth between to-do lists and scheduling meetings in their calendars easily. A bonus of this calendar app is that you can see a summary of that day’s important events even when paging forward and backward through other days and months.
Users can select a day, week, multi-week, or monthly calendar view in Lightning Calendar. A built-in search function allows you to search for events by categories like “birthday” or “meeting.” It isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing calendar app out there, but it’s very utilitarian and does allow for some customization via built-in themes.
My Study Life
- Cost: Free
- Platforms: Web (Chrome plugin), Android, iOS, Windows
As the name implies, this calendar app is aimed specifically at students looking to organize their academic lives and extracurriculars. My Study Life wants to take the place of every student’s old-school paper planner and claims they’ll “never forget a lecture or assignment again.”
Different from what you may see in the professional world, this app tends to be organized around a semester schedule rather than a quarterly one. The makers of the app say it was designed to meet the often-changing circumstances that come with academic life.
Once you’ve added all your classes into the app, it lets users log assignments they have coming up. One particularly useful feature of My Study Life is that users can view their progress on those assignments as a percentage of how close they are to completion. Another section of the app lets you keep track of upcoming exams so you can plan study time.
As a bonus, this app syncs its schedule across multiple devices via the cloud and can even be accessed offline, making it super easy to keep on top of those important academic milestones.
What Makes a Good Calendar App?
Calendar apps and planners are ubiquitous—there are dozens of apps and brands to choose from, some tailored to ultra-specific niches like bullet journals and sketch planners. Most of them have the same two basic functions: scheduling upcoming events and reminding you of the important ones. At this stage, pretty much all the calendar apps available can do that.
So aren’t they all the same? Not necessarily.
To be list-worthy, an app needs to tick off a few boxes:
- It should be easy to use. A good calendar app shouldn’t require a lot of clicks or extensive menu navigation to use effectively. The user experience should be as intuitive as possible.
- It should be intentionally designed. It should follow through on its promised function and do it well.
- It should be feature-rich and customizable to fit the user’s needs.
- It should allow you to share with other users, giving people the ability to share access and set appointments with ease.
- It should be available to use on multiple devices. Keeping track of your schedule via your desktop, laptop and phone is critical for busy professionals.
How We Chose the Best Planner Apps
After researching all the available planner apps, we selected the top contenders. We chose these as our best planner apps based on their features, device compatibility, integrations with other programs such as email, cost, ease of use, and more.
Conclusion:
Have you ever thought of why most successful people follow a schedule to plan their daily activities? It turns out that these people have discovered the importance of being organized to be productive. As a result, they have become more serious about looking for a way where they can keep their schedules in check.