Work environments have changed dramatically in the last year. But, whether you telecommute or do it from an office, you may receive several meeting invitations to your email . These can be very annoying at times when you must be focused on a task, in addition to robbing you of the time you need to get work done. Fortunately, Google Calendar now launches a feature that will allow you to avoid this problem.
“Concentration time”, called in English “Focus Time”, will allow you to protect your time to concentrate and avoid distractions. The new function will take care of rejecting meetings that arrive at an inopportune moment . If you have already used the “Out of office” function, the mechanics of this new option will be very familiar to you as it is practically identical.
“With the new focus time feature, we hope to make it easier to create time dedicated to thinking and core work,” the company says in a blog post detailing how this new Google Calendar tool works.
How does 'Focus time' work in Google Calendar?
Credit: Google To avoid meetings at times when you need to be focused, just create a new “Time to focus” entry. To do this, go to your Google Calendar and tap on Create , in the upper left corner or in the desired calendar location.
The Google Calendar creation window will show you several options. The classic Event, Task, Reminders, Out of the office and more. But the one that interests us is Concentration time . Select it and configure the time range in which you should be focused and without interruptions.
Mark Automatically reject meetings . Then select whether you want to decline only new invitations or new and current ones in Google Calendar. Finally, if you want, add a short message. This is a good idea, because if your boss is inviting you to a meeting and you reject it, at least they will know why you are doing it.
Unfortunately “Concentration time” will only be available in the Google Calendar of some professional accounts Google Workspace . Check availability here. The feature has already started to roll out and could take up to 25 days to see the light of day for all users.
