How GOOGLE Became My GO-TO

GOOGLE WORKSPACE ❌ GOOGLE ECOSYSTEM ✅💫

Google Search Engine

I started with this like everyone, and I used to have so many questions, so SEO was my go-to. But I often preferred exploring multiple libraries rather than just one. I read a book once - I don't remember the exact title, but it was something like 100 Questions About Everything. It had a somewhat antagonistic, highly rational perspective that mirrored how I think. What I did back then, when AI wasn't the go-to for laymen a decade ago, was type each question from the book and read the resulting source answers from Quora, Reddit, and various articles. Even though we could watch and learn things visually, I always wanted a direct answering wavelength. Simply reading about sources like that made me light up, thinking about how thoughts connect across different kinds of people while the base of questions remains the same. I was processing how Google SEO works without a straight answer at first, and my stream even diverged from tech to biology. But life always recircles, and in this age, the information we want comes straight; making tech the major driver that makes it all possible.

G-Saved

Before I ever had my own mobile, I used my dad's phone after he came home from work or when he disposed of it, So I had to wait for it. I've always been a creatively studious person; I don't like dry text (which is probably why I admire GIS now!). Thereby, I had to write down keypoints from my note and test websites to see how things worked - whether it was CSE inputs and outputs or general science. I saved interactive math sites like intmath, periodic tables from rsc.org, and fun sites like thistothat.com to understand experiments. Even till now, I add such informative, obscure sites into my G-Saved if I don't have time to write about them in GKeep; which helps me with my digital resource management :P

G-Slides

MS PowerPoint was the major source colleges used, but I personally liked Slides more once I tried it out.On the day of a presentation during my environmental engineering subject, I couldn't bring my gaming laptop because it was a sunny day and it weighed almost 3kg. I had to bring my tablet alone, and my mobile either kept dying or running out of storage. Yet, I hadn't even handed over my PPT to any of my friends via WhatsApp; I was only half-done with a mere hope that "I can make it up with something last minute." I searched for an equivalent, easy-to-use app similar to PPT, and two things popped up: Canva and G-Slides. Canva is great for pixel size and outlines, which I still use but pasting content from one source to another felt much easier for me in Slides. I made the presentation within 10 minutes; where Canva would have taken double the time. User experience differs for everyone, but G-Slides was my savior back then, and I aced the presentation without haste.

G-Keep

Before this, I used my phone's Mi Notes and my tablet's Samsung Notes. I couldn't connect both to my laptop; I had to manually transfer notes to a doc and then to Drive. It was such a nasty process that I used to hate college projects to the point where I'd wait until the absolute deadline just because digital syncs weren't clear to me yet. Slowly, I adapted to G-keep, noting my intuitions, plans and ideas across whichever gadget was at hand, always staying in sync. My journaling hobby from written notes didn't go to waste; I maintained digital discipline while most people around me scattered their abundant resources.  During a college seminar, a visiting speaker spoke about how journaling aligns our thoughts, words, and habits. When he asked the room who journaled, most students mentioned memo pads or night-time diaries. I was the odd one out sharing my transition to a flexible digital system. I was nervous about being different, but he led a round of applause and noted that this habit would serve me well in life. And it is Somehow true, I've always had my back through journaling, and with Blogging, this journey is really going good.

If I have never started reading adventure genre books, I would have never taken a memo note to try writing how random & adventurous I see life despite having so many negative moments since childhood., and If I had never taken a step to flow with that same memo notes thrill, I would've never written diaries and made self-journals. And If I had never went to College & never been locked up in time, I might have never tried digital syncs, and would not even discovered my introversion and need for blogging. This makes me remind of one thing life often tells me - we think of having waiting period & small moments as wasted times and meaningless paths, but these are the turning points that leverage us to move closer to our destiny, we may not know it immediately, but when the right time comes it will be Clearer.

YouTube

One of the most used tools that doesn't need explanation. During the pandemic, the rise of YouTubers exploded, and I was skeptical about whom to listen to. But the good thing is that we can see mainly what we can't in our daily life. For Example: life of a pilot, behind-the-scenes engineering and some lifestyle vlogs of people we might never know but feel so similar. Documentaries were my favorite in YouTube overall. Eventually, the search algorithm got used to me and even suggested movies right when I needed them without me saying a word loud. After Instagram blew up, I noticed people moving toward short-span attention, shunning detailed content. Yet I'm glad a few juniors with like-mindedness shifted their energy elsewhere. Anime playlists were uploaded there too, making YouTube my entire media ecosystem back then. Even youtube games in this 2026!! - I used to play in built feature of Mi games but this YouTube games has countries of the world quiz- an absolute treat for my map learning cravings without needing an extra app!

 *also wanted to be a youtuber once, tried putting shorts of street animals, but felt a creative pull back to writing. The more I write in my notes, the more I want to be a blogger/author; though I might start once GIS is integrated into my creative workflows!

YT Music

Used instead of Spotify—not just because of ads, but because the suggestion flow matches my exact vibe without me having to hunt for songs.

Google Calendar + Tasks

During my second year, I saw people following religious rituals and day-to-day preachings. While I didn't lean toward one particular idol, and my cultural traditions were uprooted due to migration, I tried sourcing shashtras and ayurveda. Rather, being in the environmental domain, I tried making a calendar of International Environmental days to channel a workaholic rhythm instead. That’s when I started experimenting with GCalendar workflows to channel a structured workaholic rhythm. But I soon realized that time shouldn't just be about micro-managing tasks- it's part of a broader, living pattern. Moving away from rigid, dogmatic routines, I began studying natural environmental cycles alongside traditional texts like Ayurveda and astronomical data. By tracking planetary transits and syncing them with everyday goals, secular time-management tools like Google Calendar and GTasks stopped feeling like corporate chores. Instead, they became a canvas to harmonize human pacing with cosmic and environmental rhythms; solving my lifelong search for structure through the ecosystem itself.

 

Additionally I recently got to know about a wonderful app for astronomical data, that is Google's SkyMap, I love tracking it alongside Drik panchang (suggested/ sourced by Gemini). 

Google Sustainability

Apart from generic reports and black-and-white content, there's always a gray line to learn in sustainability that helps us move past greenwashing. Initially, I thought AI was just wasting gallons of water with no trade-off. But Google Sustainability taught me that AI also aids environmental tracking, and carbon footprint reports create actual metrics rather than cultural fallacies. Because for each culture, the idea of sustainability itself in some places is about affordability than green. If eradicating poverty means a temporary sacrifice, that's what matters. We can't just delete tech and praise nature alone; I used to assume things like that. I learned that truth the hard way.

Google EIE (Environmental Insights Explorer)

While EIE is built primarily for city governments to measure carbon emissions, building footprints, and solar potential on a macro level, an individual researcher, mapper, or GIS hobbyist can leverage it creatively:

• Baseline Data Ground-Truthing: EIE data serves as a high-level reference for urban carbon and mobility metrics when studying a specific city.
  

• Feeding into Earth Engine (GEE): For running environmental scripts or Python models in GEE/Colab, EIE's public data insights acts as comparative benchmarks for validating urban green cover.

Gemini (+ NotebookLM Integrated)

My first interactions with Gemini were hilarious; it used to act a bit "thug" and joked back with short, witty replies, I was wondering what kind of tool Gemini is. Now, it's integrated into all my processes: grammar corrections for my blog, TOEFL prep in the past few months, brainstorming via Gemini Live, and using Canvas for docs and mail exporting. Occasionally used Gemini's Nano Banana for imagining out of the box ideas & using that as art reference. I prefer Gemini over ChatGPT because its data is precise and reliable, I failed multiple times in implementing my creativity with chatgpt: I would ask for services related to tshirt printing and it would simply say some bulk printers, it never used to give me precise data when I needed it, initially the addresses it gave for such services were totally wrong too. I felt the friendly tone of it was leaving out rationality and so. I wanted to try other AI as well copilot for NPTEL exams, and other random AI for each of its use case and then tried out Gemini after long gap by then which became fully sharp and integrated. Finding planetary transits moving in accurate positions from how Gemini sources exact data without me providing any context made me at ease. I then referenced the drik panchang software cited by Gemini in that chat, understood the traditional calendar system so well after months of practising and it led me to a path of answering my unanswered instincts. Through that spiritual calling, I enlightened myself more and more. Aligning myself with transits and horas made me understand why certain things happen in certain ways. And my outreach aspect after interacting with Gemini became more professional and forward. Especially, these days the use of Gemini in the side panel helps ease out any complex website or files. 

As for NotebookLM, my first use was generating Google Sustainability reports. My second was uploading books from the Internet Archive. The podcast feature blew me away - I uploaded my TOEFL mistakes, and it discussed my struggles from a third-person perspective like a therapy session, helping me target my weak spots in Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing. My father also benefited immensely from it for his projects!

 

Google AI & Labs Google AI acts as my cross-verifier for Gemini. Finding obscure map data, recipes. On Aug 1st 2026 I discovered that Google AI can cross-reference across deleted chats has been a lifesaver. Thanks to Google Labs Experiments for all these gems!

Google Translate

Ideal for understanding root words and foreign language meanings.

GEE (Google Earth Engine)

Before diving into GEE, I used Google Earth to save agricultural land layers to Drive, loving the automatic saves. That led me to the Earth Engine Data Catalog - seeing organized datasets put me at ease. I'm learning GEE slowly because my university didn't teach RS & GIS with commercial ArcGIS licenses; they told us to download QGIS and figure it out ourselves. I led our lab group with curiosity and AI help. Over the next year, as I built a deeper rhythm with QGIS and Qfield, my laptop unfortunately caught a virus that forced a complete system reboot. Suddenly, reinstalling heavy desktop packages like QGIS and setting up offline plugins felt like fighting friction. I realized I needed a fluid, cross-device digital sync workflow so I could work seamlessly on my tablet or phone on the go. That’s when Gemini pointed me toward GeoAI and Python-based features within Google Earth Engine, marking my natural transition from local desktop software into cloud-native GIS.

Colab The savior of Python! After 9th grade, I missed Python, never expecting it would connect with GIS. I had to take an elective in this course which re-connected me with a past friendship as help her towards this specific exam helped me a lot, and correlating Python with math concepts helped me clear exams easily. Colab and BigQuery were lifesavers for a rookie GIS learner intimidated by coding. Knowing data syncs smoothly through Drive via Google made me feel entirely at ease. With Gemini integrated right there, I understand code better than I ever did in school.

Google Maps

Previously, navigating directions was a mystery to me- cardinal directions used to trigger endless questions. My doubt wasn't just about directional accuracy, but how maps came into existence with such precision. How roads heading west when a bus turns left get mapped instantly. The level of networks that made this possible through coexistence felt so flabbergasted to me, its like various nerves in our body connecting to the brain together. I was excited when it comes to cognitive mapping while traveling..

 After knowing how Google maps are created with GPS, GIS tools, I was no more a child wandering into abundance but a fiercely hungry lion that wants to get higher on this path. Watching geo-intelligence and geofencing thriller series made me want to dive deeper into GIS. Every time I use Google Maps, I feel like I'm in GEOINT mode! I’ve even helped my neighborhood edit wrong locations, realizing my spatial awareness is well-balanced.

Drive, Sheets, Forms & Drawings

Seamless integration and digital syncs. Google Drawings inside Drive helps me make quick edits for digital art. Sheets and Forms are staples for surveys and academic data tracking.

Google Scholar

Helped me look at international research profiles in an organized way, supported by helpful built-in AI features.

Blogger

This journey wasn't smooth. I doubted moving my journaling lifestyle into blogging until I needed a momentum shift. I avoided Medium or Substack because Blogger feels like a personal, un-monetized space to experiment with thoughts without roadblocks or pricey fees. WordPress was expensive for me as a student back then . Blogger's digital syncs keep me completely in flow so I dont have to look around for other options.

Google Play Books

Before blogging, becoming an author (for books) was my major dream since teenage, anime such as With You and the Rain and Journal with a Witch, triggered me more. Whether writing is done by me or seeing other characters write in anime or movies, the calm, chill thrills are wonderful. I'm currently writing my own self-published book on cognitive maps, cycles, and roads of GIS, and I'm thankful my lifelong path follows the Google ecosystem.

Google Chrome (for Anime & Multitasking)

My Poco mobile has low storage, and while I wanted a Google Pixel, I adjusted by running everything through Chrome. It's actually great - it cuts down digital addiction. For instance, the Instagram app triggers endless scrolling, but the web version feels controlled. It’s just a tab, not a lifeline. I applied the same logic to YouTube to curb hours of binge-watching.

Google News, Discover & Finance

• News & Discover: Perfect for someone who doesn't watch TV news or read newspapers, keeping me updated on anime season releases and relevant Environmental impacts.

• Finance: I used the dropdown bar from Google AI and realized it can be analyzed for market trends to feed into GIS analysis.

• Analytics: GA tracks user location down to city and country levels; real-world demographic mapping data that ties straight into urban planning, geomarketing, and spatial behavior for my GIS journey.

Google Meet, Pay & Miscellaneous

Meet is my go-to professional conferences. GPay is a staple (though GWallet isn't quite supported here in India yet). I skipped mentioning tools like Google Shopping and Vids because I aren't actively involved with them; I'll try them when the need arises!