Never miss a meeting when you step away from your laptop
Your laptop reminds you of meetings, but only while you’re sitting in front of it. Step away to make coffee or answer the door, and the reminder pops up on an empty desk. Here’s how to get it on your phone instead, in a way you’ll notice.
In short: put your work calendar on your phone, give its reminders a sound you’ll hear, set them early enough to get back to your desk, and check what silences your phone. If a notification is still too easy to miss, use an alarm instead.
Why the laptop’s reminder doesn’t reach you
Outlook and Teams show their reminders on the screen you’re working on. Your phone only reminds you if your work calendar is on it, and even then the reminder is a normal notification: one short sound and a small banner at the top of the screen, gone after a few seconds. If your phone is face down, in another room or on silent, you won’t notice it.
1. Put your work calendar on your phone
- Outlook or Teams at work: install Outlook for Android and sign in with your work account. Teams meetings are in your Outlook calendar, so Outlook reminds you of them too. Teams on its own only tells you when a meeting has started (see our Teams guide).
- Google Workspace at work: add your work account to Google Calendar on your phone.
Some companies manage work phones and decide what apps may do. If a setting here is blocked, your IT team can tell you what’s allowed.
2. Give reminders a sound you’ll hear
Android lets you choose a separate sound for each kind of notification an app sends, so calendar reminders don’t have to sound like every message. Pick something longer and louder than your usual notification sound, and let it pop up on the screen. Our guides show where those settings are for Google Calendar and for Outlook.
3. Set reminders early enough
A reminder 15 minutes before is easy to brush off and forget. One at the start doesn’t leave time to walk back. If you often work away from your desk, try 5 minutes, or two reminders: one 10 minutes before and one a minute before.
4. Check what silences your phone
- Silent and vibrate: notifications make no sound when your phone is on silent. Alarms still ring.
- Do Not Disturb: it silences notifications, calendar reminders included, unless you let your calendar app through.
- Battery saving: some phones put apps to sleep to save battery, and their reminders come late or not at all. Take your calendar app off the phone’s sleeping or restricted list.
- Teams: its When active on other devices setting keeps your phone quiet while Teams thinks you’re at your computer. Turn it off if you miss meetings when you step away.
If you wear a watch that shows your phone’s notifications, your reminders usually show on it too. A tap on the wrist is hard to miss.
5. Use an alarm instead
A notification is made to be easy to ignore. An alarm isn’t: it rings until you do something, on the lock screen and on silent. Setting one by hand for every meeting is tedious, and it doesn’t move when the meeting does. That’s what a meeting alarm app is for.