You Can See How Much Time You Spend In Meetings By Looking At Your Google Calendar
You can see how much time you spend in meetings by looking at your Google Calendar
When using Google Calendar on the web, users will be able to see how much time they spend in meetings each week thanks to the addition of a new "Time insights" panel. According to a blog post published by Google, the feature will be gradually rolled out on select plans over the course of the next month. Initially announced in March as part of a suite of new Google Workspace features, it has since gained widespread attention.
Time Insights comes to Android and iOS two years after Google and Apple introduced similar breakdowns to show how much time is spent on various apps in their respective operating systems. However, while these operating system features included the ability to set time limits for individual applications, Google Calendar does not provide the same functionality for meetings. The information provided will instead assist you in managing any meeting-obsessed colleagues, rather than simply providing information.
Type of Information You Will See
Google published a screenshot demonstrating the type of information that will be provided by the panel. There's a pie chart at the top of the page that shows how much of your working hours are spent in meetings, which are further subdivided into meetings between two people and meetings with groups of three or more people. A snapshot of time spent in meetings on a weekly basis, as well as highlights of the busiest days and an average number of hours spent in meetings per day, can be found in the following table. Google states on a support page that calendar entries in which you are the only attendee do not count toward the totals for these meetings.
In addition, Google emphasizes that "this information is only viewable by you and not by your manager." You may be able to see someone's breakdown of their schedule if you have permission to manage their calendar, however, according to the documentation. The feature will be enabled by default, and while Workspace administrators will be able to disable it, end users will only be able to minimize it rather than completely turn it off.
User-generated time insights are available to users who subscribe to one of the following Google Workspace products: Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, or Nonprofits. Customer accounts on the G Suite Basic and Business tiers will be ineligible, as will customers on the Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, and Frontline tiers of the Google Workspace.
