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Spinach goes great with Meet...Google Meet, that is.

Published on
October 18, 2022

Spinach.io for Google Meet is officially out of beta and available in the Chrome Store. The Chrome Extension allows Google Meet users to run better standups directly in their Google Meet window. Once you add the Chrome Extension, you will see a Spinach icon in your Google Meet window. Clicking the icon opens Spinach directly in your Google Meet window. This GIF shows you what the integrated experience looks like.

Check out Spinach.io for Google Meet in the Chrome Store

Why do we care about video tool integration?

Spinach was one of the early Zoom Apps developers and saw first-hand how powerful an app experience integrated into the video conferencing tool can be. After receiving requests from many teams, we’re bringing the same integrated experience to Google Meet.

Spinach is also available as a web app which can be viewed alongside any video tool. So why do we care so much about video tool integration? Why do we want to be inside the window?

  • Focus: When all of your team is focused on a single window, it makes it easier to pay attention and stay engaged.
  • No screen share: When everyone shares a common visual space, no one is stuck sharing their screen. Imagine a meeting where no one says "Can everyone see my screen?"
  • Less context switching: Most importantly, when everything you need is in a single window there is less context-switching during standup.  The less toggling you do during standup, the less distractions you'll run into along the way.

Paying the "Toggle Tax"

According to a Harvard Business Review study, people spend 9% of their time at work toggling between apps and websites. The average person toggles 1,200 times a day  🤯

All this toggling takes a toll on people, which they call the "Toggle Tax". Every time you switch between tabs, websites, or apps - your brain has to reorient itself. This context-switching releases cortisol in your body, which stresses you out and makes it hard to focus.

The Spinach team has observed a lot of teams struggling with this context-switching in daily standup. People have their video tool open, their calendar, docs, notepads, or project management tools depending on how they manage their tasks and prioritize their day. It's a lot to look at and absorb, when you should really be engaging with to your team.

Read more: How to keep team members engaged during standup

From Day 1, it was important to the Spinach team to integrate our experience seamlessly into video tools to help teams come together, align and connect in a shard space.  After releasing the Spinach Zoom App in early 2022, we are so excited to now be available directly in Google Meet.

Spinach helps you in and out of meetings

Like we said, Spinach exists as a web app. So it's easy to access your tasks and standup summaries when you aren't in a live standup. In other words, when you're not hanging out in Google Meet, Spinach is still available to you. Anything you add or edit in the web app will be available in Google Meet and vice versa.

Several people told they use Spinach to set their priorities each day. Then they mark tasks complete in Spinach throughout the day in the web app. Then, when it's standup time, everything they updated is visible directly in the Google Meet window, and in their standup summary.

Read more: How to improve your daily standup format

How to get started

  1. Add our Chrome Extension
  2. Sign up and set up your team
  3. On your next standup join Google Meet and click the “S” icon in lower right to open Spinach

If you want to see more detail on the experience, watch a Spinach standup in Google Meet 👇🏻

⭐️ Check out user reviews (from Chrome Store)

“We have used Google Meet for our standups since the company started, and have been using Spinach.io from day 1. We were so excited about the Chrome extension, as it has made the experience even more seamless. We love Spinach and now can't do our standups without it.” - Ahana Banerjee at Clear

“We've been experimenting with Spinach to use as our team's standup tool. The Google Meet integration definitely improved the ease of use, and we've found the custom format much more familiar to how we run our stand-ups. I'm excited to see where the Spinach team will take this next, it's definitely helped our team think about effective meeting communications!” Alison Herbert at Synapse Studios

“Happy that I don't need to switch between tabs every standups. Also works seamlessly. Awesome one.” - Temitope Oyetade at Curacel

“Spinach as chrome extension and google meet integration makes it the best standup tool. I love spinning my updates with Spinach.” - Opeyemi Bamigbade at Curacel

“As if Spinach outside of Meet wasn't enough of a stand-up game-changer, adding it to Google Meet made the daily use of it even more trivial and seamless. Love it!” - Guy Rotem at Justt

“Love Spinach on Google Meet so much. Makes it easier to handle standups.” - Peter Adeyemi at Curacel

“Seamlessly integrated, no need to toggle between the windows now. Loved it @teamspinach” - Sumit Sharma at Zuddl

“Does what it needs to do, we were already using Google Meet so this was needed for us to make Spinach.io work.” - Paul Hooper at ABEHR Digital

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