Skip to Content

How to Create an Electronic Calendar for Family or Small Business

Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Additionally, I may get commissions for purchases made through other affiliate links in this post.

With the start of a new school year, it’s the time to get organized. And, with 2 adults and 4 kids with different schedules – our days tend to get a little crazy.

Today, I’m going to share how I (cheaply!) created an electronic calendar. The more organized my family life is, the more successful my small business is. Of course, you could use the calendar for your business, too.

How to Create an Electronic Family Calendar - cuttingforbusiness.com.

My previous solution was a framed dry erase calendar similar to the one below. (Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3ex8kaE.)

This calendar worked well – when I could get the family members to use it. And, when there were no last minute changes and the calendar didn’t get updated. The biggest problem though? I was constantly chasing down family members to write their events on the calendar. Quite often, the events never made it to our dry erase calendar.

So, I was in the market for a better solution. I kept seeing Facebook ads for the Skylight Calendar. If you aren’t familiar with it, Skylight is an electronic calendar that you can access through their screen and a phone app. I loved the calendar, but it doesn’t hang on the wall – and it is expensive at $300 and an optional monthly plan.

Like many families right now, we’ve tightened down our household budgets with the rising prices of life. But, I still needed a calendar.

What I did have was an old tv sitting around not being used. After some research, I found some software called Mango Display. It allows you to build a custom calendar and integrate it with your Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Microsoft Calendar.

Step-by-Step Tutorial to Create an Electronic Calendar

  1. Find a screen to use. You could use an iPad, an Android tablet, or a tv, depending on how large of a screen you want to use. I used an old flat panel tv that didn’t have a browser. This means that I needed to buy an Amazon Fire Stick – or something else to connect to the internet.
  2. Head to the Mango Display. Before you commit to a plan, know that all plans have a 30 day free trial.

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

3. Click the ‘Get Started’ button in the top right corner. After setting up your account, click ‘Add New Display’.

4. Choose the screen type you will be using. For my calendar, I used ‘Mango Display Amazon Fire App’.

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

4. Name your calendar, choose a theme, and click the ‘Next’ button.

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

5. Download the Mango Display App on your device, open it, and get your code. Enter the code and click the ‘Next’ button.

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

6. Choose your layout. To set up my calendar, I chose a blank layout.

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

7. Click the green ‘+’ symbol in bottom corner to add widgets. Drag the widgets around to rearrange them. Click each widget, then click the pencil icon to control how the information in the widget displays or click the trash can to delete the widget. My calendar looks like this:

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

My calendar when displayed looks like this:

Screenshot - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

The top left widget is a calendar that is displayed as a list. It displays the next handful of events. The widget below this is the weather. The widget below the weather is the clock. The large calendar is connected to my Google Calendar.

9. To add events to my Google Calendar, I can either access calendar.google.com on a browser or through the phone app. I also added the Google Calendar app to my kid’s devices and they can add events as well. For our family of 6, it was easiest to use a family calendar on Google since we have a mix of Apple and Android phones.

Pricing for Mango Display

View full pricing options for Mango Display.

Pricing - Mango Display - Home Command Center - cuttingforbusiness.com.

So, will you be creating an electronic calendar? Or maybe you will just buy one? Or are you sticking with a more traditional calendar? Let me know in the comments.

One more thing. This post is not sponsored by Skylight or Mango Display. I created an electronic wall calendar for my family and everyone that comes to our home asks about it. So, I’m sharing it with you.

Amy Lewis

Tuesday 26th of September 2023

This was super helpful. I’m going to create one for my family.

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Friday 29th of September 2023

Happy to share!

Jacqui

Thursday 31st of August 2023

What plan did you choose with Mango Display, I am guessing the $2.99 plan but then that only allows one calendar and you seem to have several colors on your calendar, so is that more than one calendar? I also tried the family calendar on Google, it made all events the same color so you would need to change them for each person, it also did not have a shareable link so how would you be able to share it to Mango display. I love the idea but I feel like I would have to pay at least $60 a year or the $5.99 monthly plan for a family of four, which to me is a little expensive given that I do not need all the added features like chores, etc.

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Thursday 7th of September 2023

Yes, I have the $5.99 plan. For me, the cost of staying organized with 6 family members is worth it.

Ginger

Friday 25th of August 2023

Why not just post a family Google calendar on a screen?

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Monday 28th of August 2023

I'm all ears! How would you post your Google Calendar to a TV screen that stays on throughout the day without being tethered directly to a phone or computer?

Kelly Tussing

Wednesday 2nd of August 2023

This could be the solution to all my problems!! My only concern is burn through on my monitor. I am guessing that you keep your calendar monitor "On" most of the time so everyone can see and use it. Have you had any problems with the calendar being burned into your monitor?

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Thursday 3rd of August 2023

The calendar refreshes every few minutes, so I think that helps prevent the burn. We turn ours off at night, and haven't experienced any issues. Hope that helps!

Jennifer

Saturday 6th of May 2023

I absolutely love this and in Staples right now looking at monitors, just because of this awesome idea!

What size monitor did you use? Do you wish it was larger? Smaller?

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Monday 8th of May 2023

I used a 37 inch TV. Works great! I think it is a pretty good size.