On Friday evening I posted a list of my ten favorite Google Sheets, Docs, and Forms Add-ons. A point that I should have made at the start of that post is that the biggest benefit of many Add-ons is that they save teachers time.

For the most part Add-ons won’t change the way you teach, but they can streamline some processes for you. Take that time savings and use it on the things that make teaching fun like having more conversations with students. Or take that time savings to reduce your personal stress level and go fishing, play with your kids, let your mind wander, or do whatever it is you like to do when you relax.

We often talk about the need for balance between professional and personal lives. Saving time on routine tasks by using Google Apps Add-ons is one way to help you achieve that balance. From personal experience, when I’ve had a good balance between my professional and personal lives both have improved.

Here’s an example of this from my life. When I discovered the process for giving and grading quizzes through Google Forms and Spreadsheets it almost immediately cleared an hour or more from the time it took me to grade my weekly quizzes. I was doing that before Flubaroo was available, when Flubaroo came out the set-up process for automatic grading became much shorter.

Another example of an Add-on that can save teachers a ton of time is found in Doctopus and Goobric. Setting up the process of using these Add-ons can take a bit of time at first, but once the set-up is done using those Add-ons can streamline your grading process for assignments that don’t have clear-cut right and wrong answers.