What Happened After I Created a Calendar Just for Our Family

"Everyone knows Mom has a doctor's appointment on Saturday, right?"

That's what I posted in our family group chat on Monday morning. Then, on Saturday morning, my sibling called.

"Hey, what time was that doctor's appointment again?"

In the meantime, the group chat had been flooded with 40 photos of my nephew, three YouTube links, and "What should we have for dinner?". Monday's announcement was already lost somewhere in the digital ether.

Honestly, our family didn't give up easily. We tried a paper calendar on the fridge, pinned announcements in the group chat, and even shared a Google Calendar. But only those at home saw the paper calendar, group chat announcements got buried by photos, and my parents could never quite get the hang of Google Calendar. After three calls about them being unable to log in, I gave up.

So today, I want to talk about a calendar just for our family. We've been using it for four months now, and quite a few things that used to be impossible are now commonplace.

This is my calendar. The apricot color is our family space, showing appointments added by Mom and my sibling. The blue is for my running crew, and the padlock icon indicates events only I can see.

Group Chat Announcements Get Lost. Really.

Group chats are for casual conversation. Even if you post an event, it gets pushed up by the next photo. Even if you pin it, you'll still end up asking, "What time was it again?"

Now, we have a space called 'Our Home' where we post our events. It's just me, my wife, my parents, and my sibling – only the six of us. Events posted here don't disappear. They stay on the date they were set. When someone adds something new, the rest of us get a notification, so we don't need to send separate messages like, "Check the calendar~".

My biggest concern was my parents. But it turned out to be surprisingly simple. I sent them an invite link, they clicked it, logged in, and that was it. My dad found clicking the link a bit bothersome, so I read him a 6-digit code over the phone, which he found even easier. Considering the three calls I got with Google Calendar, this was a moment of triumph.

This is our family member list. Clicking 'Invite' shows both a link and a 6-digit code.

"Is This Visible to My Colleagues?"

We stopped using Google Calendar not because of its features, but because of the unease. Every time I shared, I'd find myself double-checking, "I didn't accidentally make this public, did I?". I was even more careful when posting photos of the kids.

The space I use now can only be accessed by invited members. It's not searchable or recommended, so only family members see what's in our family space. This surprisingly provides a lot of peace of mind.

Additionally, you can set permissions for events, photos, and posts within each space to "Disable / View Only / Co-edit". For our family space with my parents, we set it so everyone can edit events, but they can only view photos. For the space my wife and I share for the kids, we both co-edit photos and everything else. Once you set it up, you don't have to worry about it anymore.

You can set separate permissions for events, photos, and posts in each space.

I Wanted to Stop Asking "Did You See?" and "Did You Do It?"

With a paper calendar or a group chat, the most frustrating part is after something is posted. You can't know if everyone saw it or if a task is completed, which inevitably leads to phone calls.

Now, each event shows who posted it, and a completion check is visible to the whole family. If an event like "Pick up Mom's prescription" is checked off, you don't need to ask, "Did you get the prescription?". Recurring weekly events are only checked off for the current week, so completing it this week doesn't mean it's done for next week.

And this might seem trivial, but it's surprisingly useful: Emoji reactions. When my sibling posts "Visit family home Saturday," I'll tap a 👍. It's like typing "OK" in a chat, but without creating a messy conversation thread, which I appreciate. Mom just taps ❤️.

When you tap on the 22nd, it looks like this. Completed tasks are checked off, and 👍2 ❤️1 are reactions from family members.

No More Fights Over Notifications

When we used Google Calendar together, notifications were a subtle source of conflict. If I changed it to "1 hour before," it would also ring an hour before for my wife, and if she changed it to "the evening before," I'd be startled by a notification the evening before. There was only one notification per event.

Now, we share the event date and time, but notifications are set individually. My wife gets an alert the evening before for kindergarten events, while I get one on the morning of. Changing your own notification doesn't affect anyone else's. It seems obvious, but not many calendars offer this.

For family members who don't open the app often, home screen widgets were the answer. I set up a monthly widget on my father's phone, and now he can see the week's schedule on the widget without me having to tell him to "Open the app."

Tapping a date shows 'My Notifications' and 'Repeat'. Changing 'My Notifications' only affects your own.

No More Searching for Lunar Birthdays at the Start of the Year

My mom's birthday and my grandmother's memorial service are on the lunar calendar. Every January, my job used to be flipping through the calendar to find the Gregorian date for the year and posting it in the group chat. One year, I got the date wrong by a day, and the whole family gathered a day early. I'll leave the atmosphere of that day to your imagination.

Now, if you register an anniversary as lunar, it automatically updates to the Gregorian date each year. You even get notifications a week or a day before. Family anniversaries are listed in D-day order, so you don't get confused about "What's next?" Public holidays are included by default, and even sudden public holidays are reflected without app updates.

Anniversaries are grouped by D-day. Mom's birthday is registered as Lunar 7.15, and that's it.

My Appointments Are Mine Alone, Work Events Are Just Slightly Overlapping

However, to use a family calendar long-term, you also need a way to keep things private. You don't want your dentist appointment or friend meetups cluttering the family calendar.

When you create an account, you get a personal space for yourself by default. Events added here appear alongside family events on your calendar, but they don't exist for your family members at all. Each space has a different color, so you can instantly distinguish between family and personal events.

As for work events, I keep them in my Google Calendar. Instead, I subscribe to the calendar and view them overlaid on my Davie calendar. No account linking required; just paste the calendar URL. It works with Google, iCloud, and Outlook. Overlaid events appear as faint backgrounds, so they don't conflict with family events, and they aren't visible to the family. This eliminates the excuse, "I can't use the family calendar because of work."

My → Calendar Subscription. Choose between Google, Outlook, or Apple and paste the URL.

Mom Now Adds Appointments by Voice

My mom really dislikes typing on her phone. That's why she always used to ask me to add her appointments. But after I showed her voice appointment creation, she started adding them herself.

She taps the + at the bottom of the screen, then the microphone, and says, "Wednesday next week, 2 PM, dentist." The app recommends an event with the date and time filled in. All she has to do is confirm. It even separates multiple events spoken at once. I still remember her excitement the first time she succeeded, saying, "Oh, it actually works!"

It organizes like this. Choose a space and tap 'Add'.

Having Photos from the Day Next to the Event

I mentioned this in a previous post, but it's too good to leave out. If you upload a few photos on the same date you visited your family home, they'll appear alongside the event when you view that day later. Group chat photos are hard to find and often expire. Here, they're tied to the date, so you can instantly recall, "What did we do last year during Chuseok?" Even if my parents don't upload photos, they see their grandchildren's pictures in the news feed and give them a like. That's enough.

Honestly, There Are Still Things I Wish Were Better

Perhaps because I'm the creator, I notice them more.

• You still can't make a single event private. Currently, if you want something just for yourself, you have to put it in your personal space.
• Calendar subscriptions only allow viewing. To edit a subscribed event, you have to do it in the original app, and you can only subscribe to 5 calendars. You can copy individual events to 'Import to My Events,' but bulk transfer isn't possible yet.
• Creating new spaces is only possible on mobile. The Mac/Windows apps and browser version only allow you to use existing spaces.

I'll write again on the blog once these are fixed.

So, It's Been Four Months

There haven't been any grand changes. But the "What time was it?" questions have disappeared from our group chat, I no longer search for lunar birthdays at the start of the year, and Mom has started adding her own appointments.

Looking back, the reason family calendars failed us three times wasn't because it was too much effort to write things down. It was because we didn't have a convenient space just for us. A place where we don't have to worry about who can see it, where we don't have to ask again if someone saw it or did it, and where we can see family events together while keeping our personal appointments private. Once we had that, we started using it consistently.

If you're looking for a calendar to use with your family, give it a try. It's free. You can download the app here, or open it directly in your browser at davie.im/app. If you encounter any issues while using it, please let us know through the 'Send Feedback' option within the app. We read every message personally.

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This post was written for the AiDive blog, where we create Davie. It reflects the experiences of the creator using the app with their own family.