Calendar

Overview

The calendar brings plan and reality together: what you intend to do and what you actually tracked share one grid. You start timers straight from appointments and bring in your Google and Apple calendars. The grid shows three kinds of blocks:

Views

Open the calendar from the app rail or with G, then C. At the top you switch between four views:

“Today” takes you back to the current date, and the arrows move forward and back. Click the date to open “Select date” and jump to any day.

Create appointments

Appointments are your planned time. Here's how to add one:

1. 1

   Pick a time range

   In the day or week view, drag across a free time range. Or click the create button, or press N.

2. 2

   Planned or tracked

   Choose “Planned” for an appointment or “Tracked” for a time entry. A range in the past preselects “Tracked”, one in the future “Planned”.

3. 3

   Fill in the details

   Title, description, location, project, event type, all day, plus start and end. Create a new project right in the field. With connected calendars you also choose which calendar the appointment goes to.

• “Create as series” creates the appointment with a start time and end time on every day you mark under “Select dates”. The result is independent appointments you edit one by one.
• Click a block to edit it. Drag appointments and time entries to move them and drag their edge to change the length, as long as they aren't read-only.
• An appointment is upcoming, active, completed or missed. That is separate from the status Google or Apple gives imported appointments (confirmed, tentative, cancelled).
• An appointment's border shows its state, and its project tints it subtly. When a timer runs or time has been tracked, the calendar highlights the appointment.

Plan by drag and drop

The calendar sidebar has a switch at the top between “Planning” and “Integration”. In Planning you drag projects and habits straight into the grid.

1. 1

   Open Planning

   Switch to the day or week view and choose “Planning” at the top of the sidebar. Month and year only offer “Integration”.

2. 2

   Find a suggestion

   Use “Search suggestions…” or pick from Favorites, Recently used, All projects and your pending habits.

3. 3

   Drag it into the grid

   Drop the card on a free slot. It becomes an appointment right away, which you can then move and resize.

Blocked time

Blocked time keeps ranges free for you:

• When creating, set the event type to “Blocked”. The form then only needs a label, a note and the time range, optionally all day. Blocked time is red and never starts timers.
• Appointments, time entries and other blocked time can't be dragged, dropped or resized into a block.
• If you save an appointment through the form that overlaps a block, the calendar warns you. You can still save it on purpose.

Appointments & time tracking

An appointment with a project becomes the starting point for tracking your time. Afterwards you see whether you stuck to the plan.

1. 1

   Assign a project

   Open the appointment, choose a project under “Assign project” and turn on “Enable timer for appointment”.

2. 2

   Start the timer

   From 60 minutes before the start until the appointment ends, start the timer right from the appointment, either from now or from the exact start time. All-day and blocked appointments have no timer.

   • If a timer for the same project is already running, attach it with “Link running timer”.
3. 3

   Stop the timer

   “Stop timer” in the appointment records the time. The time entry stays linked to the appointment.

Agenda, legend & filters

Keep track of what's coming and where your time went:

Connect Google & Apple Calendar

Connect as many Google and Apple accounts as you like. You find the connections under Settings → Calendar → Integrations, or in the calendar sidebar under “Integration”. To connect Google:

1. 1

   Start the connection

   Click “Connect Google”. If you already have an account connected, choose “Add connection” and Google Calendar as the provider.

2. 2

   Allow access

   Sign in to Google, allow access to your calendars and return to Self-Engine.

3. 3

   Choose calendars

   At first only your primary calendar is active. Activate the account's other calendars one by one, and check “Last sync” to see that everything arrived.

Syncing

Connected calendars sync both ways, as long as you have write access. Good to know:

• Sync covers about a year back and a year ahead. Self-Engine syncs regularly in the background, even when the app is closed. “Sync now” starts it right away, for an account or a single calendar.
• You can only change the title, time and description of imported appointments with write access to that calendar. Project, timer and outcome belong to Self-Engine and stay editable even on read-only appointments.
• Without internet you can still see and edit your appointments. Changes to Google or Apple wait until you're back online. Connecting, reconnecting and the sync itself need a connection.
• If an appointment was changed here and at Google or Apple at the same time, it shows both versions, and you choose, for example, “Use Self-Engine” or “Use Google Calendar”. If it was deleted there, you choose between “Keep locally” and “Archive”.

Reconnect & disconnect

When a connection shows “Needs reconnect”, access has expired or was revoked, for example because you removed Self-Engine's permission in your Google account. To restore it:

1. 1

   Reconnect

   Click “Reconnect” on the affected connection or in the notification.

2. 2

   Sign in with the same account

   Sign in with the same Google account and allow access to your calendars again.

3. 3

   Check the sync

   Back in Self-Engine, the connection should show “Connected” again. Your appointments stay and are matched up again, without duplicates. You don't need to disconnect for this.

You only need “Disconnect” when you really want to remove an account. Nothing is deleted at Google or Apple. For each calendar you decide what happens to its appointments in Self-Engine:

• Archive: the appointments are kept. If you connect the same account again later, they are matched up again.
• Adopt as local appointments: the appointments stay in Self-Engine as independent appointments. They won't be linked to the account again later.
• Permanently remove local data: deletes the appointments in Self-Engine. To confirm, you type the calendar's name.

On your devices

• The full calendar with grid, planning and agenda is in the web app and the Mac app. The web app works on your phone too, with its own month view for small screens.
• The iPhone and Android apps are in development and don't have a calendar view yet. There you can connect Apple Calendar and see the sync status. Connect Google and disconnect accounts in the web app.

Tips

• Block focus time: nothing can be dragged into it, and saving an overlapping appointment through the form warns you
• Give appointments a project, because timers, time assignment and the completed status depend on it
• Treat appointments as the plan and time entries as the record, and compare both in the same grid
• Open the agenda from anywhere with O, then A
• End the week with a look at the daily legend: it shows where your time and money went
• Hide calendars you rarely need instead of disconnecting them. They keep syncing