Extensions: Schedule Emails for Goal-Setting

In this extension, you will schedule regular status updates in your calendar to review your goal letter and see how much you’ve already achieved! Writing a goals email at the beginning of the school year is an effective way to plan what you would like to do with your time.

But once you have written it, it might be challenging to remember what you wrote, what steps you need to take, or when to work on your goals...

...especially if the date you scheduled for your goals email is many months into the future.

One way to track your progress is to schedule repeating status updates in your Google Calendar.

To start, open your Calendar.

Create a new reminder entry.

Decide how often you want to check on your progress toward meeting your goal.

For example, if your goal is to improve your grade in a subject by the end of the semester, you might want to check your school’s online gradebook or speak with your teacher every two weeks.

Starting today, set your calendar to remind yourself to check the status of your grade every other week.

Scheduling reminders on the same day of the week makes it easier to remember to check on your goals.

Notice that you now have several new entries in your calendar.

Nice work! On the day of your status update you’ll receive a reminder in your Google account.

Now, it’s your turn: Review your goal email.

Decide how often you want to track your progress.

Create repeating status update reminders in your calendar.

In this extension, you will change the scheduled delivery of your goal email, so that you receive it on a different date.

In the main lesson, you scheduled the delivery of your goal email for a later date in the school year.

But you might want to check how you’re doing on your goals sooner than the date you scheduled.

Or, you might decide to make changes to a goal, eliminate one, or create a different one.

To start, open your Gmail account.

Find your goals email, and cancel the send.

Then, return to your email and reschedule the delivery for a different date.

Schedule a date and time that makes sense for staying on track with your goals, and schedule the send.

Your email is ready to go! Now start working on your goals so you have some progress to report when your email arrives! Now, it’s your turn: Cancel your scheduled email delivery, Choose a new date and time, And schedule the send.

Scheduling deliveries of reminder emails is one way to keep your goals fresh in your mind as you work throughout the school year.

Another way to remember what you want to accomplish is to create a document with your goals that you can access at any time.

In this extension, you will create a list of your goals in a document, so you can update your progress regularly.

You will be more likely to work toward your goals if they are readily available to you on your Google Drive.

When you view or add to your goals more often, you can plan the steps you need to take.

And you’re more likely to be successful! To start, create a new blank document and give it a title.

Then, add an opening sentence to describe the purpose of your document.

Open Gmail and find the goals email that you wrote in the main lesson.

Copy the goal text from your email, then paste it below your opening sentence.

Continue to copy and paste the text from your email into the document until your list is complete.

Format your goals with a bulleted list.

Now, you are ready to update your document as you make progress on your goals.

Add any progress you might have already made.

The document is automatically saved to Google Drive, so you can access it from any device connected to the internet.

Now, check and update your goals as often as you like.

Choose one day each week or every two weeks to record your progress toward reaching your goals.

Seeing your progress will motivate you to keep achieving! Now, it’s your turn: Create a Goals Document, Copy and paste your goals from your email into the document, And update your goals list.