Shishir's Color-What-Matters Calendar Guide
Share
Explore
Shishir's Color-What-Matters Calendar Guide

icon picker
Assign Categories to Colors

Get started by renaming the category for each calendar color. You'll use these to categorize all your calendar events.
Time for the key step. Remember:
We should use names as proxies for colors, not the other way around.
So it’s time to break the habit ー what does tomato really represent? This exercise will help you identify a Category for every color.
The table below has a row for each of the Google Calendar colors. Remember, because Google Calendar only
supports
⁠
10
⁠
colors (well, 11, if you count the
@Default
⁠
color), you’ll need to limit your list to that number of unique categories.
Pro-tip: You can change the default color in Google Calendar
See instructions
here
⁠
. Note: if you changed your default color from Peacock, you can update the hex code below, and change conditional formats to match.
Now time for your key step: Change the category name to be something meaningful to you. A few tips:
You could “derive” the name you’re currently using for colors. The table below shows a sampling of
000
3
⁠
of your current events with that color. How would you describe that group?
Or you can just start from scratch. Make a list of the (up to 10) key Categories you’d like to use. I personally use the same colors from my
ToDo list
⁠
. In the next step, you can use this doc to recategorize events to match.
I avoid treating “Default” as a category. I aim to have no meetings with that color ー that way I know when I have finished coloring my calendar. So just leave "Default” as is - no need to rename it.
⁠

Rename the categories below to something meaningful to you

Color
Category Name
GCal Color Name
GCal Hex Code
Google Calendar Events List [subset]
1
Work time
Banana
#f6bf26
⁠
⁠
Deep work block
2
Hiring, managing, and growing talent
Sage
#33b679
⁠
⁠
All hands meeting
⁠
⁠
Virtual lunch with mobile team
3
Managing the product
Grape
#8d24aa
⁠
⁠
Weekly product kickoff
⁠
⁠
Infra review
4
1-1 meetings
Flamingo
#e67b73
⁠
⁠
Lola <> Maria 1-1
⁠
⁠
Adam <> Lola 1-1
5
Board of directors
Lavender
#7986cb
⁠
⁠
Board meeting prep
6
Personal
Graphite
#606060
⁠
⁠
Meditation & reading
⁠
⁠
Gym
7
Misc 1
Tomato
#d50000
​
8
Misc 2
Tangerine
#f4511e
​
9
Misc 3
Basil
#0c7f42
​
10
Misc 4
Blueberry
#3f50b5
​
11
Default
Peacock
#049be5
​
There are no rows in this table
⁠

⁠

Finished mapping colors to categories? You're ready to
Color Code your Calendar
⁠
.


Gallery
Share
 
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.