NOTE: This post is part of a series called "How To Have The Best Semester Yet." Each of these posts is drawn from the course, The Semester Success Blueprint, which is designed for parents or educators to work alongside students with ADHD or Autism, to help prepare them for a successful school semester. Learn more about the course by clicking here.
If you want to go back or skip ahead and read the other posts in this series, click on the links below:
Part 3: How To Have The Best Semester Yet: Learn the art and science of communicating with teachers 📧
Part 4: How To Have The Best Semester Yet (part 3): Break Mid-Terms & Finals Into Manageable Chunks 🔨
Why use a calendar?
There is no getting around it. Students need a way to track their assignments and make plans BEYOND just keeping it in their head.
This is called creating an external brain and it is a key strategy for students with impaired working memory.
The reasons to use a calendar are many including:
Frees up cognitive space to focus on more challenging tasks
Helps you plan your day
Teaches you how to make accurate time estimates
And more!
How to use a calendar
Let's go through the step by step approach for how to use a calendar since this is not often discussed in school.
Step 1: Log in to Google Calendar
You can log in to Google Calendar by going to google.com then clicking on what I call the "waffle" in the upright corner. The waffle is the 9 dots which will open up all your Google applications.
From there, you will see all the Google applications, and you can then click on the calendar. You can also go to the link, https://calendar.google.com/ , and log in directly from there.
Step 2: Create a new event
Using a calendar helps you visually see how much time there is in the day and not plan things that you cannot make time to do.
Using a calendar is known by many names including:
Calendaring
Time blocking
You can do so many things with a calendar event like:
Add an attachment
Share a Zoom link
Let someone else know where you will be and when
Watch this short video on how to create an event in Google Calendar so you can plan out your idea and get more assignments done, communicate more effectively, and learn how to make accurate time estimates.
Step 3: Turn on calendar notifications
The last key to making sure your calendar is useful is to turn on notifications. On whatever device you are using (iPhone, Macbook, iPad), go into settings --> Google Calendar and allow notifications.
This will ensure your device will alert you when an event is coming up. You can also click on the event and change the notification settings to:
10 minutes before
1 week before
And more!
Other helpful things you can do with Google Calendar
Create separate calendars for different purposes
If you are a geek for color coding, you can create separate calendars by hovering over the calendars on the left side and clicking "create new calendar".
Drag tasks into your calendar
You can also drag tasks from your Tasks list into Google Calendar.
Please note that you cannot change the length of these "mini-events" and that you will need to download the Tasks application on your phone or iPad in order to get notifications for tasks.
Conclusion
Ready to take action? Try these steps:
Open up Google Calendar (or whatever calendar service your student uses)
Create a new event
Turn on calendar notifications
Repeat
Hope this helps 🤙🏻
P.S. These are skills that executive function coaches work on with their students. If you want to try working on them with your students, consider joining hundreds of other educators and parents who have completed my Semester Success Blueprint Course. In less than 2 hours, this comprehensive course will teach you and your student the system I developed to help hundreds of students learn how to manage school effectively and raise their self-awareness and engagement with school.
About Me
Hey! I'm Sean 👋
I'm a former public school special education teacher who realized that executive function skills are more important than knowing when George Washington crossed the Potomac.
Since then, I've made it my mission to teach anyone who will listen about how to develop these key life skills.
In 2020, I founded Executive Function Specialists to ensure all students with ADHD and Autism have access to high-quality online executive function coaching services. We offer online EF coaching and courses to help students and families.
Realizing I could only reach so many people through coaching, in 2021 I started the Executive Function Coaching Academy which trains schools, educators, and individuals to learn the key strategies to improve executive function skills for students.
In 2023, I co-founded of UpSkill Specialists, to provide neurodivergent adults with high-quality executive function coaching services.
When not pursuing my passions through work, I love spending time with my family, getting exercise, and growing my brain through reading. You can connect with me on LinkedIn.