Get Googley Ep. 4 - Calendar Hacks for the New Year

Daily Resource / December 15th, 2022

We are four episodes deep into Get Googley and I just keep digging into my comedic tool belt (which is very shallow). This time it was writing New Year’s resolutions. Which as an aside, I am a big proponent of and usually try to fulfill at least one or two for the whole year. Last year it was reading 100 pages of a book a day (closing in on 60,000 pages this week) and remaining vegetarian (minus 1-2 mistakes I achieved it). So, I love the framework for building out goals for the new year.

Myself included, most educators I work with share a desire to be more organized in their day-to-day work as a teacher. A great place to start, if you are a Google user, is to use your calendar to be more organized. One of the tips seems like a small one, setting up your timezones on Calendar, but I cannot count the times that this has helped me to be on time for meetings starting in different timezones. Other tips like cal.new or creating appointment slots are fantastic ways to engage your calendar to help you be more effective as an educator with your time. However, my favorite tip is the new Focus Time slot for scheduling. Every educator needs time to focus on recharging their batteries in their job, but many times this is during their prep hour or before/after school and that time gets short-changed with interruptions or other job requirements. Although I am just starting to use it, it is a great tool for setting aside a specific time when you cannot be scheduled to do the work that you need to do with a larger measure of concentration. Check out how to use this and other tips and tricks in the video above or at this link.