How to build routines with Google Calendar

Hey students, what’s up? It’s me, Seth, and in this video I’m going to teach you how to use your Google Calendar to help set up some great routines in your life.

Now, why would you even want to do that? Most of you watching my stuff are middle school, high school, or college students. So why would you want to set up routines?

Here’s why: the main reason is because you want to have a great life — not a mediocre life, and definitely not a bad life with a future full of limited choices. You want a future with unlimited possibilities, choices, opportunities, and a high quality of life.

Okay, cool. You already know that. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that you, me, and many of the students I work with who struggle with executive function also struggle to implement routines and habits that will help us get there.

What we tend to do is procrastinate:
“I’m not motivated.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Why do I have to do this?”
“This is stupid.”
“I’ll do it in five minutes.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Leave me alone. I’ve got this.”

But the evidence shows that we often don’t have it.

What happens is that we lie to ourselves. We have good intentions, but we often don’t follow through and do what needs to be done to create that great future.

So I want you to think about this: your life is like a garden.

What I mean by that is you want to plant seeds for things that are fruitful, nutritious, and valuable — things that sustain you, nourish you, and help you feel healthy, alive, and vibrant.

What you don’t want to do is let your garden grow wild, because weeds will take over.

And think about what “weeds” in life are:

* Bad relationships
* Bad careers
* Bad jobs
* Feeling bad about yourself
* Anxiety
* Depression
* Financial struggles

Now, if you’re in middle school, high school, or college, it might be hard to see that far ahead. But that’s exactly why building habits and routines is critical.

You want to plant seeds for an exceptional life — a life full of choices, opportunities, and possibilities.

So how do we do that?

It’s not easy.

For people with strong executive function, routines are much easier. They tend to have more motivation, procrastinate less, and are better at seeing goals and implementing them.

But for people like us, we drag our feet. We create problems for ourselves. We fall behind, get overwhelmed, give up, and think:
“I don’t even want to try.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s a huge mountain to climb.”

That’s why we need systems.

And in this video, I’m going to show you how to use your Google Calendar to build routines in a really easy way.

My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach in Colorado. If you like this video or what I’m doing, give me a thumbs up, leave a comment on YouTube, share it with people — whatever you want. Check out my blog too.

Alright, so let’s get started.

Go ahead and open up your Google Calendar. It should look something like this.

At this point, it highlights the current day, and you should already have some categories set up. Usually, I help my middle school, high school, and college students create categories like:

* School
* Family
* Fun
* Important
* Wellness

The other two categories are usually default settings from Google.

Today, I’m going to show you how to create:

* A morning routine
* An evening routine

And I’m going to place them under the “Wellness” category.

If you look at my Wellness calendar already, you’ll see workouts scheduled on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Now let’s turn on the School calendar because I created a sample schedule for you.

Let’s say:

* 9:00 AM = Language Arts
* Study block
* Other school tasks

Inside this schedule, I also created:

* A morning routine
* A bedtime routine

The first thing you want to do is create a new category. In this example, we’ll call it “Wellness.” Then you can title the event “Morning Routine” or whatever you want.

You can also add a description.

I already created one as an example, so you can pause the video later and build your own.

Now let’s open the Morning Routine in editor view because it’s easier to see there.

Let’s say the routine starts at 8:00 AM.

The category is Wellness, and the routine might look like this:

* Wake up
* Brush teeth
* Stretch for 5 minutes
* Do 15 push-ups
* Run a mile
* Do 15 more push-ups
* Take a shower
* Meditation or stillness
* Eat a healthy breakfast

A lot of students forget basic routines like brushing their teeth because they haven’t built the habit yet. So if that’s something you struggle with, put it into your routine.

What I’m trying to show you is that you can create a healthy, structured morning in only about 30 minutes.

After my workout and shower, I like to do meditation or stillness. I sit quietly, close my eyes, and start my day with positivity.

Then I might add reminders like:

* Have an awesome day
* Bring good energy everywhere I go
* Be present with people
* Push myself positively

Those are things I personally like to remember during my day.

Now, once I save this morning routine, I’m going to make one important change: I’ll set it to repeat daily.

Then I’ll change the color to red.

Why red?

Because red reminds me that I still need to complete it.

Now, let’s say I actually complete my morning routine today. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but I did it pretty well. I can change the event color from red to green.

What’s cool is that now, visually, I can see my progress.

Green means:
“I accomplished this.”

Red means:
“I still need to do this.”

This is incredibly important for people who struggle with executive function because visual progress trackers help us stay motivated and aware.

You can customize your morning routine however you want.

Now let’s look at a bedtime routine.

For example:

* 9:00 PM = Digital shutdown

For me, “digital shutdown” means completely turning off my computer — not just closing it. I also don’t charge devices near where I sleep because I don’t want the temptation to check them at night.

I also turn my phone completely off — not airplane mode, fully off.

A lot of people say:
“But I need my phone alarm.”

Personally, I use a separate alarm clock because my phone is too tempting if I wake up in the middle of the night.

So after my digital shutdown, I might:

* Review my day
* Do a “temperature check”
* Reflect on what went well
* Think about what could make tomorrow better

For example:
“How was my day from 1–10?”

If it was an 8, I ask:
“What would have made it a 9?”

Maybe:

* I should’ve gone to bed earlier
* I should’ve connected more with people
* I should’ve apologized for something
* I should’ve focused more on my goals instead of distractions

After that:

* Sit quietly for a bit
* Plan tomorrow for five minutes
* Brush teeth
* Do breath work
* Read something fun
* Be asleep by 10:30

That might be your bedtime routine.

Again, you can create routines however you want. I’m just giving you examples.

You can build:

* Fitness routines
* Homework routines
* Wake-up routines
* Bedtime routines
* Decluttering routines
* Study routines
* Hobby routines

Whatever goals, dreams, or habits you want to build, routines help make them real.

And that’s the important part:
You can’t just wish for routines.

You have to make them visible and real.

Using Google Calendar like this helps because you see your routines every single day. You can refine them, adjust them, and improve them over time.

Another thing I often do is print routines and put them on the wall.

For example:

* Fitness routines
* Hiking routines
* Productivity systems

Sometimes I even use a giant wall calendar.

The point is:
You can’t just keep everything in your head.

Why?

Because people like us often forget. We have good intentions, but we don’t always follow through.

So we need systems that make our goals visible.

Now, one last thing I want to show you is Google Keep.

If you click this button here, you can open Google Keep, which is connected to your Google account.

I showed you this in another video, but what I want to emphasize here is that you can copy your routine from Google Calendar into Google Keep.

For example, let’s say your morning routine includes:

* Push-ups
* Sit-ups
* Waking up at 8
* Brushing teeth
* Stretching

As you complete each task, you can check it off.

What’s cool is that Google Keep crosses out completed tasks automatically. At the end of the day, you can uncheck everything to reset the list for tomorrow.

It’s a really powerful visual reinforcement system.

Now, I don’t want you using a million systems because that can get overwhelming. I want you to use something realistic and doable.

But this is a simple, effective way to build routines.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you.

My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach in Colorado.

If you liked this video:

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What do you do to build routines?

Do you have any tips that could help other people watching this?

What gets you stuck?
What gets in your own way?
What stories do you tell yourself that keep you procrastinating?

Leave a comment below and let us know.

I hope you’re well, safe, healthy, and happy. I hope you have some peace of mind today, and I hope you connect with some people today.

Take care.