How Reclaim Saved My Life

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that high school is a struggle. I’ve personally spent years trying to devise the perfect productivity system to keep myself on track, using everything from a standard paper agenda to fancy spreadsheets updated regularly. However, balancing deadlines, extracurriculars, and trying to find time to apply to university amidst it all; it feels like I’d need a wizard to help me stay on track and keep my sanity.

Or, perhaps a robot could do the trick?

Introducing Reclaim👋.

Reclaim is a smart calendar assistant that takes care of scheduling and organizing your day so you can find the time to fit it all. With easy to use features and integrations with Google Calendar, Tasks and more, getting your life together has never been easier. And the best part - an AI takes care of the work for you.

Snapshot of Reclaim’s Dashboard

Features

Reclaim is a relatively new product, but is already built with features to help you make the best use of your time. Here’s a few that I use regularly:

Scheduling Tasks

After setting up your account, you can schedule a task into your calendar with tons of customizations so that your task becomes manageable. Select how much time you’ll need, the time blocks you’d like to work in, and the range of time you have to complete it. The calendar will do the rest! Tasks that take multiple hours get broken up automatically, helping you learn to set appropriate work limits.

Setting up a task

Making Habits Stick

The habits feature is probably my favourite. Ever wanted to meet those new year's resolutions once and for all? Select which habit you’d like to add to your schedule, the ideal time for it during the day, its duration, and frequency. Instead of manually trying to fit in time to go for a run or journal, Reclaim will make sure your habit is scheduled each week, and make sure other tasks don’t get in the way by adjusting your calendar on the fly.

Scheduling Habits

Google Calendar and Tasks Integration

Of course, you don’t need to hand your entire schedule off to a robot! With Reclaim’s integration with Google Calendar, you’re free to adjust and change your schedule to your liking, and add in events that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to schedule on Reclaim (e.g. visiting a family member at a specific time, spontaneous event plans). Reclaim will see your events scheduled and make sure to adjust your habits and tasks so they don’t interfere.

What’s more, is that using Google Tasks along with Reclaim makes to-do lists easy. Just add the task onto the system itself (with easy access from Google Calendar or any other Google software), and you’ll see it pop up onto your schedule, sync with Reclaim. It’s that simple!

Example of Task sync with Reclaim

One Note about Following Schedules

While Reclaim may take care of timeblocking, it’s entirely up to you to follow through with the plan. Try your best to follow the calendar to make sure you (literally) stay on schedule! Just by following Reclaim’s plans for a few weeks, you’ll notice yourself finishing everything before the deadline and freeing up more time for the activities you really want to get to.

Of course, don’t overwork yourself. It’s easy to get lost in the mix of features and try to make every single minute of the day assigned to a task. Remember that the goal is to better manage your time, not overload it! You don’t need to give your time away to a robot in order to fix your productivity - it just takes a little discipline and consideration :) Best of luck on your productivity journeys!

About the Author

Kaneera (she/her) has been a LEAP Ambassador since its first cohort back in 2020. In her time at LEAP, Kaneera has worked on initiatives like writing blogs, the grade 11 checklist, presenting the organization at events, and performing social media promo. She’s currently a grade 12 student in Mississauga, and enjoys volunteering and watching movies in her spare time ✌.