Google Calendar rolling out ‘Time Insights’ that show how much time you spend in meetings

Abner Li | Aug 30 2021 - 2:31 pm PT

To help employees better manage their day, Google Calendar is introducing new “Time Insights” that let paid Workspace users see “how [their] time is spent across meetings and collaborators.”

Announced for Calendar back in March, Google calls Time Insights a “personalized, analytical experience.” The goal of these stats is to:

With the changes to our working environments in the past year, some people have more meetings and may feel less control over how their work time is spent. Time Insights can show you this data, and help you plan your time better.

Google explicitly notes that this information is “visible to you, not your manager” amid criticism of other analytics attempts done by other companies and products. However:

If you manage other people’s calendars and have “manage sharing access” permission to those calendars, you can view their Time Insights.

This side panel first shows a “Time breakdown” based on the “working hours” you manually set in Calendar and the types of meetings you have (1:1, 3+ guests, “Need to respond,” and everything else over the course of a workweek).

The “Time in meetings” stat shows what day most of your meetings fall on and the daily average over several weeks. Lastly, there’s a “People you meet with” section:

Showing who you spend the most time meeting with. You can also pin key stakeholders to make sure you’re keeping in touch with them. Hovering over an individual will also highlight the meetings on your calendar that include that person

This information is only available on the web with a “More Insights” button (graph icon) opening the panel. While it’s on by default, Workspace admins can disable it for a company. It’s rolling out now and will be available to more users throughout September:

Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Nonprofits customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, and Frontline, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers