With multiple meetings and obligations throughout the week, it can be difficult for you to carve out time for your individual work.

To help protect your time and reduce distractions while you work, Google has introduced a new event type called Focus time.

When you create a new focus time event, you will appear busy to others and have the option to automatically decline new and/or existing meetings (similar to an Out of Office event).

Additionally, your schedule focus time will also be tracked in your Time Insights.

Note: Focus time events can only be created in Day or Week view. 

Availability
The feature will begin rolling out to accounts this week, but may take up to 15 days to reach all accounts. Please visit the please visit the Google Workspace Learning Center to learn more about Focus Time calendar events.

You can now chat with meeting attendees directly from Google Calendar. Within the Calendar event on web or mobile, you will see a Chat icon next to the guest list — simply select this icon to create a group chat containing all event participants. This makes it simple to chat with guests before, during, or after any meeting. The email and chat options are side by side on a calendar event. This can help you quickly choose whichever form of communication you prefer, and start conversations with just a few taps.

Note: Chat will only be available to participants within the domain, external attendees will not be included in the chat group. 

Availability
The feature will begin rolling out to accounts last week, but may take up to 15 days to reach all accounts. Please visit the Google Workspace Learning Center to learn more about Chatting with attendees.

You can now use Google Calendar's Time Insights to see how your time is spent across meetings and collaborators.

With Time Insights, you will see the following information:

• Time breakdown: How you are using your time based on your working hours and the types of meetings you have.
• Time in meeting: Highlights your meeting-heavy days and time frames, as well as meeting frequencies.
• People you meet with: Shows who you spend the most time meeting with.

This information is visible only to you and those that you have granted “manage sharing access” permission with.

Availability

The feature will begin rolling out to accounts today, but may take up to 15 days to reach all accounts. Please visit the Google Workspace Learning Center to learn more about Time Insights.