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Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

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Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#21

Post by pluma »

If it works as well as the reminders in Google Now, I'd rather avoid it.

I spent about five minutes saying "Remind me to buy paper towels"[0], Google Now suggested it should remind me the next time I'm near a grocery store. I wasn't reminded ever again and the reminder didn't show up anywhere in Google Now because it had no date or time associated with it. I actually only found the reminder when it showed up on Google Calendar in my desktop browser -- this was about two months in.

[0]: It felt very much like a re-enactment of the infamous "eleventh floor" sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avp9aUkM5g0

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#22

Post by johnm1019 »

microtonal wrote: post #16

This is one of those things that only the GooglePlex bubble can come up with. As a busy person (my wife and I both work, we have a child, and hard time constraints due to teaching obligations, etc.), free time is exactly what I want to schedule as little as possible. I want to spontaneously decide to do a hike with my family, or when my daughter wants to play, I want to be there. There's enough obligations already, f…

As someone who is self-employed, works from home, and actually likes their job - scheduling free time is really important for me. If I don't, my work and my side projects creep into everything. I also thought this practice was ridiculous but then I started doing it and it's really improved my work/life separation.

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#23

Post by rawnlq »

buro9 wrote: post #14

I wish they'd just fix search. I use Google Calendar heavily, averaging ~10 entries per day for the last 5+ years, and then some entries per day all the way back to when it was launched. I can put information in easily enough, and with a few IFTTT recipes I'm able to treat Google Calendar not just as a schedule for upcoming events, appointments and reminders, but as a historical log of everything I've done. It is a t…

It's actually just incredibly dumb UI.

You see the little calendar on the left hand side? Click the date there to choose the "from" date for filtering the search. Completely unintuitive and undiscoverable IMO and only found out about it when googling the issue.

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#24

Post by prawn »

microtonal wrote: post #16

This is one of those things that only the GooglePlex bubble can come up with. As a busy person (my wife and I both work, we have a child, and hard time constraints due to teaching obligations, etc.), free time is exactly what I want to schedule as little as possible. I want to spontaneously decide to do a hike with my family, or when my daughter wants to play, I want to be there. There's enough obligations already, f…

I think for many people, if they don't schedule those things, they often don't happen. Time gets eaten away by life's minutiae.

The week passes without us going for a family walk. The year passes without planning a holiday.

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#25

Post by nxzero »

microtonal wrote: post #18
noobie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is one of those things that only the GooglePlex bubble can come up with. Actually they acquired the company that came up with it. The Timeful team has built an impressive system that helps you organize your life by understanding your schedule, habits and needs. You can tell Timeful you want to exercise three times a week or that you need to call the bank by next Tuesday, and their system will make sure you get…

Good point. I was originally going to say 'the SF tech bubble', but I do not want to offend too many people ;). I still think the point stands, between missing features, adding questionable features, and failed April 1 jokes, I sometimes wonder how much 'market research' there is.

"Tech bubble" sounds like something completely different anyway...

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#27

Post by buro9 »

buro9 wrote: post #14

I wish they'd just fix search. I use Google Calendar heavily, averaging ~10 entries per day for the last 5+ years, and then some entries per day all the way back to when it was launched. I can put information in easily enough, and with a few IFTTT recipes I'm able to treat Google Calendar not just as a schedule for upcoming events, appointments and reminders, but as a historical log of everything I've done. It is a t…

Someone asked about how I do this stuff, and I guess why... I replied privately but the answer can be public:

It's part manual, part-automated.

I manually add travel itinerary items, tickets (for sports, shows, concerts), etc... at the time of purchase, with enough information such that I could arrive somewhere and that calendar entry can tell me everything... i.e. I even attach PDF tickets to calendar entries. I don't trust the automated Gmail stuff for this as I want to be sure it really got every important detail right.

Then there's some IFTTT automation. These are things like "If I make a public Tweet" or "If I post to Instagram" or "If I bookmark something on Pinboard" or "If I make a dinner reservation via Open Table" (that recipe looks at my Gmail, the others directly connect to Twitter, Instagram, Pinboard, etc). All those kinds of things are automated.

Then I use an Android app called SMS Backup to insert a log of all phone calls I made... the person I called or received a call from. Those are automated too.

I don't actually put everything into Google Calendar though. I only put things that I regard as public. So messages I've sent via Signal, or watching a film at home with my wife or having friends over... those things are private and didn't end up in any calendar.

What I'm going for is: If the metadata is out in the world somewhere, then it should serve me more than it serves anyone else.

I copy that metadata back into Google Calendar and the way it serves me is that I can always view everything I've done publicly in a wider context: Tweeted that, bookmarked this, purchased that book on Wordy. I get to glue together information from several systems and that is the essence of the diary, I get to see stories of my life in my own metadata.

Final note: It's a delicate system. I've been doing it for years and it needs love to maintain all of the integrations. A few I've abandoned along the way (I used to record the audio of phonecalls, upload to Drive, and link from the Google Calendar event... but this was fragile, and the voice wasn't indexed or searchable so could never answer questions like "When did I call x about y?"... the metadata of who I called was enough, so I abandoned the sound).

Hope all that helps. And I'm afraid I don't have much code to show for this.

Things I'm missing: Google Fit and Google Maps Timeline integrations.

If any Google Calendar team member wants to hear more, I have a lot of views on what could be done with Calendar to make it a really awesome tool for a "plan this, log that" diary that helps create and tell stories of our lives. I'm in SF next month and can meet if you want. Contact details in my profile.

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#28

Post by kinkora »

reitanqild wrote: post #20
buro9 wrote: post #14

I wish they'd just fix search. I use Google Calendar heavily, averaging ~10 entries per day for the last 5+ years, and then some entries per day all the way back to when it was launched. I can put information in easily enough, and with a few IFTTT recipes I'm able to treat Google Calendar not just as a schedule for upcoming events, appointments and reminders, but as a historical log of everything I've done. It is a t…

You tried reporting it? I hate reporting things to them because their feedback seems tuned to discourage that behaviour, but between that and complaining here I have seen major improvements.

There is this constant pet peeve of mine with the Google Calendar App on Android where if you would like to delete an appointment, you can't do it anywhere else (week, month, day, etc) except in the appointment itself. Prior to Lollipop, one had to go into the appointment itself -> hit "edit" -> scroll all the way down to the bottom of the appointment details -> click giant delete button which filled the whole bottom bit.

Lollipop is slightly better where you still have to click on the appointment itself but again, there are no obvious buttons except edit and the only way to delete it is to click on "menu" -> select delete.

I tried reporting it and like any other support query that goes to google, it just goes into a giant black hole (ok, i exaggerate much.. more like 7 in 10 actually).

Re: Google Calendar now uses machine learning to help you accomplish your goals

#29

Post by executesorder66 »

executesorder66 wrote: post #2

> a new feature called Goals that uses machine learning to help you figure out when you have time to pencil in stuff like spending time with your family or exercise. Spending time with your family is a goal/something you need help finding the time for? What the fuck Google? How busy do you think the average person is?

I'm replying to this since I can't edit:

To clarify, I was assuming family meant your wife/kids, or whoever you are living with. If you live alone and you don't always find the time to go visit your parents etc. then I can understand how this would be useful.

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