Teachers, how to use Google Calendar to help Executive Function for EVERYONE

Hey, what’s up, parents and teachers? This video is for teachers, but parents, you’ll want to watch it too because most of my audience is parents — probably about 80% parents. You can share this with your teachers because this video will make life easier for all of you, especially for students who struggle with executive function.

Teachers, this is for your students who are always late with homework, have missing or incomplete assignments, get zeros, ask for test corrections, or need extra copies of things. Those students who really struggle with executive function — this will help them. It will help the parents, and it will help everybody in many ways.

So, the first thing I’m going to show you is how to hop into your regular Google Calendar. You pick your category — in this case, I’m calling the category “School.” You’ll see that when the “School” calendar is turned off, nothing shows up, and when I turn it on, everything appears.

What you might want to do is name the calendar after yourself. So, my name is Mr. Perler, and I would call the school calendar “Mr. Perler.” What’s cool about this is that you can share it with everybody.

Now, I’m an executive function coach in Colorado, and I use these calendars in my own personal calendar to share with all the families so they can always see my schedule for the whole semester. I do one semester at a time, and I put every single thing in there so there’s no confusion. I do what’s called “front-loading.” I front-load the calendar for the families in this way.

Before we get started, I want to show you something. These are the calendars that I usually have students set up. I’m not going to get into that here because I have another video about it, but usually I have my students create categories like School, Family, Fun, Important, and Wellness.

In this case, though, teachers, you’re going to share your own calendar — your “Mr. Perler” calendar, or whatever your name is — so families can access it under “Other Calendars.”

How do you do that? I’m not going to go through every detail here, but essentially you click the three dots, go to “Settings and Sharing,” and that takes you to the calendar settings. That’s where you can rename it, add a description for families, set your time zone, export the calendar, make it public, create a shareable link, and add families.

You can decide whether you want to add only parents, only students, or everyone. You can also set up notifications for events, which is really powerful because you can create multiple reminders and alerts.

So anyhow, you’re going to share this with all the families.

Now, here’s what you’re going to do on your Google Calendar. One thing you’ll want to do is choose a color. I always choose red for important items, so I made the whole school calendar red.

What’s interesting is that if you right-click the calendar and change it to green — or yellow, for example — you can create visual signals. Yellow might mean, “Be alert, something important is coming up.” Red might mean, “This is urgent and time-sensitive.” Green might mean, “This is completed; you don’t need to worry about it anymore.”

Obviously, if the student didn’t turn something in, they’d still need to worry about it, but you can use these colors globally for the whole class. You can make past items green and upcoming items red so students can visually see what’s coming. This is especially helpful for visual learners.

Here are some notes I made for this talk. The benefits of this system are:

* You can share everything with everybody.
* Parents know all the details of what’s happening.
* They know how long assignments should take.
* They know how to get help from you.
* It saves teachers time because everything is already there.
* You don’t have to answer the same question 50 times.
* Everyone stays on the same page.

Even if there’s a problem and a family says, “We didn’t know about this,” you can show them that it was clearly posted on the calendar the whole time.

You also won’t have to make extra copies anymore. If students need another copy and they have access to a printer, you can simply say, “It’s on the calendar.” You can even upload photos — pictures of assignments, project materials, science supplies, and so on.

This system also creates very clear expectations. It cuts down on confused parents, which means fewer emails for you. That gives you more time to focus on teaching, planning, and meeting students’ needs.

It also reduces late work, helps students feel less stressed, and gives everybody a record of past assignments. Families can go back and easily find details about anything from the past.

Another benefit is accessibility. Families can access the calendar from any device, anywhere in the world, as long as they have Google Calendar.

And again, color coding makes everything more visual and easier to understand.

Now let me show you something else. If you need to move a due date, you can simply drag and shift the event. Another thing I want to show you is that while this is in the school calendar, individual events can still have their own colors.

For example, you might use blue to indicate a four-day weekend. You can click on specific dates and create long events that visually stretch across multiple days.

This is especially useful for long-term projects. If you have a project that lasts one, two, or three weeks, you can create one long visual block showing the duration of the project. Inside the event, you can put all the details.

Now, one thing I really want to emphasize is keeping things visual and simple because people use different screen sizes and phones. The way I organize assignments is with shorthand.

For example, I might write:
“M Due — p. 38, #1–19 odd only.”

I like “M Due” because it clearly means “Math Due,” and the red color reinforces that something is due.

But here’s the important part: when families click on the assignment, they can see all the details.

Teachers, I highly suggest that you create a template and replicate it throughout the whole year. For example, if homework is always due on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can create recurring events and simply update the details each time.

Here’s what I mean.

Inside the assignment, you can include:

* A link to the student portal
* A PDF of the assignment
* The learning objective
* Directions
* The expected duration
* Instructions for getting help
* Modifications for students who need more or less challenge
* Quality expectations
* Your contact information
* A link to your FAQ

For example, you might write:
“Click here to see it on the portal.”

I’ve learned as a blogger and vlogger that you need to clearly tell people where to click because people get confused.

You can also include the learning objective. For example:
“Master dividing fractions.”

This is really helpful for parents because they can understand the purpose of the homework. If they notice their child is spending time on something unrelated, they can recognize that something is off.

You should also include directions, such as:
“Try to complete as many problems as possible.”

And teachers, this next part is extremely important: include the expected duration.

Some students finish in five minutes. Others take two hours. Students with executive function struggles or processing challenges often take much longer, so families need guidance.

For example:
“This assignment should take about 30 minutes.”

And if it takes longer, explain what students should do. Tell families how to get help and what steps to take.

You can also include modifications:
“If your child needs more challenge, do this.”
“If they need less work, do that.”

Another thing I emphasize — especially in math — is quality over quantity. I often tell students:
“I would rather you complete one problem perfectly than rush through ten problems and get several wrong.”

So you can include quality expectations directly in the assignment description.

Then, provide your contact information and preferred communication method. Right there, families know exactly how to reach you.

You can also include a link to your FAQ page. This could be a Google Doc, a page on your website, or anything similar.

The point is: if families keep asking the same questions, you shouldn’t have to answer them over and over again. Create resources once so you can spend more time teaching, planning, and supporting students.

Now, let me show you something else.

If you want to add a link, simply highlight the text, paste the link, click “OK,” and save it. Then families can instantly access your PDFs, websites, or resources. It’s simple and beautiful.

Now let’s say a math assignment is complete. You can right-click it and turn it green to visually show that it’s done.

Here’s another example. Imagine students are recording sunrise and sunset times for a science lab. The task isn’t technically “due” yet because they’re collecting data over time. In that case, you can create reminder events instead of due-date events.

Now let’s talk about long-term assignments.

Suppose the LA final essay is due on Friday. Students with executive function struggles often wait until the last minute. So what I teach is called backward planning.

Strong executive function students naturally break projects into smaller steps. Students who struggle with executive function usually don’t.

So you can create smaller milestone events, such as:

* “Final edit and revision”
* “Research night”
* “Outline due”
* “Rough draft review”

This helps parents understand what students should ideally be doing throughout the process. Instead of writing a huge paper the night before, students can spread the work out over several days or weeks.

This is especially important for:

* Papers
* Exams
* Large reading assignments
* Long-term projects

Students who struggle with executive function often cram everything at the last minute, which reduces learning and increases stress. A calendar like this helps families visualize the process.

I think that covers most of it.

The only thing I didn’t really mention is privacy. You’ll need to decide whether your calendar should be public, shared only with certain people, or accessible through a private link. Every teacher and school handles privacy differently, so you’ll need to think about what works best while keeping everybody safe.

But generally speaking, this system can really help make life easier for everyone.

One of the biggest problems I see is that families are confused. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know whether they can trust their child’s version of events.

A child might say:
“Oh, I don’t have homework tonight.”
Or:
“I already turned that in.”

The shared calendar creates clarity.

Parents can clearly see:

* Expectations
* Due dates
* Time requirements
* Late policies
* Contact information
* FAQ resources
* Whether helping their child counts as cheating
* Whether they’re helping too much or too little

These are questions parents deal with constantly.

Now, one thing parents and teachers should know: this teacher calendar is shared with students, but students won’t have editing access. They won’t be able to change colors or alter assignments.

However, students can create their own personal calendars and replicate assignments there. They can use their own color-coding system to track what’s completed and what still needs attention.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of turning assignments from red to green because it creates a strong visual cue. Green means “done.” Red means “I still need to do this.”

Students can also add notes like:
“Turned in by email on Tuesday.”

That way, they have a record.

Now, students with executive function struggles often resist extra tracking systems, but for the students who are willing to use them, that extra detail can prevent a lot of frustration.

A lot of students say things like:
“I know I turned it in.”
“I swear I turned it in.”
“I remember doing it.”

And honestly, I hear this story all the time. I think many students genuinely visualize themselves turning it in, even when they didn’t actually do it.

Either way, the goal is to support executive function and make life easier for everyone.

So teachers, I really encourage you to try this.

My name is Seth Perler — I don’t even know if I introduced myself earlier. I’m an executive function coach based in Colorado. I help struggling students navigate education so they can build a better future.

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Be well. Take care. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

I’ll see you soon.