Google Calendar update: Find how much time you spent in meetings

Google Calendar update: Managing time has become challenging ever since the Covid-19 pandemic fainted the difference between work and home. While many tools have been rolled out to make working from home and disconnecting from our smartphones easier, none of the tools has given us a reality check of how much time we spend in meetings until now. "We'll also be delivering Time Insights to Google Workspace users (visible to the employee only, not their manager) so that employees can assess how they're spending their time against their own priorities," Google had said at the time.

Google, back in March 2021, promised to roll out an update to Google Calendar that would help Google Workspace users manage their time in meetings better way. Google had promised to achieve this via a feature called Time Insights, which would 'help employees assess how they were spending their time against their own priorities.' Months later, Google kept its word and rolled out Time Insights on Google Calendar to all Workspace users.

Google Calendar Time Insight feature, as the company explains, will give "a personalized, analytical experience on the web, to see how your time is spent across meetings and collaborators." A screenshot of the feature shared by the company gives us a glimpse of the kind of insights that the feature will share with the users. On the top, there is a 'Time Breakdown' pie chart, which shows how much of a user's working hours are spent in meetings, which is further divided into meetings with one person vs meetings with larger groups. It also gives weekly insights and the highlights of which are the busiest days of a week.

Google Calendar Time Insights are visible only to the concerned employees and not their managers. But Google on its support page in an update mentioned that "if you manage other people's calendars and have "manage sharing access" permission to those calendars, you can view their Time Insights."