Hi friends! If you missed last weeks blog, let me catch you up! I am doing a blog series about the ways in which I manage to keep my life together during a very difficult and exhausting season. To get this blog series going, I'm going to share my tips for staying scheduled. This is really the foundation for all of the other things I'm going to share in this blog series because without my routine, everything else is irrelevant. With that said, this is my ode to Google Calendar (likely Google in general...).
I think that a lot of people are currently or have used Google Calendar. It's nice to have especially if you have a Gmail account, because there is a symbiosis between the two clients, or really all of the Google clients that are available, but more on that in a minute. I started using Google Calendar in college and it helped at the time to keep things somewhat organized. It wasn't until I had kids that I really started to learn about the ways in which this little calendar can change the entire trajectory of your life. (Okay, that was a little bit dramatic... but I'm so insanely grateful for this calendar.) I'm sure at this point there are two trains of thought:
1) "Yeah, I have Google Calendar too. It's just a calendar."
2) "If it's so great prove it."
And to both I say, "It's more than just a calendar, let me tell you why."
Multiple Calendar Options
Each one of these calendars has a purpose and allows for things not to get lost in the midst of a full season of life. The nice thing about this setup is that if I need to check in with my schedule I can uncheck everyone else's calendars and just see my own. I am also able to specifically setup notifications for each person's schedule that is catered to their needs. My husband goes to work everyday, so I have notifications for his calendar shut off. Then when I add something to his calendar that is out of the ordinary, I simply add a notification for that specific event. I can also change the color of the calendar or of the specific calendar event. This is important when I do my finances because the entire calendar is light blue, however the bills that pull out automatically I have changed to a darker color so that when I see those specific bills, I know that I don't have to manually pay those. It helps keep me organized and on time to pay whatever bills aren't on autopay. The ability to edit & adjust even the small details is amazing during this hectic season!
Calendar Sharing
Google Calendar allows for sharing. Above you see the "Other calendars" option. There you can find calendars that have been shared with you. I can also share any of my calendars with my husband. This allows for us to both have access to the calendar on our phones for easy and quick access should we need it throughout the day. There are also a lot of programs that will link to Google Calendar and add things directly into the calendar for you. For example, our son's school uses ClassDojo for all of their communications. It's a great method of communication and allows us to stay in contact with the teacher and entire administration should we need to. One of the things that our son's teacher did recently was share the signup sheet for Parent-Teacher Conferences. Within that signup sheet, I selected our timeframe and clicked submit. Automatically, it added the conference into my default calendar on Google. I was then able to go into the event and copy it to Luke's calendar. That way it's not only on my primary one, it's on Luke's so that he knows that the event that day isn't just for daddy and I, it's for all of us.
Google Client Symbiosis
Google has a multitude of apps, as I'm sure you know. Not only is it the go to search engine for all the things we think we should know but don't. There is also, the [masterful] calendar, gmail, chrome, photos, keep, docs, sheets, drive, maps, and a bajillion others that I can't think of at the moment (maybe I should.... Google it.... *nods to my dad's sense of humor*). All of these apps have a method of communication that is next to flawless. For example, if you are in the Gmail app, there is a bar along the right side that allows for you to open your calendar within your email should you need to schedule something via email. Where this has changed the game for me, is I utilize Google Keep for all of my note taking needs. This is where I keep (hehehe, I'm on a roll with these dad jokes) my documents for Coaches Meetings, chore routines, finance tracker & my grocery lists (more on these in the weeks to come). Where this comes into play for today's blog is the symbiosis between Google Keep & Google Calendar.
This is the "Reminders" calendar from the above list of calendars. These reminders were created by Google Keep from my chore notes. When I made the weeks chores notes in Google Keep, I set a reminder time within Google Keep and it directly added it to the "Reminders" calendar on Google Calendar.
Furthermore, when I click on the reminder, it gives me the above shown pop up. I can mark it as done from Google Calendar, or I can click "View related note in Keep" and it takes me directly to my Google Keep. Did I mention that the communication between the clients is next to flawless?
Smart Home Connectivity
My husband and I have a number of different smart home technologies that we utilize regularly and really appreciate having. One of which is the... Google Home.... Okay, I feel like this disclaimer should have come at the beginning, but I want to note that I am NOT sponsored by Google. I realize now as I write this that it may look like I'm in marketing at Google, but I want the record to show that I am not, nor have I ever been an employee of Google (they turned down my application for internship when I was in college. Apparently a lot of other people had applied for the internship there after seeing the movie with Owen Wilson & Vince Vaughn... haha).
Anywho... to get back to the Google Home... This handy little device has been super helpful for us. We have the Hub in the kitchen that has the screen and we have the small device in our bedroom. At night, we say "Hey Google, Goodnight" and the little device tells us what the weather is, what is first on our schedule for the next day, turns off our lamps, turns on the fan and plays sleep sounds. It's a glorious little contraption that has saved my butt more than once with those calendar alerts. There are a few things that we have had issues with on our smart devices, but for the most part, they work quite well. One of the areas that isn't great with the Hub is that it doesn't allow for constant access to our Google Calendar. This was where my dear friend Rebecca came to the rescue. I asked her what her family did for calendar needs and she told me that they have a small tablet mounted to the wall that allows for family planning to be in one location. I heeded her advice and found a cheap tablet that I now have in our entryway. I display it on a lower shelf so that our 5 year old can easily go over and look at the calendar. He knows that his calendar is a specific color and that when that color appears on the calendar, he has something happening that day. It's been really good for him as he LOVES to know the moment by moment plans as well as for helping him to learn the days of the week and the months of the year. It's been a win win for all of us!
Life is crazy hectic these days. Keeping myself organized has been an absolute game changer because I know that nearly everything is accounted for. Utilizing the Google clients has made the most sense for us because it not only keeps all of us together and accounted for, but these clients are also mobile and can be with us wherever we go. Trust me, I too am a fan of paper. I love paper calendars, journals, planners, etc. I LOVE THEM. But I also know that in order to keep myself fully functional on a regular basis, I have to utilize the things that will make it easier and overall more streamlined. Google gives me that option with ease!
Now, if you made it this far, here's a little thank you with a Halloween tip. Halloween costumes are insanely expensive and usually get very little use, especially because Halloween costumes are made weird... haha. It seems like they are made to not fit quite right. What we have done is we have gotten theme jackets for our son. This year he wants to be Spiderman, so we went to Target and found this super cool Spiderman jacket that has a mask built into the hood. He can wear the hood like normal, or he can pull it down and see through the Spiderman eyes that are on the top of the hood. We bought him the next size up. It's big on him, but in Colorado weather, it allows for layering as well as duration of use. We spent less than we would have on a Spiderman costume and got him something that he can wear for the foreseeable future. We did this in the past with Buzz Lightyear also. We just retired that jacket about 6 months ago and he wore it two years ago for Halloween. (: A year and a half use out of an item that, had we gotten the costume instead, would have gotten one or two days of use before it had been retired. I made this mistake last year and bought a Daniel Tiger costume online. It fit for around 3 minutes and was donated to Goodwill within a couple of weeks. It was cute for the moment, but really didn't serve him the way the Daniel Tiger hoodie would have. In my defense, last year was a weird year and I realized that he was going to need a costume for Harvest Fest at our church the week before Harvest Fest. In a moment of panic I sprang for the costume. It is a mistake I won't make again, haha.
Tune in next week for my chore schedule. This thing has been tried, tested, shared, and reviewed. I think I've finally figured out how to do this without completely losing my mind or needing to set the house on fire... It's been a game changer and I'll share how and why next week!
Until then,
Mama Yearley
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