Introduced at the end of August, this analytical tool rests within the left-hand sidebar when viewing GCal on a computer—you won’t see it in the app. It takes up a mere five lines (one if you’ve somehow minimized it), so it’s possible to overlook if you’re not constantly poring over your schedule or only work out of the Android or iOS app. Whether you’ve noticed it or not, understanding how it works may help you better structure your day. Google also displays this information with a multi-colored bar that’s divided into chunks for “focus time,” meetings, and meetings you have yet to respond to. Hover your cursor over the graphic and you’ll see the total and average times for each category. From there, you can click More insights to view, well, more time insights. If you’ve minimized the tool, you can click the More insights icon (a rising line graph festooned with sparkles). Doing so will bring up a new sidebar on the right side of your screen. Only you and anyone who can edit your calendar can see this information. Hover your cursor over a color and it’ll dim all events on your calendar except ones that match the type you’re on, putting a shadow under those so you can see them easier among everything else on your calendar.
Focus time
The top entry on this ring is Focus time, a feature Google introduced in late October. The company said in a blog post that it hopes this will help people schedule time for individual work, and it will show up alongside the standard “out of office” and “event” tags when you create a calendar entry. Focus time is only available for people with work or school Google accounts. To set it up from Time Insights, click Schedule focus time. This will bring up a standard calendar event dialog box, where you can customize the entry’s name, time, color, and other attributes. To truly focus, check the box next to Automatically decline meetings.
