During my school years, paper planners were my favorite organization tool. But as an adult with a more chaotic daily life and multiple family members’ schedules to balance, traditional planners simply haven’t been up to the task. In my search for the perfect platform to manage many moving parts and my ever-growing to-do list, I landed on the Skylight Calendar. And, frankly, the Skylight Calendar reorganized my entire life. I’ve traded in my old digital calendar, smartphone reminders, and even traditional wall calendars for this single, do-it-all app and digital display that neatly bundles every upcoming activity or task into a color-coded, easy-to-understand format that keeps me on track and on time. It’s made managing the mental load so much easier, and I’ve been more on top of everything. My hair stylist is thrilled I’m not forgetting appointments and I’m not toggling between tabs anymore (either mentally or physically) to figure out where my entire family is supposed to be or what we’ve forgotten. The TL;DR: It’s worth it. Credit: Amazon The Skylight Calendar Will Organize Your Entire Life (And Make It Feel Easy) To get into the basics, the Skylight Calendar is a planner in two formats: a large, easy-to-read digital display and a smartphone app. The 15-inch digital display I have looks like a sleek digital photo frame. (I have the Aura Carver digital picture frame for displaying my favorite memories in a streamlined way, too; but that’s a conversation for later.) You can choose from three different calendar sizes: 10, 15, or 27 inches. The 15-inch calendar is the most popular and, at an overall size of 15.8 x 9.9 x 1.4 inches, it fits pretty seamlessly on countertops and desks—which is likely why it’s so popular. It can even be mounted to a wall in a central location within your home; say, the kitchen or your entryway The Skylight Calendar display makes it easy to see an overview or detailed view of your schedule. Credit: The Spruce More elevated and stylish than other options—with beveled edges and a photo-frame-worthy mat—the bright digital display is easy to read, too, even with a little glare. (I can see mine from my desk that sits a few feet away). And thanks to subtle brightness and power controls built into the top of the calendar’s frame, you can control its appearance with just a single touch. I love how visually appealing the Skylight Calendar makes a jam-packed calendar look, too. You can choose how you’d like your events to appear, setting the view to monthly, weekly, or filtered by person. Thanks to the calendar’s color-coding system, I set custom colors for my husband, son, and I—and when I look at the display, I can tell in mere seconds who has events or tasks coming up for the day and week. With 16GB of storage, you can add plenty of to-dos and calendar events. Plus, with access, you can invite your partner, co-parent, friends, and even older kids so they can add, adjust, and view your calendar as needed, meaning even less mental notes for you. Getting Started With the Skylight Calendar To get to all of this functionality, you start by making a Skylight account. It’s relatively easy, so you’ll have your calendar up and running in a matter of minutes. The biggest issue with paper planners and even other digital calendars? It’s not easy to sync multiple family members’ calendars in one clean, neatly organized location. The Skylight does let you sync individual calendars, including your Google Calendars, right in the app from the start. You can also manually add new events, and then attach or assign them to the certain members of your household. From there, the calendar will color-coordinate your views so you can see who’s involved in different events at a daily, weekly, or monthly level. At first, I attempted to sync my Google Calendar, but it wound up duplicating my events. It took some adjusting (on the Google side of things, not the Skylight app) before the existing events on both my calendar and my husband’s were properly reflected. It’s easy to customize the display to see family calendars or streamlined individual calendars. Credit: The Spruce And pro tip: If anyone in your household has a particularly complex work calendar, you may not want to sync it to your Skylight Calendar. While it has the ability to display (and import) multiple Google calendars so you can bring home, work, and school life into one place, that might be too much info. Importing all four of my husband’s calendars, for example, resulted in our brand-new calendar looking overwhelmingly booked and busy. It gave me anxiety just looking at the 14-plus events displayed on any given day. Fewer calendars can make for a better experience. Once everything is set up, my favorite view is the monthly one, and it’s particularly handy how the calendar displays each event start time clearly, in descending order, so you can lay out the entire day. I also love that you can choose whether you’d like to see your personal calendar or the whole household’s. I keep our display on the family view, but when I’m scheduling something new, it’s easy to toggle between myself, my husband, my son, and even our cat. (He has places to be, too!) Features That Make the Skylight Calendar Your Home’s Hub While the calendar is the main draw of both Skylight’s display and app, the platform actually does a lot more than merely function as a digital planner. One of my favorite “extras” is the list functionality. When you first begin using the Skylight app, you’ll see two preset lists: a to-do list and grocery list. However, you can go above and beyond these options, adding as many lists as you’d like. You can’t add deadlines or set reminders like you can with iPhone reminders, which is a slight annoyance—but it’s handy for shared to-dos within a family. Within each list, you can further customize your to-dos by organizing them into categories. I like to organize my to-dos by family member, but you can divvy up your grocery list by store or food category, organize work tasks by due date, or even add your TBR list based on book type. Creating to-do lists, shopping lists, and other checklists is seamless in the Skylight app. Credit: The Spruce In addition to organizing your to-do list, grocery shopping and meal planning, and even helping you get dressed in the morning (it displays the weather!), this smart calendar also offers a task manager to help kids stay on top of their own routines and chores. Plus, with the ability to customize the view, set parental locks (so no one deletes their chores, adults included!), and link an endless number of accounts and calendars, the Skylight quickly, and welcomingly, becomes your home’s hub. There is one feature missing: The Skylight Calendar doesn’t offer any apps or web access on its display. It doesn’t include microphones or built-in voice assistants, either. In my opinion, that’s a positive. Unlike other smart home hubs that connect, well, everything, this calendar hones in on what it does best and eliminates distractions. (Plus, if you have screen-loving kids in your home, there’s no opportunity for them to take control and put Paw Patrol on repeat.) Yes, There’s a Subscription—But You Don’t Need It To access all of the available features, you will need to purchase the digital display and pay a subscription fee of $79 per year. That subscription fee goes towards Skylight’s optional Plus Plan, which includes: The ability to turn your calendar’s display into a digital photo screensaverMeal planningMagic Import, which scans emails and PDFs to automatically add events to the calendarRewards, an incentive program for kids In my opinion, the Skylight Calendar is already such a great tool without the addition of the Plus Plan that there’s really no need to pay an additional annual fee. You can access the most important—and most beneficial, in my opinion—features without this extra. However, if you want to offload more of the mental load each week, the Plus Plan does offer some cool, AI-driven features that can do the heavy lifting for you during peak seasons like back-to-school and the holidays. I recommend trying the Skylight Calendar without the Plus Plan first, then adding it later if you find you do want to tap into those extras. Is the Skylight Calendar Worth It? After using the Skylight Calendar for a year, I’m never going back. This is truly the only calendar I need (and want) to use. It’s taken my schedule from messy and scattered to streamlined and easy to read. It’s also hard to beat the shareable design of both the Skylight Calendar and its accompanying app. All of the different calendars and digital planners I’ve used previously made sharing and syncing a total headache. The Skylight Calendar makes it a breeze to sync my schedule with my husband’s, and I can even have both sets of grandparents add events for the family. Perhaps most importantly, the Skylight Calendar is well worth its price tag for those attempting to juggle various household tasks. Keeping track of the chores (and who’s brushed their teeth today), cross-checking your grocery list, and even honing in on individual schedules is all made simpler with this gorgeous display, easing the mental load once and for all. It’s saved me so much time and energy, I’m already thinking about buying the bigger version on Black Friday to mount in my kitchen. The sky’s the limit. Why Trust The Spruce? I’m Heather Adams, senior editor at The Spruce—and when I’m not juggling deadlines for products I’m testing, I’m balancing my schedule with toddler play dates, appointments, and all-too-frequent snacks. As someone who previously loved a handwritten to-do list and physical planners, I’ve been using my Skylight Calendar in my home for a year now. 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