Students: How to GoogleCal your Life

Students, what’s up? This is me, Seth. In this video, I’m going to show you how to make your life easier by creating a Google Calendar.

Now, if you are a student who tends to struggle with executive function — meaning you feel resistant, like:
“I don’t want to do this,”
“I don’t need to do this,”
“My teacher always sends updates anyway,”
“It’s already in my email,”
“I’ll do it later,”
“I’ll do it tomorrow,”
or “I’ll do it in five minutes” —
basically, if you procrastinate, resist, or make excuses, then I really want to encourage you to think about this differently.

For any goal you have in life, you need good planning methods. What I’m about to show you is going to make your life easier on multiple levels.

I’m going to show you how to set up a Google Calendar to make your life easier. It’s going to give you more time for fun and free time, less stress, and help you get your schoolwork done more efficiently. Ultimately, it’s going to help you have a better life. That’s the whole point here.

So, I’m going to walk you through several steps. I want you to pause the video anytime you need to and take the same actions I’m taking so you can set yourself up properly.

Here we go.

First of all, I want you to go to your Gmail account — any regular Gmail account — and click on “Calendar.” That will open Google Calendar for you.

Your calendar will probably look different from mine. It may be in week view, and this side panel may be open. What I want you to do first is create five different categories for the types of things you do.

The first category should be called “SCHOOL.” I like using all caps. To change the name, click into the settings. Right now, it probably shows your Gmail account name — change that to “SCHOOL.”

The next categories should be:

* FUN
* IMPORTANT
* WELLNESS

I also want you to create one called “FAMILY.”

Make “SCHOOL” some shade of red. You can choose any shade of red you like, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

For the others, choose colors that feel right to you:

* FUN can be any fun-looking color,
* IMPORTANT should look important,
* WELLNESS can be calming.

The key is to make the colors very different from one another.

Now I’m going to show you how to add another calendar.

Click “Add Calendar,” then “Create New Calendar,” and call this one “Family and Friends” or something similar.

I think it’s really important to spend intentional time with family and the people who matter most. Sometimes family members get on each other’s nerves, and life gets busy, but it’s important to dedicate time to people without distractions like electronics.

You can also add other calendars, like holidays or even your favorite sports team.

Once you’re done, your calendar might look something like this.

Now, what I want you to do is take your schedule and start adding things to the calendar.

For example, if you have Spanish class on Mondays at 9:00 a.m., create an event called:

“SCHOOL — Spanish”

I like adding a hyphen after the class name because after the hyphen you can write what you need to do that day. For example:

“SCHOOL — Spanish — Read page 46”

Then click save.

Now your event will appear on the calendar.

I want you to fill in your entire schedule — everything you are responsible for.

Here’s something really useful:
When you finish an assignment, you can right-click the event and change it to green.

I’m a big believer in using red and green:

* Red means stop, warning, or attention needed.
* Green means completed and good to go.

A lot of my students struggle with missing assignments, incomplete work, late submissions, test corrections, poor organization, being unprepared, and running late in general.

This system helps them track whether something is truly completed.

And here’s the important part:
Don’t turn something green just because you finished the homework. Turn it green only when it has been submitted or turned in. Green means it’s out of your hands and in the teacher’s hands, whether digitally or on paper.

Now let me show you another helpful feature.

If you click on the event and choose “Edit,” you can make it repeat.

For example, if you have Spanish every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 9:00 a.m., you can select those days and the calendar will automatically populate them for the entire semester.

If you ever want to delete one event, you can delete just that event.
If you want to delete all repeated events, choose “All Events,” and they will all disappear.

Now let’s build a complete daily routine.

Maybe your morning routine starts at 8:00 a.m.

You could create a note saying:

* Breathwork
* Meditation
* Shower
* Healthy breakfast

You can put all of that in the notes section.

You can also:

* edit notes,
* customize colors,
* add alerts,
* and personalize things however you want.

I’m not going to go into every customization because you can explore those on your own.

Now imagine:

* Morning routine at 8:00 a.m.
* Math on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00 a.m.
* History at 10:00 a.m.
* Study/focus time at 11:00 a.m.
* Electives at 2:00 p.m.
* Free time at 3:30 p.m.
* Family time at 6:30 p.m.
* Shutdown routine at 9:00 p.m.
* Bedtime around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m.

You can repeat all these events weekly.

Sometimes the calendar can feel crowded, so I recommend changing the display density to “Compact.” That makes it easier to see more events at once.

Once you’ve filled out your schedule for the entire week, here’s where it gets really powerful.

A lot of students struggle with something called “time blindness.” Time blindness is real. Many students don’t have a strong sense of how their time is actually being used.

Switch your calendar to Week View.

Now you can visually see your entire week. Ideally, your week should be mostly filled in so you always know:

* what you’re doing,
* when you’re doing it,
* and how much free time you actually have.

You should even schedule free time.

Now, once your schedule is complete, print the calendar.

Google Calendar gives you different print options:

* black and white,
* color,
* portrait,
* landscape.

Print out your weekly schedule and put it:

* on your bedroom wall,
* in your bathroom,
* in your kitchen,
* on the refrigerator,
* anywhere you’ll constantly see it.

I want your life to be easier, simpler, less stressful, and more focused.

More focus gives you more freedom and more fun.

The better you get at managing your time and focusing during the time you’re supposed to focus, the less you procrastinate. Tasks that should take 20 minutes won’t end up taking two hours.

As you improve these skills, you’ll:

* have less stress,
* get better results in school,
* learn more effectively,
* and create more freedom and fun in your life.

So that’s the basic setup.

You can explore all the advanced features later — alerts, color coding, reminders, and more.

But at the very least, I recommend this:
Take the rest of your semester and schedule every block of time you have. Print the weekly view, keep using the monthly view, and rely on this system consistently.

It will help you:

* reduce stress,
* improve focus,
* get better results in school,
* and create more freedom and enjoyment in your life.

I’m Seth. I hope this was helpful, and I’ll see you in the next one.