How many times have you been in the middle of a work project, or just relaxing at home, and you get interr—bzzt—right. As I was saying, you’re in the middle of trying to do—bzzt—sigh. Sometimes the notifications just won’t stop.

Once upon a time, it was easy. You could only add a few apps to your devices, and receiving a notification was exciting. Now, every shopping app and social network is sending constant bzzts to your phone, watch, computer, and every other device you have, begging for your attention. 

That’s why we wanted to take some time for a deep dive into the world of Apple Focus. Apple introduced Focus modes and filters a few years ago, and they’re wildly powerful — but also wildly complicated — so let’s go through how you can use Focus and Fantastical to better manage your schedule (and those distracting notifications). 

What is Focus anyway?

Think of Focus as a sort of mode selector for your Apple devices. In the same way that the iPhone’s ringer switch let’s you silence your alerts, Focus allows you to choose from different modes like Work, Personal, or Sleep, with different app and notification settings for each focus. The settings are simple but powerful. 

When using a focus, you can choose to block or allow notifications for messages or phone calls from specific contacts. For example on your Work Focus, you could block the family group chat whose members who won’t stop talking, and choose to only allow calls from your work colleagues and your kid’s day care.

It works the same with notifications from apps: In a Personal Focus you might choose to block notifications from apps like Slack, or to only allow notifications from certain close family and friends to prioritize personal connections.

Then there’s a super-useful feature called Focus Filters that allows apps to be customized to your particular focus. In Fantastical, this means you have the ability to choose which calendar set you are seeing in Fantastical when using a specific focus on your device. In your Work Focus, you could choose to enable the calendar set that hides your kid’s soccer schedule, while in your Personal Focus, you could ensure that shared work calendars are all hidden away.

Focus allows you to customize everything related to notifications and configure your apps in just a couple of quick steps. Once you have your focus set up, it just takes a quick tap/click in the Control Center on your device to enable it. To make it even easier, you can have a focus activate automatically at a particular time or location.

But no matter what focus you are using, you’ll need your notifications from Fantastical, right? 

Focus and Fantastical

We want to make sure you have your focus set up so that you’re always on top of your schedule. So to get started, on the Mac you’ll head to Mac System Settings > Focus, while on iPhone or iPad, you’ll go to iOS Settings > Focus. 

While you can choose to share your Focus status between all your devices — so the active focus on your Mac will also be active on your iPhone, the notification settings are separate across your devices. This means you’ll need to configure your allowed notifications on each device individually.

For notifications, you have three main options:

– All Fantastical Alerts: All notifications from Fantastical are marked as Time Sensitive, so if you choose to allow Time Sensitive Notifications in a particular Focus mode, you’ll receive all your Fantastical alerts like normal.

– Alerts only for calendars in your Focus: If you give Fantastical permission to send notifications or you choose to block only certain apps (and not Fantastical), and have Time Sensitive Notifications disabled, you will receive alerts for calendars included in the enabled Focus only.

– No Fantastical alerts at all: If you turn off Time Sensitive Notifications and you don’t add Fantastical to your approved app list for notifications (or add it to your blocked list), you won’t get any alerts from your calendars no matter how important they might be.

For Calendar Sets, it’s a little more straightforward. Using the Focus Filters feature, you can choose what calendar sets are available when a particular focus is on.

For example, you could hide everything but your Work calendar set when in the Work focus, or only show your Home calendar set when not at the Office. If you only pick one calendar set to show in a particular focus, you’ll ensure that it displays whenever you’re in that mode.

A Day of Focus

Now that you know how to set up a focus with Fantastical, let’s take a look at what this might look like in action for someone that works from home.

Thanks to the focus schedule you set, your Work focus automatically activates at 9 a.m. When you open Fantastical, you’re automatically viewing your Work calendar set because you enabled it in the Focus Filter setting. Now you are only seeing your work events in Fantastical, helping you maximize your productivity.

Even though you can’t see your personal events, you still don’t need to worry about missing something important since you have Time Sensitive Notifications allowed on your focus. You may not see your upcoming doctor’s appointment on your current calendar set, but you’ll still get that Time to Leave notification when you need to head out the door.

Once you make it to your appointment, you switch to your Personal Focus on your iPhone. This toggles your Fantastical calendar set from Work to Home, hiding all your shared calendars from the office so you can stop thinking about work for a few minutes. Switching focus might even save you some embarrassment when scheduling your follow up visit so you can make sure you don’t add the next appointment to the calendar you share with your boss!

After the appointment is over and you’ve made it back to your home office, toggle back to the Work Focus and your calendar set once again switches to your Work set for maximum productivity.

At 5:30 PM, your Personal focus is set to switch on automatically, reminding you to wrap up work for the day and letting you focus on any personal items you still need to take care of.

Find the focus that works best for you!

We’ve just scratched the surface with the incredible power of Focus today. There are so many options to choose from, like automatically activating a Driving focus in the car, or using a specific focus when you have an active Workout. You can even set up a Reading focus that activates when you open your Books app!

You can get more information on how to set up Fantastical with Focus in the Flexibits Support pages, and of course Apple’s Support pages have extensive explanations of all the ins and outs of Focus.

Investing a little time in your Focus modes can lead to significant productivity gains as you quiet some of those constant notifications, letting you see everything you do need and nothing you don’t. 

Good luck getting focused!

Proposals is the perfect tool for the holidays, when everyone’s got tons of family, friend, and work obligations competing for time on their schedule. Rather than just list all the cool features of Proposals for you, we thought we’d spice it up — why not try a little holiday-themed Choose Your Own Adventure post?

The adventure: It’s your turn to plan the Annual Soup Lovers Potluck.

You and a group of like-minded soup fanatics get together every December to share new soup recipes, talk about innovations in the soup industry, and sample soups to your heart’s content.

Of course, with it being the holidays, the task of finding a 2-hour block of time that will work for everyone in the Soup Lovers Club is a daunting one.

First off, you need to find a time that works for the most important person in this scenario: you, the organizer of this year’s potluck!

You start by clicking and dragging on the open parts of your calendar to automatically create a proposal.

All of the time slots in your proposal will stay on your calendar with a PROPOSED signifier at the top until a time is chosen.

Now that you’ve got a smorgasbord of times that work for you, it’s time to…

Choose your own adventure!

If you want the organizing of this potluck to involve as few steps as possible, skip to Scenario A.

If you want this to be the biggest, most raucous Annual Soup Lovers Potluck of all time, skip to Scenario B.

If you’re primarily concerned with making sure no soup-lovers get left behind in the scheduling frenzy, skip to Scenario C.

Scenario A: You send invites to everyone in the Soup Lovers Club and set the event to schedule itself automatically.

To get this potluck scheduled as quickly and painlessly as possible, you add all of the soup lovers to the proposal as invitees, then set add event to “When replies are unanimous”:

Once you’ve added your invitees and created the Proposal, your invitees receive an email where they can pick the times that work for them:

Once everyone has picked a time, the event automatically gets scheduled in a time slot where everyone is available. Easy as pie! Err — soup!

Head to Outcome A.

Scenario B: You create a Fantastical link so that everyone in the Soup Lovers club can invite as many soup enthusiasts they want.

The Soup Lovers club are the some of the wildest, most well-connected people you know, so you decide you want them to be able to invite whoever they want to this year’s potluck.

You add all of the core club members to the invite directly, then click “Create Fantastical link” in the event settings:

Your event will automatically be set to manual approval. Why? Because you have no idea how many people the soup lovers are going to invite, so the event would never know when the responses were unanimous!

The Soup Lovers Club then sends the Fantastical link to anyone they want. The link looks similar to the direct invite, but with Name and Email fields so that you, the organizer, have a sense of who will be joining.

You monitor the responses as they come in by clicking on any of the proposed times in Fantastical:

Once you’ve amassed a quorum a soup lovers, you schedule the potluck on the most popular time and buckle up for a soup extravaganza!

Head to Outcome B.

Scenario C: You copy the Proposal times as text and send them to the less tech-savvy soup lovers directly.

As you set out to schedule the potluck, you can’t help but think of Linda the ladle-collector and Boris the borscht-connoisseur, who still use physical cookbooks and handwritten recipes. They’ve probably checked their joint email account once in the last year, but they do like to text you pictures of their adorable grandchildren.

To make sure Linda and Boris aren’t left out, you control-click your Proposal as you’re creating it so you can Copy Proposed Times as Text:

With a quick paste, you send them a text with the times:

Very few clicks to include a very important pair of soup-lovers! You have to factor in Linda and Boris’s reply separately from the rest of the group, but that’s okay — they’re worth it.

Head to Outcome C.

Outcome A…

Since the scheduling of the potluck was such a breeze, you had extra time to make not only your world-famous mulligatawny soup, but also hand-embroidered Soup Lovers Club napkins for everyone as holiday gifts! Everyone agrees that you deserve the All-Time Best Potluck Organizer award.

Outcome B…

The word gets out about your soup-stravaganza, and soon the whole town is lining up to be a part of it. People share the invite link around like candy, and you end up needing to upgrade the venue from a room in the rec hall to taking over the entire community center. Legend has it that the crazier soup lovers even had an after-hours soup-keg-stand competition…

Outcome C…

Linda and Boris are so touched that you went out of their way to include them that they gift you an old ladle that has been passed down in Linda’s family for many generations. Years later, you bring it to an antiques shop for an appraisal and discover it’s worth a small fortune! You use the money to help send Linda and Boris’s adorable grandchildren to college. A little extra effort can truly go a long way, no?

No matter what your holiday plans or potluck preferences, we hope these Proposals pointers have proved both pleasant and pragmatic.

If you want to look closer at any of the features in our adventures above, check out our Help Book entry on Proposals, and don’t hesitate to contact our Support team if any issues arise.

Here’s to a holiday full of adventures!

Today’s post is also for all the Apple Watch people out there — and we know you’re out there, because our Support team has been chatting with a lot of you about how to get the most out of Fantastical on your Apple Watch. Whether you’ve never configured a single complication or you’re a champion of customization, we’re sure you’ll find something new to try in this post.

So, what kind of Fantastical setup is best for you on the Apple Watch? Start by picking your favorite of these four productivity methods:

• Time Blocking
• Eat the Frog
• Biological Prime Time
• Medium Method

Then look below to see the configuration we recommend!

If you like Time Blocking…

What is Time Blocking? Proactively scheduling your day into specific blocks where you focus on one thing at a time.

What this productivity method says about you: Some of the most important aspects of your job involve deep work, but you’re a busy person. You abhor interruptions, distractions, and context-switching. You’re likely a visual thinker who likes clean (possibly colorful) aesthetics.

How your should set up your Apple Watch: We recommend filling your watch face with complications that are all geared towards helping you maintain your focus, while your Smart Stack gives you an aesthetically pleasing glance at the day.

• Use the Today’s Date complication, especially if you’re a day-theming time-blocker.
• Include the Up Next complication to help you stay on top of the exact task you’re meant to focus on in each time block.
• Having the Up Next Timeline widget in your Smart Stack will help you get a quick glance at the other time blocks you have coming up as well.

Shown below is a watch with that configuration, along with mindfulness and music complications to help keep you focused. All this on the lovely Palette face — a clean, colorful aesthetic that will match your time-blocked calendar nicely.

If you like to Eat the Frog…

What is Eat the Frog? No one likes to eat the frog, and that’s the point. This productivity method is all about doing the hardest thing(s) first.

What this productivity method says about you: You’re prone to procrastination, and you tend to feel distracted by your own tendency to procrastinate. You benefit from having a firm yet helpful hand to make sure you actually get the boring things on your To-Do list done.

How your should set up your Apple Watch: It’s important that your watch face helps direct you to the things you need to get done and nothing else. Avoid clutter — save that for the Smart Stack.

• Use the Today’s Remaining Tasks complication to keep yourself focused on the remaining To-Do list items of the day — and no other complications. That way, a look at your watch simply tells you what time it is and how much there’s left to do.
• Swipe to the Smart Stack for the Today’s Date widget and Up Next widget that will help you put the frogs you still have to eat in the context of the rest of your day and week.

Below, we have a watch with just these features displayed on the Solar Analog watch face. Bonus: the Solar Analog face changes with the position of the sun — another subtle nudge to remind you that time is passing! And it’s green. Like a frog. And “Solar Analog” rhymes with frog. The perks are truly endless.

If you like to track your Biological Prime Time…

What is Biological Prime Time? Tracking data about how your energy ebbs and flows throughout the day, then setting up your schedule to adhere to your body’s natural tendencies.

What this productivity method says about you: You love data, charts, and graphs. You’re in tune with your body and you often adjust your schedule and prioritize tasks based on fitness, health, and physical well-being.

How you should set up your Apple Watch: We say fill your watch face up with complications. The more tracking, the better!

• The Launch Fantastical complication can help you quickly open up your calendar and take notes on how much energy you had during different events throughout your day — another tool to help with your tracking.
• Include the Today’s Remaining Events complication so you can quickly gauge how much more energy you need through the day.
• Use the Up Next complication to see how much time you have before you need to muster up energy for your next event.

Here’s what that configuration looks like, plus a fitness tracker and compass, on the Modular watch face. With all these complications, you don’t even really need a Smart Stack.

If you like the Medium Method…

What is the Medium Method? Using the perfect blend of digital and analog to track tasks, set priorities, and optimize your schedule.

What this productivity method says about you: You don’t care what anyone says — a pen and paper is still the best way to take notes. You’re not a luddite, but to you, sitting down with a notepad and some post-its is the best way to get things done and prepare for a busy week.

How your should set up your Apple Watch: Lean into your analog proclivities, both stylistically and functionally, while still getting all the benefits of wearing such a smart watch.

• Throw the Today’s Date complication up on the watch face to complement the analog clock.
• The Today’s Remaining Tasks + Events complication will give you a quick look at the goals and priorities you set for this day without bogging you down.
• Put the Launch Fantastical widget in your Smart Stack so you can get deeper into calendaring when it’s time to wind down and set your priorities for the following day.

Here’s what this configuration looks like on the charmingly old-fashioned Meridian watch face.

Now get customizing!

Remember: you can set up the complications and widgets shown above on the Apple Watch itself, but there’s plenty more you can customize from your iPhone by going to Fantastical > Settings > Apple Watch.

If you have a favorite Apple Watch setup with Fantastical, we’d love to hear about it!

Contact management is a key component of your networking toolkit. Now that the era of the Rolodex is far behind us, what are the norms, tricks, and best practices for managing your professional contacts? Read on to find out!

Have your information at the ready

We’ve all been there: you’re having a great conversation with someone you know want to keep in touch with. You’re ready to exchange details, and… now what? Who puts whose number into whose phone? How will you know which “Taylor” this is when you try to look them up later? Should you connect on Facebook? LinkedIn? BeReal??

It’s 2023, and if you’re not using a digital business card, it’s time to up your game.

In Cardhop, your details are automatically housed in a digital business card that you can quickly share with new contacts. You can customize the information that’s shown, change the color of the card, add a photo or logo, and more to ensure you’re making exactly the right professional impression. This support article will tell you everything you need to know about configuring your digital business card in Cardhop.

Depending on how often you find yourself needing to share your digital business card, note that you can add your business card QR code as a widget on your home screen. (More information on how to do that can be found here.)

Do people still use physical business cards?

This varies a bit from industry to industry and place to place. If you’re a technologist at an AR/VR convention handing out physical business cards, you might get a few raised eyebrows — but in general, the physical business card hasn’t died out just yet.

For the most technologically forward but inclusive approach, try leading with the digital business card, but have a few physical cards on hand in case someone prefers to connect the old-school way.

If you receive a physical business card from someone else, note that you can quickly scan their information directly into Cardhop. When adding a new contact on iOS, Cardhop gives you the option to type details in directly, or scan them in from a card:

Related reading: Managing Business Cards with Cardhop

Track Groups, Relationships, and Details

When you make a new professional connection, you’ll want to keep track of their basic contact and work information, of course — but there are a few other useful thing you may want to track as well.

Group contacts by industry or other professional context

Beyond simply tracking someone’s workplace, you can create custom lists of contacts based on your own criteria. For instance, you could…

• House all of the new contacts you met at a VR technologies convention under one “VR Professionals” list
• Create a “Potential Leads” list after making connections at a trade show
• Group all of your contacts at different press outlets in a “Journalists” list

Click here to learn more about how to create lists in Cardhop. Note that Cardhop’s Smart Lists feature can also automatically group your contacts by company for you.

Track relationships within an organization

If you meet a group of people at the same organization, it can be very helpful to keep tabs on their organizational hierarchy (if you know what it is). That way, you can be sure you’re going to the right people with the right questions, and not chasing up an intern for an inroad they can’t provide.

In Cardhop, you can add relationships to your contacts, then see relational graphs at a glance:

You can also import information from an entire directory based in Google Workspace, Exchange, or Microsoft 365 to auto-fill these workplace relationships.

Information on adding relationships to your contacts can be found here, and you can learn how to import entire directories here.

Record the right details

Remembering useful details about a new contact can be a great way to stand out in future conversations — just make sure you’re not bringing up anything that’s overly personal or specific. There’s strategy to networking, but remember that the professional contacts you make are humans, too.

Jot down things like…

• Pronouns
• Specific areas of the industry that they’re really excited about
• Cool projects they’re working on
• High-level tidbits about family, pets, hobbies, etc.

But maybe don’t include…

• Notes on physical appearance
• Highly subjective thoughts on their work, company, or style
• Overly specific details about family or personal life

As a rule of thumb, if you think they’d be embarrassed or upset if they saw a certain note, don’t write it.

You can add notes to the bottom of your contact cards in Cardhop, and even include specific timestamps on your notes to make sure you’re aware of how recent your information is before referencing it in future conversations.

Following up with new contacts

After you’ve exchanged information and kept track of the right details, now comes the big question: when should you follow up?

This is also pretty variable based on context, but here are a few guidelines:

• If a specific timeframe was mentioned: If one of you referenced any specific kind of plan, e.g. “Let’s get coffee next week!”, set yourself a reminder to reach out within that timeframe to firm up plans.
• If you have a specific ask from them: Whether you’re hoping for an interview, trying to lock them down as a new client, or similar, follow up quickly (a matter of days) so that the details of your conversation are still fresh on their mind when they hear from you.
• If you don’t have a specific ask from them: For people with whom you just want to stay in touch, follow up in a more leisurely manner (a matter of weeks) for something casual. You could even look out for an event that matches their interests and invite them down the line.

What if they’re not answering?

If you’ve put a feeler out and haven’t heard back in a week or two, try them one more time, then leave them be. You never know what is going on in someone else’s life — maybe a family emergency or unforeseen issue is keeping them from answering, and the more you pester them with no response, the more you’re souring the relationship.

Following up with Cardhop and Fantastical

Cardhop’s quick actions integrate seamlessly with Fantastical so that it’s easy to follow up with your new contacts.

• Use the invite or Fantastical keywords in Cardhop to invite a contact to an event in Fantastical
• Use event or calendar to directly create a new event in Fantastical with a Cardhop action
• Use task, todo, or reminder to set a task in Fantastical relating to a contact (e.g. “reminder email Anna Burton 11/1”)

You can get a deep dive on quick Cardhop actions that integrate with Fantastical in this support article.

Related reading: Fantastical Actions in Cardhop

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Hopefully these tips will help you feel ready for anything at your next networking event! And if networking with Cardhop has you excited about all of great ways you can manage your contacts, head here for extra Cardhop tips and tricks.

Now it’s time to start scheduling with… drumroll please… your community.

We know, we know, scheduling with other people can be a real hassle, but don’t worry — that’s exactly what our tips are about today. (Plus one bonus tip for your mental health. )

Tip 4: Coordinating Schedules with Proposals

You’re in a new class. You’re ready to ace these exams. You’ve even got yourself a study group, and all you need to do is find a time to meet up, but… oof. Cue the coordination nightmare:

Psst! If you’re not following us on TikTok yet, you should rectify that immediately.

Proposals can keep group scheduling from ever feeling like this purgatorial puzzle box again.

This tool is best used when you’re trying to find the best time that will work for a whole group, rather than stick to openings in one person’s schedule.

You can allow invitees to share the invite with others by adding a Fantastical link to the invite, set event approvals to automatic or manual, determine whether invitees can see other people that were invited, and more.

Students tend get a lot use out of Proposals for things like…

• Study sessions: Create a Fantastical link so that people can invite other classmates if they want.
• Group projects: Limit the invite to just your group, and keep the group project headache to a minimum by setting up several different work sessions with automatic approval.
• Post-final ragers: Gotta make sure you schedule the end-of-semester blowout once all of your friends are actually finished with exams, right?

(…okay, we’re kind of kidding about that last one.)

If you’re ready to propose some study times, this article and this video have all the information you need.

Tip 5: Setting Appointments with Openings

Maybe you’re not trying to coordinate with a group, but instead need to let other people reserve time with you. In that case, you’ll want to get set up with Openings!

Openings is best used when you’ve got fixed times in your schedule that other people need to adhere to in order to get an appointment with you.

You can limit the number of people that can sign up for your appointments, set minimum break times or lead times, and determine whether or not you need to manually approve appointments before they’re scheduled.

Educators tell us they like to use Openings for…

• Office hours: Set a high number on the guest limit with automatic approval to let a lot of students sign up for the same office hours slot.
• Tutoring slots: Use manual approval to make sure it’s a class you know you can tutor, and add a 20-minute lead time to all appointments so you can prepare for each session.
• Music lessons: Limit appointments to one guest so that a slot is automatically blocked off once someone reserves it.

Plus, all of your settings can be saved in a template so that you can schedule, rinse, and repeat!

Sound like the tool for you? Check out this video or read this article to get started.

But wait, my students/classmates don’t use Fantastical. What do I do?

Haven’t convinced everyone you know to use Fantastical yet? Not a problem! Both Openings and Proposals will work just fine with any calendar tool they use.

Tip 6: Maintain your Sanity

All this talk of study sessions and office hours has us ready for a break already. When you need to press pause on it all, take advantage of those Calendar Sets you so diligently set up with Focus Filters.

Instead of the standard Focus mode, which blocks all notifications and messages, Focus Filters can be set up to only notify you within the category you’re trying to focus on at any given moment.

iOS devices automatically suggest Personal, Work, and Sleep Focus Filters, but you can customize them to suit your needs for the school year. For instance…

• Create a School Focus Filter using your School Calendar Set to only allow school-related notifications while you’re teaching or studying.
• Use a class-specific Calendar Set to create a Class-Specific Focus Filter for when you and all your classmates are cramming for that one nasty final.
• Link a Calendar Set specific to your tutoring sessions to a Tutoring Focus Filter so you can focus on tutoring while still getting messages from your tutees.

Like Calendar Sets, there are limitless ways you could configure your Focus Filters for your mental health needs. You can learn more about using Focus Filters with Fantastical here.

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As always, if you need help with these tips or anything else, don’t hesitate to hit up our Support team. Think of them as your personal Flexibits tutors.

And with that, we can all get back to getting back to school!

The mini-season known as “Back to School” is upon us, and what better way to prepare for the year than sharpening up your scheduling prowess?

This is the first of two posts that will be “chalk”-full of tips to help you achieve calendar bliss this school year. (Does anybody still use chalk…?)

Tip 1: Get Set Up Ahead of Time

Our first tip is more of a meta-tip: set aside a dedicated time to get your calendar configured and organized just the way you like it.

Instead of scrambling to figure out your scheduling tools in the moment that you need them, you’ll thank yourself for having gotten everything sorted while you had the energy and the headspace to do it right. It’s Delayed Gratification 101.

Read on to set up your calendar subscriptions, start tracking deadlines directly in your calendar, and get creative with Calendar Sets. If you don’t have time for all that right now, bookmark this baby and come back when you do!

Tip 2: Use your Calendar to Track Classes and Due Dates

Use Class-Specific Calendars: As a first step, make sure you’re subscribed to any and all calendars you need to track this year.

• For students: If your teacher has provided a class-specific calendar, be sure to use the associated URL to subscribe to their calendar. This page will walk you through adding a calendar subscription on Fantastical if you haven’t done that before.
• For teachers: If you haven’t started creating class-specific calendars for your students yet, we highly recommend it — we are calendar nerds, after all!

Your class-specific calendar can include not only class times, but assignments and due dates as well. Fantastical will help you easily add to, organize, and toggle these calendars as you see fit.

Side note: you can also use Interesting Calendars to make your calendar show holidays, moon phases, and more — plus, if you want to follow your school’s sports schedule, there are a ton of college sports teams to choose from!

Keep Track of Homework and Due Dates: Calendars are not just for showing events — you can add assignments directly into your calendar on their respective due dates so that you never miss another deadline.

Now that you’ve got class-specific calendars that are set up to show class times and due dates, it’s time get fancy with them.

Tip 3: Toggle Between Calendar Views

Between classes, work, hobbies, and, y’know, “having a life,” seeing everything on your calendar all at once might be a little daunting. As the school year starts, Calendar Sets will be your best friend, we promise.

If you organize your events and tasks into Calendar Sets — say, School, Work, and Personal — things will quickly look much more manageable:

There are essentially endless ways you could configure your Calendar Sets depending on how you use your calendar and what your goals are. Here are a few ideas:

• Themed Calendar Set: Maybe you’re in a psychology class, doing a psychology research internship, and participating in psychology studies at your school. You could group these events and tasks into one psychology-themed calendar and get a glimpse of how much time you’re spending nerding out about the human mind this year.
• Fun Calendar Set: If your “Personal” Calendar Set includes chores and life admin, try making a “Fun” Calendar Set that’s just for the stuff you’re looking forward to. You could set this calendar to only display after 5PM and on weekends so that you’re not distracted by all your fun plans when you’re trying to work or study.
• Aspirational Calendar Set: Perhaps you’re the kind of person who preemptively blocks out time for exercise, errands, meal prep, and chores — only to find that you don’t actually have the energy for all of it when the time comes. An “Aspirational” Calendar Set can help you take stock of what you hope to do vs. what you have to do.
• Roommates Calendar Set: If you and your roommates all share calendars, use a Roommates Calendar Set to quickly see when people won’t be home and track house chores. You can even set this calendar to only activate once you get to your house!

Like we said, there’s so much you can do with this tool. For further inspiration, take a peek at these past posts on using Calendar Sets to create work life balance and improve your focus.

If you need a little guidance on how to get started with your Calendar Sets, this support article should help. Get creative! We’d love to hear about any niche use cases you come up with.

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We’ll be back tomorrow with Part 2 including more juicy calendar tips to get your school year off to a great start. Class dismissed!

They can be quick and easy (like feeding your fish), or they can require a lot more work (that garden’s not going to plant itself!), but either way you need to get them checked off your list. As you likely know, you can sync your Apple Reminders directly to Fantastical to easily manage those tasks alongside your calendar events, but did you know that if you use Todoist you can add that account as well?

If not, then it’s time to get excited because Todoist integrates directly with Fantastical letting you can manage your projects and events together in one app! Today we’re going to highlight just a few of the things you’ll be able to do after adding your Todoist account directly to Fantastical. 

Party planning made easy 

Your best friend is having a baby and it’s up to you to host a baby shower to celebrate the upcoming arrival. The party is in a few months, so you need to start planning now to get everything organized! You’ve created a new project in Todoist so you don’t forget anything important, but keeping up with multiple apps can be tedious when all you want to do is plan out your project.

With your Todoist account set up in Fantastical, you’ll have access to all of your projects and calendars in one place so you can update tasks and choose a date for the event at the same time. You can create a proposal to find the time that will work best for the expectant family, and then start adding items to your to-do list without missing a beat.

Want to make sure you don’t forget to order the cake? Set a due date and time on the task so that you get a reminder from Fantastical (and see it on your calendar). 

Need to keep track of the decorations you are going to use? Add them to your project using your Decorations label.

Planning this party is going to be a breeze with the help of Fantastical’s Todoist integration, and it’s already shaping up to be the best baby shower ever!

Preventing task overload

Bob and his family use Todoist to keep organized by assigning specific chores to each family member. It’s a great way to delegate, but with a wife and 3 kids, Bob’s task list is starting to look a bit cluttered (and a little terrifying).

What he really wants is a way to just see the items he’s responsible for without having to create a new project for his assigned chores. Good thing he uses Fantastical with his Todoist account, because with a few simple steps, he can hide the tasks he doesn’t need to see from his task list (and calendar views). In a matter of seconds, he’s able to go to Fantastical > Settings > Accounts, select his Todoist account, and enable “Hide tasks assigned to others.”

With this done, Bob can focus on getting his assigned chores finished without having to worry about what everyone else is supposed to be working on. 

He’ll have everything looking spiffy in time for the big 4^th of July cookout, so he can enjoy a day full of family, good food, and lots of fireworks! 

Accessing the Todoist app directly from Fantastical

While you love using Fantastical to manage your project lists, sometimes you still need to open the Todoist app to access a few specific options. Sure, it doesn’t take a huge amount of time to switch to a new app, but it can easily break your concentration when you are trying to complete an important assignment. 

Add in other distractions (like that text you just received from your boss asking where your report is), and by the time you manage to close Fantastical, open Todoist, and find the correct task, you’ve already forgotten what you were trying to do in the first place.

Cue the new “Open in Todoist” option from Fantastical. Just tap and hold the task in Fantastical on iOS (or right-click on the Mac) and select “Open in Todoist” to be taken immediately to the Todoist app, and the specific task you need to edit.

You don’t get distracted by context switching, letting you update your task AND get that report mailed right away!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at some of the ways Fantastical and Todoist work together to make your life easier.

To access the latest Fantastical features in this post, make sure you’re running our latest version (3.7.14). Go ahead and install that update if you haven’t already, and let’s dig into some exciting new content!

Conference calls for Proposals

Fantastical’s Proposals feature is a great way to quickly schedule an event with a group of invitees, and now we’ve made the process even easier by giving you the option to include a conference call when creating your proposal. That’s right — you no longer need to wait until the proposal has been confirmed on a specific date to add a call to the scheduled event! 

With the new conference call feature, you just need to select your preferred conference call option during the proposal creation.

When the event is confirmed, your meeting link will be created and included in the event invitation so that your invitees have immediate access to the call details.

We currently support adding Zoom and Webex links (if you have those account types added directly to Fantastical), as well as Google Meet (on calendars connected to a Google account) and Microsoft Teams (on calendars connected to a Microsoft account).

Customize your Openings and Proposal links

While we’re on the topic of Fantastical Scheduling, you can now customize your Openings and Proposal links for specific invitees before sending it.

The available options for your Openings links include the name, email, and phone number of your invitee, as well as the option to add a message to the link.  For Proposal links, you can fill in the name and email of your invitee, as well as add a message to the link. To make it even better, we’ve added the option to set the language for the link using one of our currently supported languages.

When you send a customized link, we fill in the invitee information you provide so all your invitee needs to do is select their preferred date & time and submit the request.

Check out our Support page for tips on how to customize your links!

Durations for Tasks 

One feature that we’ve received a lot of requests for is the ability to set a specific duration for your tasks in Fantastical. We’re happy to announce that this feature has been added to the app. 

That’s right: you can now have your task show for a specific amount of time in Fantastical’s Day and Week views to help with planning and time blocking.

To use the new duration option, enter the task name followed by [duration] in the parser. For example, if you want to create a task with a 60-minute duration you could do so by entering the following in the Fantastical parser:

task Clean the garage [60m] tomorrow at 10am

Now, the task will show as having a duration of 60 minutes in both the Day view and Week view in Fantastical across all versions of the app.

Just make sure you place the duration directly after the task title when creating your task to activate the new feature in Fantastical.

Flexibits Teams Premium Subscription

Finally, we’re excited to introduce the Flexibits Teams subscription that is now available on our website. The Teams plan lets you manage multiple subscriptions for your entire team with one main account.

Get started on our Teams information page and once you create the main Flexibits Account to manage the subscription, you can change the amount of seats at any time directly in your Flexibits Account billing section. Each seat gives a user a private Flexibits Account that they will use to access the premium features in Fantastical, Fantastical Scheduling, and Cardhop.

Learn more

If you are interested in learning more about what is included in each release, you can find out more with our Release Notes on the website.

You can also keep an eye on the Flexireads blog for future Feature Roundup posts to keep track of new features available from Flexibits!

But we know what some of you are probably thinking… “I love using both apps on their own, but wouldn’t it be even better if we could use them together?”

We totally agree! That’s why we’ve created Fantastical actions in Cardhop, letting you take advantage of both apps by linking specific contacts from Cardhop to your events and tasks in Fantastical. So, sit back and enjoy the ride because today we are going to explore the magic of the new actions that connect both apps. (We do ask that you please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.)

Quick and easy invites

If you’ve been keeping up with the Flexireads blog, you’re probably familiar with the first action on the list since it was highlighted in a post by one of our users, Matt, but let’s get a quick refresher on the Fantastical Invite action in Cardhop.

Making sure you invite everyone to an event can be frustrating when you have to add each person individually. Sure, it’s easy when there are just 2 or 3 invitees involved, but what about when it’s a team of 15? Cardhop makes it quick and easy to organize all of your contacts, and now you just need a way to use that information in Fantastical. We hear you loud and clear! So let’s take a look at our first integrated action in Cardhop, the Fantastical Invite action. 

With the Fantastical Invite action, all it takes is a couple of seconds in Cardhop and your invitees are all added to your Fantastical event. Activate the action by typing “invite” then follow that with your contact or group name.

Hit enter and Fantastical starts creating an event with your contacts added as invitees.

All that’s left for you to do is enter the event info and add it to your calendar. It doesn’t matter if you are inviting one person or 20, the Fantastical Invite action has you covered!

Link a contact to your events

Keeping up with family can be hard if you are scattered all over the world. It may not be possible to take a 12-hour flight every month for a visit with your grandparents, but you can always hop on a FaceTime call to catch up with the latest family gossip. A repeating event in Fantastical is an easy way to make sure you don’t miss your monthly call, and you’ve got Granny’s info added in Cardhop. Now all you need is a way to link the two items for even easier access. 

Check out the Fantastical Event action in Cardhop — we think you’ll be pleased. This lets you create an event in Fantastical that includes a link to a second action from Cardhop. Just type “event” and add the action you want to use, followed by your contact. 

Not only will you be able to create a repeating event in Fantastical that shows up every month, but the event will also have a link added that lets you start your FaceTime call directly from Fantastical!

Now you don’t have to worry about missing the latest news on your cousin’s new relationship, and Granny doesn’t have to sit at home wondering if you’ll remember to call. 

We didn’t forget about tasks!

Sometimes you want an item that you can easily check off to show it’s been taken care of. You don’t want to have to add an event to your calendar when a task is all you need to remind you to send an email or make a quick phone call. No worries! We made sure to include tasks in the mix when creating the new actions in Cardhop so you can easily attach a contact to those as well. 

Start by typing “task” in Cardhop and follow that with the action you want to take and the contact’s name.

Instead of an event, Fantastical will start creating a task so that you can fill in the remaining details and quickly add it to your calendar.

When it’s time to send your email, you can start your draft directly from the task in Fantastical with the contact details already included. No more switching between programs and scrambling to find the correct contact information, it’s all available with one tap of the finger or click of your mouse.

Learn more

Want to find out more about the available actions in Cardhop that you can use with our new event and task actions? Simply type a ? in the Cardhop parser and scroll down to the Actions section.

You can also find a complete list of actions in our Support pages for Cardhop on the Mac  and Cardhop on iOS.

If you have any questions, just reach out to our Support team, and as always, keep an eye out for more tips and tricks on the Flexireads blog! 

We could go on and on about the history of DST as a productivity hack (did you know Benjamin Franklin first proposed the idea in his “An Economical Project” written in 1784 to keep ‘the sluggards’ from using too much candle wax?), and we’re sure you all have opinions on how useful or chaotic this change actually is… but we’re all about being flexible here, and the important thing is that DST exists (for now, at least) and we have to get through it somehow.

Fantastical is here to help

If you have travel time notifications enabled, of course Fantastical will remind you get to that appointment on time, no matter what the clock on your microwave says.

And, while Fantastical can’t help you change the time on your microwave, it can make it easier to schedule things with your European friends while we wait for them to do their own time lord routine later this month.

In Settings > Advanced you will find multiple ways to bend time zones to your will.

Show second time zone in day and week view adds a second timeline on the right of your calendar so you can visually see the different time zone right on your calendar.

Show favorite time zones with event details puts those time zones right in front of you when you are creating new events. This feature is particularly wonderful if you need to juggle multiple time zones when scheduling meetings.

And time zone override shows you what your schedule will look like in any time zone, whether that’s a preview of what next week’s meeting will look like with the time change or planning ahead for a summer camping trip out west.

For those of us who are frustrated by this timely dance, there is, perhaps, hope on the horizon. It seems as though this discussion crops up every year and nothing comes of it, but the EU and Canada and the United States all have promising legislation in progress. The EU voted in 2019 to scrap the time change, and several Canadian provinces have passed legislation making DST permanent. Last year the US Senate unanimously approved a bill allowing permanent DST in all US States, and the bill was reintroduced to the House on March 6 of this year. If it passes there, this might be the last time we have to dig out the owner’s manual for our microwaves.

For now, you can trust that Fantastical has your back, no matter what time it is where you are.