You can launch iCal right from your application dock in OSX just by clicking this icon.
Apple's iCal calendar application gives you a clear and easy way to organize your schedule whether your at home or on the road.
You can program iCal to send you audio alerts when you have an upcoming appointment or event.
Since I started my freelance business several years ago, I've been a devoted user of self-management calendar organizers from At-A-Glance. These month-by-month paper calendars with their faux leather covers and yellow "Quick Notes" sidebars for jotting down additional info about appointments, helped me not only organize my business, they helped me get control of my life. Prior to using them, my schedule was laid out on a sea of Post-It notes, reporter's notebooks, and ugly wall calendars. Needless to say, I missed a lot of appointments, birthdays, and anniversaries using this method.
Old School Organizer
All that changed though when I bought my first At-A-Glance calendar. Now, whenever an appointment comes up, I put it in the appropriate date box on the calendar and it's there staring back at me when I open the organizer up. I know, for most people, these sorts of calendars are old hat but for me, they were a revelation. If it's on my schedule, I won't miss it.
But this usefulness doesn't come cheap. These calendars, which are available in weekly and monthly formats, can cost $30 or more. Plus, there are some limitations on how much they can help you. For one, if you're a busy person, there's never enough room to write all the details of your appointments in the little boxes.
Also, I live in such fear of losing my At-A-Glance calendar, I usually leave it at home in a safe place. This, of course, is not great if you spend a lot of time on the road, like I do. Plus, there's no way to share you calendar with other people or coordinate schedules with several co-workers which is something I often do when covering trade shows with colleagues.
Enter iCal
It took me awhile but I've finally seen the light and am gradually making the switch from my At-A-Glance paper calendar to a digital calendar application. One of the best things about calendar application software is that most of it's free. For instance, I am now a firm believer in Apple's iCal program which comes embedded in the OSX operating system on Macs. But there are other programs out there for both Macs and PCs that are just as good as iCal and also free. My fiancé, for instance, loves the Google Calendar that's integrated into her Gmail account.
For me though, it's iCal all the way. What I like about this program is that as with most of Apple's products, it's easy to use and intuitively designed. If you have a Mac with OSX, the iCal application is already in the dock at the bottom of your screen, represented by an icon of a desktop calendar. (An interesting piece of trivia, the iCal icon's date defaults to July 17 which is the date iCal debuted in 2002. When you open iCal, though, the icon in the dock changes to the current date.)
Figuring out the basics of setting up my schedule in iCal took me no time. In fact, I just started playing around with the application and never looked back. What I like about iCal is that you can split it into multiple calendars if, for instance, you want to separate your personal appointments from your work-related appointments.
To set an appointment or event, just double click on the appropriate day and time slot and fill out the details in the info sidebar such as Name of Event, Location, Attendees, and additional Notes. If it's a recurring event, you can set the "Repeat" selection to schedule it on the same day of the week for every month, every year, etc. You can also set various alarms to remind you of upcoming events or link the event to a URL.
Publish Your Calendar on the Web
If you have a .Mac account -- an Internet tools service from Apple that costs $99 a year -- you can also publish your iCal schedule to the web so you can share it with colleagues. All you have to do is select the "Publish" feature from the tool bar and you will get a URL that you can email to your friends or colleagues. This feature helped me immensely during the recent PhotoPlus Expo photography show in New York City. I was working with a video crew to conduct podcasts from various spots on the show floor and logistics were a nightmare. Instead of writing multiple emails to the videographer, producer, and my co-host for the video spots, I just booked everything on iCal and passed along the URL to the crew.
Though I still have my At-A-Glance calendar handy at all times in the home office, I find that I'm using it less and less as I transition to iCal. (At the very least, the At-A-Glance organizer still serves as a good backup.) Things are changing though as I discover more of the benefits of iCal and begin to appreciate it's flexibility and expandability. It won't be long before "old school" paper calendars are a thing of the past for me.