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Why Gmail filters & labels are important

Are you sick and tired of having so many messages in your inbox? Are you suffering from inbox overload?

Well, today I wanna show you how to use filters within Gmail, so number one, you don't receive quite so many emails right here in your inbox, and number two, so that you can easily find special or emails that are important to you. In today's video, I wanna show you how to apply filters and some of my favorite filters that help me keep my inbox nice and clean.

Where to access Gmail filters

So let's get started with finding out how we can apply certain filters. Now there's a few different ways in which we can do so.

One way is to go to our settings. We start by selecting the gear icon and then coming down here and selecting Settings.

At the row at the top, we wanna select Filters and Blocked Addresses. Near the top, you'll see that there is a heading saying the following filters are applied to all incoming mail.

You can see in this example I actually haven't applied any filters at this point. Now the next step would be to select Create a New Filter, but hang on a minute.

That's an awful lot of steps, isn't it? First we had to click this, then we had to click Settings, then we had to click over here, and then we had to click this.

There must be an easier way to create a new filter. Well, there is, and all we need to do is use the search box at the top of the screen.

Even before you search for anything in particular, all you can do is select the little drop down arrow here, and we can search for particular mail. Near the bottom of this little drop down box, you will see that there is not only the search button but a Create Filter option.

When we hover over it at first, it's gonna say enter some search criteria first, and that's true. We need to give it a little bit of information first before we can create a filter.

But this is a very simple way, this is probably the fastest way, for you to create a filter within Gmail. I'm gonna show you one other way of doing so, but it's gonna be particular to a specific email address.

Gmail filter options & advanced search

Here you can see we can select different From addresses. We can select To addresses, things that are more than just yourself, maybe if other people are included, or maybe you manage multiple email addresses within a single Gmail account.

You can include things such as a subject line, if the message includes certain words, or excludes certain words. We can also filter by the size of that particular email message.

A few other options, including a date range, which inbox, which label has been applied, and if it has an attachment or if it includes chats such as Google Chat. But let's use a real world example.

So I'm gonna go back to my inbox here and in this example I've got a number of newsletters here. I wanted to make sure that I had a number of emails to show in today's tutorial.

But let's pretend that a number of these emails are from actual people. They could be from your boss.

They could be from coworkers. They could be from clients.

These are emails that are important to you, or perhaps some of these are notifications from other applications, other systems, that you may be using. Well, one of the easiest ways to clean up your inbox is to make sure that certain emails don't even start their lives here.

How to filter a specific email address

No, we want some of these emails to go directly to a separate folder or in Gmail a separate label. So I'm gonna use these Wired emails as an example and let's pretend that these Wired emails are something that are important to me.

They're something that I would like to read. They're something that I do want to review, but I never need to look at them immediately.

So I don't want them to hit my inbox. I want them to go somewhere else where I can choose when I want to read them, when I want to deal with them.

So in this case, I can just select any of these Wired emails. I'm gonna open up the email.

Here is our third way of applying a filter. In this step, I want you to select the little three dots.

This gives us some additional options, and near the bottom we have Filter messages like these. By selecting that it's automatically going to filter all of the emails that have this From address.

Here it's already pre-populated it because we selected it from within the message. If I click outside of the search bar for just a moment, you'll see it's already done the filtering for me.

Now, I haven't actually told it what I want it to do yet, but here I've, it's quickly searched for all of this criteria. If I go back and select the drop down arrow, I can add additional criteria if I want, but really, I just want anything from this address.

I want it to go somewhere else. I don't want it to start in the inbox.

So with at least one piece of criteria here, I can now select Create Filter.

Understanding Gmail filter choices.

Now I've got a number of different options that I can choose from. So when a message arrives that matches this search, in this case, that matches this email address, what do we want to do with it?

Well, in this case, I do want it to Skip the Inbox. I don't want it starting in the inbox.

I don't wanna see it there. I want to go and look at it when I want to.

So I'm gonna select this first criteria here. You can review the vast number of other options that are available to you including marking it as read, if you wanna add a star, delete it, always mark it important, a number of different criteria that you can choose.

The only other one I'm gonna select in this case is going to be Apply the label, because I wanna be able to go and find it and easily see it. So I'm gonna say choose and label, and in this case, I'm gonna say New Label and I'm gonna type in Wired, just so it's very easy for me to find all of those messages.

I'm gonna select Create which is actually just creating the label at this point. Just before I select Create Filter you will notice at the bottom of this list there is, the final check box says Also apply filter to seven matching conversations.

In this case, I do want to apply that. I want this filter to be applied immediately including the messages that it has found over here.

So I'm gonna select Create Filter. The filter is created.

I'm returned back to that message where I started this process, but I'm gonna start by clicking on Inbox to show the difference. So here, within my inbox, you will notice that I don't have, I have one Wired message in here, but I think that's because it's from a different email address.

See, that's interesting. This one is from a different email address.

So that's why this one wasn't filtered. So, the filter is working properly.

But you will notice that that's the only Wired message in this list. Everything else is not in my inbox.

Everything else is over here in this new label called Wired, and now I can come here and visit this when I like and review these particular emails. What this also means, because I've now created this filter, is that any new messages from that particular email address will never show up here within the inbox.

They will all automatically come here to this label and I can still be notified of it when there's new messages. It'll still be bolded like this.

So I can come down and take a look and review these emails as I like. So, think of some examples in your life.

Are you receiving automated notifications from certain systems or applications? Are there certain people that their messages never urgent?

You can maybe come and check on them once a day, or once every couple of hours. You can divert the inbox and go directly to that label.

How to add Gmail labels to emails

Now, the second example I wanna give to you today is how you can add labels to particular emails that may be very important to you.

So let's say in this example that this Best Buy newsletter, I'm gonna say for an example that this is maybe my boss. Maybe this is someone important and I do want to know when their emails arrive and I want them to stand out a little bit more.

In fact, I'd love it if there was a red label, something of that effect, so I can easily pinpoint those particular emails. So, in this case, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna click on this message again, and what I could do is I could come up here and say Filter messages like these again if I wanted to.

But I'm gonna do something a little bit different, just so you can see how the search bar at the top works with the filter option here. So, I'm gonna open up one of these messages again and all I'm going to do is I'm gonna copy the domain.

I'm not gonna copy the entire thing. I'm just gonna copy the domain and I'm gonna put that into the search bar at the top of the screen.

So yes, once again it's gonna bring back all of those messages, and I'm now going to select the search options, or the search criteria. So instead of just having those words I'm actually gonna cut that and put that into the From field.

So anything that has this in the domain I wanna create a filter for that. In particular, I wanna add a label to it.

So my next step is I'm gonna select Create the filter, and we're not gonna Skip the Inbox, because I do want it to appear in the inbox. I'm not gonna select really anything else in this except for the label option.

So I'm gonna say Apply the label, and no, I don't want the Wired label that we just created, I want something different. So I'm gonna say New Label, and I'm gonna say Best Buy

, or maybe it could be the name of my boss.

It could be important. It could be urgent.

I could say read this now, whatever label you wish, and I'm gonna select Create. Again, that just created the label at this point.

The last thing I'm going to do just like in the previous example is I'm gonna say Also apply the filter to 13 matching conversations. So I want this to be applied immediately not just for the emails that I will be receiving in the future.

So I'm gonna select that box as well and I'm gonna say create the filter. Now, what you'll notice in just a second I've got a new label here, the label we created, Best Buy, on all of these messages.

Now, the only reason why we see the inbox label at this point is that we are still in the search mode or the filtering mode here. So we're seeing the search criteria up above, but if I select our inbox, we don't see that inbox label anymore, but you will see that new Best Buy label.

How to change the color of Gmail labels

Now, it's still not quite, it still doesn't stand out as much as I would like it to.

So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna come over here to the Best Buy label on the left hand side of my screen and I'm gonna say change the label color. Remember, I want it to stand out.

So I think I'm gonna select this red one with the white text, and now I think you would agree with me it certainly stands out. Every one of those Best Buy emails has this nice, big, bright red label beside it.

So if this was my boss, if this was a very important customer, or maybe it's something in the subject line, remember, there's an awful lot of criteria that you can use. Whatever it is, you can give it this type of label and when I get a bunch of new unread emails I might want to jump particularly to those emails that have these types of labels with it.

So, that's how you use filters within Gmail, and a couple of examples of how you can apply it in a real world situation. I hope you enjoyed watching today's video, and I'd love to learn how you may be using filters within Gmail, or if you have questions about using filter within Gmail.

I would encourage you to give this video a thumbs up, and be sure to leave me a comment down below, and if you haven't yet, subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel. I upload new videos each and every week.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

If you use Google Chrome as your primary web browser, I hope that you're familiar with Chrome extensions. What are Chrome extensions?

Well, they are additional add-ons which give your browser some superpower, some additional functionality which the browser can't perform on its own. Now if you already have a few extensions installed, you will most likely see their icon here in the top right-hand corner of your browser.

But here I'm in the Chrome Web Store, which I encourage you to visit, and you can browse the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Chrome extensions. Now some extensions may be related to tools or apps that you already use, and some you may have never heard of before.

But in today's video, I want to share with you five of my favorite Chrome extensions. We're gonna get things started with Panda.

Panda

Panda is a fantastic way to browse the websites or the blog websites that you frequent most often. There's an awful lot of new articles, a number of things that you may want to browse on a daily basis, but Panda makes it so much easier for you to do so in just a single page.

So let me give you a lay of the land. On the left-hand side, you will see a column where I have a number of websites including things like Medium, Fast Company, and I've got Seth Godin's blog here.

Then I've got some additional blogs that I've added down below. I've got Trello, I've got Lifehacker, things like that.

Now in the middle part of your screen, you can see I've got a bit of a summary of what's going on in one of those pages. So for example, if I click on Medium here, I can see some of the most popular articles on Medium right now.

I see the title and a little bit of additional information on the top six or so popular articles. Well, if I scroll down here, I see, "Oh, how to fall asleep quickly and wake up ready to be productive."

That sounds interesting. I'm going to click on it, and instead of just going to that site, on the right-hand side of my screen, I actually go directly to that article.

I can read it right here. I don't have to go anywhere else, and I can quickly jump back to something else here on the left-hand side of the screen.

Maybe I want to quickly browse what's going on on the Trello blog. Well, I can do so.

Here are the latest articles. I can see how many hours or days ago they were published, and I can select any one of them and go directly to that article.

So this can be a very efficient way for you to review all of those websites. These could be news websites; they could just be some of your favorite websites that you would like to browse all in one central place.

Mercury Reader

Now the next extension I want to share with you is called Mercury Reader, and it does something that's also gonna help you improve the way that you read and consume articles on the web. So here I've pulled up a recent article here, and you'll notice something that is very familiar in our online world.

There's a lot of stuff going on. I mean, here's the article, which is only taking up about 60% of my screen, but I've got advertisements and I've got invitations to sign up.

A lot of colorful things; it can be really, really distracting. Well, with the Mercury Reader Chrome extension installed, I'm going to go up here to the top right-hand corner, and I'm gonna select Mercury Reader.

In just a moment, what does it do? It streamlines everything.

In fact, it removes everything else on the page except for the article itself. So now I can focus on this article.

I can perhaps enjoy reading this article a little bit more as I scan, as I go through this item. Now if I want to go back to the original page, all I have to do is click anywhere outside here in the grey area, and then it will return me to the original view.

I'm back to the website. I can browse as I was before.

But Mercury Reader can be a great way for you to focus in on that article if you don't want additional popups, if you don't want all the additional noise which is thrown at you. You can try out Mercury Reader.

Full Page Screen Capture

Now the third one in our list has to do with capturing images and especially if you want to capture more than just what you see. I know for myself, once in a while, when I am trying to either redesign my website or try to get a bit of a bigger picture of what someone's homepage or a particular web page looks like, I'd like to get a snapshot of the entire thing.

So here I've come across a website that I'd like to get a snapshot of the entire page, not just bit by bit. So what I've installed is a Chrome extension called Full Page Screen Capture.

It's actually this little camera icon that you see here. Whenever you're on a website or a web page in which you would like to take a snapshot of the entire thing, simply click this icon.

In just a few seconds, it's gonna take a screen grab of everything. I want to note the little Pacman status icon there.

I really like that. That's very entertaining.

But in just a few seconds now, I have a PNG image here of the entire website. Now I can review the entire thing here.

This would basically look just like the normal website, but you can see it's actually captured the entire thing. At this stage, I can download it as a PDF, or I can download it as a PNG image.

I can reference it later; maybe I want to mock up some things. I want to add some text or add some things as I'm collaborating with others on my team.

So a very simple add-on, a very simple extension. It may not be applicable to everyone, but whenever you are wanting to capture an entire webpage, very easily put it in a PDF or create an image out of it, you can use the Full Page Screen Capture.

Grammarly

Now moving on, the next two extensions in my list have to do with writing. We've looked at reading; we've looked at capturing images; let's see how we can improve our writing.

Now in this example, I've opened up an email. I start to write or craft an email to someone else, but you will notice that there's a few underlined words in red.

Now we're probably used to seeing this in a number of word processing applications. It usually means that you have a spelling mistake.

Yes, indeed, I do have a spelling mistake in this particular example. What I am using right now is an extension called Grammarly.

Now Grammarly has been heavily marketed over the last two years or so. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant to install Grammarly and try it out.

But you know what? After I started using it after a couple of days, I really couldn't see myself going on without it because it's a very simple user interface.

It's helped me to write better whether it's an email, whether it's an article, or even if I'm just in social media. What Grammarly has done here, it's highlighted a few words that it thinks I may have spelt incorrectly or perhaps I am using poor or incorrect grammar.

So let's go through it one by one. The first one, "follow-up," it's suggesting that, you know what, there really should be a space.

There's no such thing as a word "follow-up" without the space. But what I really like about it is that I didn't even have to click on this.

I didn't have to right-click on it, which we were used to when it comes to spelling mistakes and other applications. I just need to hover over it; it gives me the suggestion, and I can say, "Oh yeah, yeah, 'follow-up,' please, that's what I meant."

So let's move on. What else happened over here?

It actually, for a second there, it seemed to have ignored my "together" there for a moment. So there, I meant to say "together," but in this case, I put an "i," and here I can select the correct format there.

Lastly, I have the incorrect form of "to." There should be "to" with two "o"s, so I'm going to hover over that.

Remember, this happens once in a while, probably doesn't happen too often to me, but whether it's "to" or whether it's "your" or "you're," you know, those things do creep up as we're trying to be efficient with our writing. So here I'm going to select the proper or the correct form of "to."

The other nice thing about Grammarly is that you can actually add your own words. So for example, I have added the word "Simpletivity" to my dictionary.

Most applications are gonna look at this word and say that it's incorrect because it's my business name; it's an original name. But you can add that, so as I'm adding this to my social media posts, as I'm adding it elsewhere, it's not going to flag this as incorrect.

Now the last one, the fifth and final extension I want to share with you today, is also gonna help you be a better or at least a much quicker writer or responder. That is Auto Text Expander.

Now I've mentioned Auto Text Expander before when it comes to email, but this actually applies to almost anywhere that you are adding text online. So how does it work?

Auto Text Expander allows you to save some preformatted responses. This could be just a couple of words; it could be an email address; it might even be a full paragraph.

What you do is that you create some shortcuts, usually a string of just a few letters, so that you can type these letters, and then the entire sentence or paragraph, whatever you have saved here, will be populated. So let me give you an example.

Here I've got one that is "hbd stories," standing for a happy birthday

, and I've got a very quick happy birthday message here. So if I go into my email and I'm gonna write "HBD," look what happens.

As soon as I finish typing the letter "D," that entire sentence expands. "Hey, just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, hope you had a good one."

Think about the common responses that you write in an email. Think about some of the things that you need to either sign off on or the way that you address certain people again and again.

How much additional time could this save you? I'll give you another example.

Here at the bottom, I've created one, and the shortcut is "TBNI," and that stands for "Thanks, but not interested." This is something that I'll often give to emails when people are reaching out to me, and it just doesn't look like the right fit, or I'm not wanting to hear further communication from them.

Instead of writing that out in two or three sentences, all I need to do is come back here. I'm gonna say "TBNI," and look at that.

The entire sentence is brought in for me. I can hit Send and get on with the rest of my day.

So whether it's just a couple of words, or a few sentences, or even a full paragraph, Auto Text Expander can be a great shortcut for you to add as a part of your Chrome browsing experience. So I'd love to hear from you.

Which of these five did you find either most impressive or most helpful? In addition, I would love to hear what is your favorite Chrome extension.

I'm sure a number of you are already using Chrome extensions which help you to be more productive. Thanks so much for watching.

I would encourage you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel. Give this video a like and be sure to leave me a comment down below.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, and today I am very excited to share with you the brand new Trello home screen. Now just before I get into all of the features of this brand new area of Trello, I want to go back to the default home screen or the default board screen within Trello.

Default Trello Home Screen

You're probably familiar with this look: when you select the Trello logo at the top of your screen, you go back to a page something like this. You have your starred boards at the top of the screen, you have all of your personal boards down below, and then your team boards down below that.

This has been the default when you go to the Trello home screen for many, many years. You can get quick access to each of these boards, but one of the complaints is that it's been very difficult to get a high-level view of all of the cards and all of the projects that you're involved with.

Things like notifications, conversations, and things that are coming up. Well, Trello has given us the home screen, and I think you're going to be spending an awful lot of time here because they've given us a lot of goodies to play with.

A lot of ways that we can stay on top of our work. So let me give you a tour.

All of the action really happens here in the middle part of the screen. On the right-hand side, we still have our starred boards, we still have our recently viewed boards, and we can quickly and easily create a new board.

But it's this single column in the middle of the screen which is where you are going to want to put your attention. So first up, we have an "Up Next" section.

Up Next

This "Up Next" section is going to include a number of different things. It could include cards that have an upcoming due date or perhaps a due date which has recently passed.

Obviously, that's pieces of information that you want to stay on top of. It is also going to include cards where you have been mentioned recently in a conversation.

Again, something you want to keep your eye out for. Lastly, it's also gonna include cards where you have been added to recently, yet you have not had any activity on that card.

Think of how many times someone else on your team may have assigned you something, and you weren't even aware of it. You weren't even aware that you were assigned to that particular card.

Well, you'll be notified of that here in this "Up Next" section. So this first card in the "Up Next" area is a good example of that.

Here I was added to this card about an hour ago, so I'm being notified of it. There are a couple of other really nice features that they've included here.

One is, I can reply to this card directly from this screen. I don't have to click on the card, I don't have to go anywhere else.

I can say, "Hey, I've got this," or "I'll give you an update later on in the week," whatever the case may be. I also have the opportunity to dismiss this card.

So if I've already been notified that I was assigned to this card, or I don't want to be notified of this again, I can select the dismiss button. Now you'll notice there's actually another card that comes up.

Here's another card which I've been added to recently. So I can either go through these one by one, or I can select the "Show More" link, and this will add additional cards down below.

I've got a few other examples of things that I've been added to recently. Here's a couple of examples where a question has been posed to me, and someone has mentioned me in the comments area.

Now again, I've got this nice reply button, so I can reply immediately to this conversation, or I can select "Dismiss." Now it's important to note that "Dismiss" is only dismissing this notification of the card.

It does not archive the card, it does not delete the card, it doesn't remove me from the card. I'm just dismissing this notification.

But if I do want to go into the card itself, I can do that as well. I can just click on this mini preview here, and it's gonna take me directly to that board and open that card for me.

But at any time, I want to go back to the Trello home screen, I just need to select the logo, and that's gonna bring me back here. As you can see, by default, the "Up Next" section is only going to show me one card at a time unless I select "Show More" below.

Highlights

Now below "Up Next," we have a second section, and this is called "Highlights." This is a little bit different than what we saw up above in that "Highlights" is all about conversations.

The great thing is that it goes beyond just the conversations that I'm involved with. It goes beyond just the things that I have either commented on or someone has included me in the comment.

It's actually going to show me all of the comments of the boards that I'm a member of. So even if I'm not involved in that conversation, I can see that conversation here in the "Highlights" section below.

Again, another great way that you can get a bit of a pulse of what's going on within boards in which you are a member of. Or maybe you're the manager or the team lead, and there are lots of other conversations going on.

This is now your centralized home to see what is happening with those conversations. If you are involved directly, like you see here, I should maybe clarify the different things you see here from the first card to the second card.

Here I've asked the question, right? I've asked Jane the question, so it's letting me know that that's the last part of this conversation here.

Teams

Someone has asked a conversation of me, so I can hit reply and do that immediately from this part of the screen. Now when it comes to the home screen, there's a few other things you want to keep in mind.

Here we have a "Teams" section, which goes beyond just giving you the ability to edit those boards or edit the members of those teams. It will actually filter what you see here on the home screen.

So by default, when you select "Home" or if you select the Trello logo at the top of the screen, you're gonna see everything that you are a member of or you're engaged with. But let's say if I just want to see what's going on with the HR department.

I can select the HR department, and here's the single, in this case, single team highlight. So I can focus just in with this team.

If I only want to see things for the product development team, I can select that here, and it's going to filter out just the cards related to boards within the product development team. Now another thing to keep in mind with this "Teams" section is that by selecting it, I can now go to the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

I know it might be a bit of a stretch, but here I can see all of the boards for that team. I can edit the members of that team or adjust the settings for that team.

So I know there might be a bit of a distance here. I know when I was first testing out the home screen, I thought I should be able to select this and it would go directly to my settings or my members screen.

But no, this actually filters the information. I'm going to select HR department again, and it's gonna filter the information here.

Which is great, right? If you're working with multiple teams, some of you may have 10 plus teams here on the left-hand side.

You can filter your highlights, you can filter the "Up Next" section, but it's also a way for you to edit your members and settings for those respective teams. So I hope you get an opportunity to test out the Trello home screen.

I think this is going to be a place where you are going to be spending an awful lot of time. It's a great way to make sure that you're not missing out on anything.

That you're staying on top of all those notifications and updates that are thrown your way. Or if you just want to follow the conversations that are going on here within the other boards that you are a member of.

In the comment section below, I would love to hear some of your favorite features of Trello home and how you may be using Trello home at the moment. If you're not a subscriber to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, I would encourage you to do so and to give this video a thumbs up.

Thank you so much for watching. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Today's workplace is more noisy and distracting than ever before, and that can make it very challenging for you to find the quiet time or the quiet space for you to work on your most important projects. Well, in today's video, I want to show you four different ways on how you can create that quiet time, even if you work in a very noisy office environment.

Now, today's de facto standard is an open office environment, meaning that you have very little barrier or perhaps no barrier at all between yourself and the other individuals that you work with. In fact, for some of us, we may be working in one very large room which holds up to 50 or even more individuals within that space.

This makes it so easy to be distracted, not only by all of the noise and other conversations that are going on around us but even all of the visual distractions that happen as people are getting up and moving about throughout the office. So let's take a look at my first tip on how to create quiet space within your environment.

My first suggestion may sound simple, but its outcome can be very, very powerful, and that is to wear headphones, earbuds, or perhaps even your telephone's headset. Now, there's two benefits of taking this approach.

Wear Headphones

Number one, by listening to music or other background sounds, you can drown out the noise and other conversations around you. But if you are wearing your earbuds or your telephone's headset, there's an additional benefit.

Many of your colleagues may assume that you are taking part in a conference call and therefore will be hesitant to distract or interrupt you. Even if your lips are not moving, even if you're not saying a single thing, just by wearing a headset, others may assume that you are taking part in an additional meeting and therefore may think twice about interrupting you as a part of your day.

Find a Private Room

My second suggestion is to find a private room for short periods of time. Most corporate offices have a variety of different meeting rooms available, everything from a large boardroom which may seat up to 30 individuals all the way down to much smaller meeting rooms designed for only two or three people.

This is your opportunity to make use of some of these underutilized meeting rooms so you can find private time and quiet space for your own work. In my experience, many of these rooms are underutilized, meaning that the majority of them are unattended or not being used for most of the day.

Now, I recommend that you follow your office or your company's guidelines when it comes to booking or making use of these rooms. So get to know which ones are close to your desk or which ones are perhaps not used as frequently as others.

Even if that meeting room has a large glass window or is entirely made out of glass, most of these rooms have phones hardwired into them. Again, like we saw with suggestion number one, many people may assume that you are taking part in a conference call or some other private phone conversation.

Back when I used to work in a corporate environment, I would always book out a small meeting room on Friday mornings. This was my opportunity to do my weekly review and other heads-down work.

Arrive at the Office Earlier

So take advantage of those smaller meeting rooms which may not be fully utilized. Tip number three is to arrive at the office earlier.

You may be surprised at how few of your colleagues start their day prior to 9:00 a.m. So if you can find a time where you start your day upwards of an hour before the average employee enters the office, you may have found your sweet spot for distraction-free time.

Now, of course, you may have to adjust your schedule and your commute schedule in order for this to work, but there can be additional benefits to adjusting when you start your day. For many of us, you may actually reduce your commute time by beating the early morning rush hour.

You may also have the advantage of leaving work a little earlier than you currently do now. That gives you other opportunities to spend time with your family or to spend time on your personal pursuits.

Now, of course, this option may not be available to everyone, but it's worth having the discussion with your manager. The additional benefit of starting your day a little extra earlier is not only will you not be distracted by physical colleagues in the same office, but the amount of emails that you receive at that time of the day are usually much less.

You can almost guarantee that no one will be phoning you at 7 or 8 a.m. in the morning. So explore looking at arriving at your office earlier so you can find that quiet and focused time just for you.

Work from Home One Day per Week

Now, my last suggestion may be challenging for some of you, but it is certainly worth exploring, and that is working from home one day per week. More and more companies are willing to look at having some of their staff work remotely, at least on a temporary basis.

There are many more benefits to the organization beyond just cost. So by working from home one day per week, you eliminate the commute, and you guarantee fewer distractions from your colleagues, especially if you work in a large office.

Now, by sitting down and having this conversation with your manager and explaining the real benefits of this request, and that is to be more productive, many managers are willing to let their employees work from home one day a week or at least to try it out on a trial basis. If you are able to gain this privilege, be sure to make the most of your time when you do work from home.

There is a chance that you may be able to increase the number of days or the amount of time that you do work from home in the future. So be sure to keep records and be sure to show how you are being more productive on those days when you work remotely.

So there are my four tips to creating quiet space regardless of the noisy work environment that you may find yourself in. Which of the four suggestions stood out to you, or which of the four do you plan to implement?

I would encourage you to leave your answer in the comments below. If you haven't subscribed to the Simpletivity channel, be sure to do so and to give this video a thumbs up.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Gmail is one of my core productivity tools for getting things done. However, did you know that you can add some superpowers to your Gmail account to make it much easier to manage all of those emails?

In today's video, I'm going to show you three of my favorite add-ons for Gmail, three add-ons that I simply couldn't live without. Today we are going to get things started with Boomerang.

Boomerang

Boomerang is an add-on that is available for both Gmail users and Outlook users. Here I am, about to send a message, in particular, I'm about to send a question to someone.

This all looks pretty standard at this point. At the bottom of my dialog, I've got my send button, and I can discard it and that type of thing.

But you will notice down below, I have some additional features, some additional functionality. This is what Boomerang can provide to all of your emails.

First, I have a red Send Later button. So if I would like to send this message into the future, I can do so.

Think of how often you may have stayed up extra late, and you're crafting that email at, I don't know, let's say 2:00 in the morning. But perhaps you don't want the person who's receiving that email to know that you're crafting that message at 2:00 in the morning.

No problem. I can hit the Send Later button and schedule it to arrive at 7 or 10, or whenever I want it to be.

How about the scenario where you know the person who's receiving that email, and you know they don't usually read their email until 1:30 in the afternoon? I can schedule my email to arrive at that time as well.

But you know what my number one favorite feature of Boomerang is? It's the one next to it, this little checkbox here.

Let me explain how it works. Think of how many times you've asked a question of someone.

Here I'm asking, Can you please send me a copy of the team notes? I'd really like to receive these in the next two days.

But what do I do after I send this email? Do I give it a particular label? Do I set a reminder in my calendar so I follow up with this person?

I don't have to do any of those things with Boomerang. All I need to do is check this checkbox here, and then I can determine the length of time that I want to go by before I get an automatic reminder.

In this case, I'm going to wait a maximum of two days. I'm going to say two days.

What's going to happen is that after I send this email, if I don't get a reply from the person I'm sending it to within two days, Boomerang is going to automatically bring my original email back to the top of my inbox. That will be my reminder, my trigger, or my cue that they still haven't sent me those team meeting notes.

Then I can either send another email, make a phone call, or determine what happens next. But the great thing about Boomerang is that if this person does reply within the next two days, I do not get a duplicate email.

Nothing further happens. Boomerang knows that I've been sent a reply, and therefore I don't get anything extra in my inbox. This is the core feature of Boomerang that I use literally on a daily basis.

Now that's not all that Boomerang provides. In fact, one of Boomerang's most basic features is bringing a message back into your inbox if you just don't want to deal with it right away.

You could just hit Boomerang, and you can determine when you'd like that message to reappear. But this one right here, the Boomerang or bring back if someone does not reply, I absolutely love.

Alright, let's move on to add-on number two, and I've got another example set up here. In this case, I am wanting to meet up with someone.

I want to set up a phone call with someone else, and you sort of know how this goes, right? You're wondering if we can set up a time for a phone call later this week.

What happens? You send a message proposing a time, and they say, No, can't do that. How about this? And you say, Sorry, I'm busy, and there's back and forth, back and forth, trying to find the right time.

Assistant

Well, my next favorite add-on is called Assistant, and this is how it works. It allows you to propose several times where you are available, and then the person you're sending that email to can select which one works for them.

Here I've just supplied a simple question, I'm wondering if we can set up a time for a phone call this week. What I'm going to do next, you can see in my lower right-hand corner, I have the Assistant icon.

All I need to do is select this icon, and it is going to open up a new dialog box. It looks very similar to a meeting dialogue here, right?

I've got the title of the meeting here, which it has pre-populated with both of our names. Of course, I can edit this.

I can say Scott and Scott Chat. Location, I can say phone, and I can include my phone number if I want to here.

Let's make it a classic movie 555 number. Invitees, here's where I can paste in the email addresses of those who I'm inviting.

I'm just going to use my test account here, and then I can put in a description, anything else that you would find standard within a meeting invitation. But the real power comes down below.

Let's say I want to make the meeting length 30 minutes in length. I'm going to select 30 minutes, and here are the next three days available to me.

I can see that I'm actually fairly wide open, so I'm going to give this person a few different choices. I can click here, I'm going to say 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. later today, maybe 4:30, and let's say 1 o'clock on Thursday.

I'm going to give them one more time on Friday at 2:00 p.m. So here, you can see I get a snapshot of my calendar.

It actually shows me my other events here. You can see some of the other events that I've had today, so I don't have to open up my Google calendar.

In this case, I've selected five different times, and what I'm going to do is select Insert times into email. What Assistant does is that it pulls that directly into my email.

Now here's some standard text that Assistant includes. I'd like to set up a 30-minute meeting. Click on the meeting start time that works for you.

Down below, we have that information, and when they receive this email, all they have to do is glance at their calendar and say, You know what, I can do Thursday at 1:00. They're going to click this link, and immediately, that's going to create an invitation for them.

That's going to book it on my calendar because I've already said I'm available. It's going to book it on my calendar, and now we're set.

That meeting is set up in just a single email. This is a fantastic tool when you are dealing with individuals.

It's not necessarily meant for groups of people to determine one particular time, but it's fantastic when you're trying to set up a meeting with another individual. They just have to click once, and you don't have to do anything at all beyond this step after you send this email.

You just have to wait for their reply, and it's automatically going to be booked into your Google Calendar. Of course, if none of these times are available, they can just select None of these times work for me.

That will send you a notification, and you can propose some new times if you like. One thing I would point out is that it will show it in your default time zone.

So if you are sending this to someone outside of your time zone, you may want to mention that in your note up above or just point out that there is an opportunity for them to view it in their own time zone. By default, they're going to see it in your default time zone.

But this is another tool that I use almost daily when I'm setting up meetings with someone else. I know what my availability is. I really have no idea what their availability is, so I use Assistant to help us both out.

AutoTextExpander

Now, the third add-on I want to share with you today is called Auto Text Expander. It's not limited to just Gmail.

You can use Auto Text Expander anywhere that you put text in online. It could be a forum, it could be a document, it could be some other place.

But I wanted to include it here because I find it most useful when it comes to writing and replying to emails. What Auto Text Expander does is it allows you to create some shortcuts, shortcuts of perhaps some phrases or certain words that you use frequently.

You'd rather just type in a few keystrokes rather than type in a full paragraph or a full sentence. Let me give you an example here.

Here I'm asking someone a question, and when I ask a question, I often sign off with a very similar phrase, a very similar phrase followed by a Thanks in advance. Now it's only about a sentence and a half, but you know what? I would much rather just type in a few keystrokes.

So I'm going to type in the letters LFR, and as soon as I hit the letter R, it inputs this string of text which I've already set up in advance. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance.

So this again is a common sign-off. I don't use it for all of my emails, but I use it often enough that I would rather just type in a few characters, and then I can have this

populate immediately within my email.

Let me show you how it works. When you install the Auto Text Expander Chrome extension, you will get a screen that allows you to create the shortcut.

Here you see my LFR example. Here's the shortcut, a string of letters or characters, and then on the right is the text that I want it to automatically input.

Let's try another example, and I'll show you here at the bottom of the screen. Here I have one where the shortcut keys are TBNI.

That makes a lot of sense to me. It might not make any sense to you, but those basically stand for Thanks but not interested.

Once in a while, I may receive an email from someone who's obviously put in a lot of thought, effort, or time into getting to know me, and they want to share something with me. So I will reply to those emails.

I don't reply to all emails that are offering me an opportunity, but in those cases, I might want to just send them something. Hey, thank you for sharing this with me, but I'm just not interested in learning more at this time.

Instead of writing out those two sentences, I would rather just hit these four keystrokes. I can even test this out at the top of the screen.

You will notice it gives you a little demo area. So I'm just going to type in the letters TBNI, and as soon as I finish hitting the I stroke, it inputs that text.

Let's go back to Gmail and use our example here just to make sure that you understand that it works in all areas. There it is, TBNI, and now that string of text is immediately within my email.

You can use this within Gmail, and you can use this in a variety of other places. I just find that I most frequently use it when I'm replying to an email or maybe I'm answering a standard question, something that I get quite frequently.

Hey, why don't I just set up my standard response over here, and then I can use those shortcut keys within Gmail. So there you have it, my three favorite add-ons for Gmail, Boomerang, Assistant, and Auto Text Expander.

If you would like to try out these add-ons, I've included links to them in the description below. As always, I would love to hear from you.

What are some of your favorite Gmail add-ons? Perhaps I can highlight them or review them in an upcoming video.

Thank you so much for watching today's video. I encourage you to give this video a like, share your comments below, and make sure to subscribe.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Google Keep is a fantastic tool for grabbing all those ideas, notes, and thoughts in one centralized location. Especially if you are using Keep on your mobile device, you probably quickly add a number of notes in a single day.

If you're already a user of Google Keep, there's a good chance that you also make use of Google Drive, and in particular, the Docs application for creating reports or writing articles. Maybe you take meeting notes within Google Docs.

Today, I want to show you the relationship between Google Docs and Google Keep, how they integrate with one another, and how you can access both from either application. Let's start by taking a look at Google Docs.

Here I've started a new article, and let's say I've captured a number of ideas within my Keep account. Maybe I've got some images, notes, or the rough draft, the puzzle pieces of a great article, and I want to access that information.

To do so, all we need to do is select Tools, and about halfway down, we have an option that says Keep Notepad. If we select that, what appears on the right-hand side of the screen is a mini version of all of our Keep notes.

We can search the notes, add new notes, and even edit these notes directly from this view. So now, when I've got some text, maybe the start of an article or just a few points, I can select the three dots and say Add to Document.

Now my text is immediately here within my Docs environment. Let's say I want this image and I want to bring it into the document.

I just showed you how to do so by selecting the menu option, the three dots. Well, Keep actually makes it easier; I can just click and drag that image, and now it's directly in my document.

Whether it's text or images, let me give you one other example, this one involving a checklist. What happens when you take a checklist into Docs? It will actually convert it into a bulleted list.

Of course, I can come in here and edit it any way I like. All that great information, all the pieces of my reports or an article or maybe notes that I've kept on a client, I can pull directly into my document.

But it gets even better because this relationship works both ways. Let's say I've got some information here that I would like to bring into Keep.

I'm just going to delete a couple of these notes so we can get a better view. Let's say I want to bring some of this information back into my Keep environment.

You will notice when I drag things out of Keep, it doesn't remove them from my Keep notepad; it's going to keep it there. But let's say this first sentence, I would like to create a new note around it, and it did not originate here.

All I need to do is highlight that piece of text or it could be an image, right-click, and I can say Save to Keep Notepad. Now you can see it's created a brand new note that I now have accessible here within my Keep notepad.

I'm going to switch back over to my Keep application or to the main Keep window. Here you can see that piece of text that I've brought in.

There's another advantage to doing this. You will see down below that there is a Keep integration link.

What happens is that it keeps that link between this note and the actual Google Doc where it came from or where it was created from. If I click on this link, it's going to bring me back right here to the original document.

This is where that note originally came from. Another way of doing this is by taking a note within this Keep viewer from within Docs.

Let's say this is a new note, a new note from Google Docs. As I'm creating this note, it again adds this automated Keep integration link.

It's going to keep that tie, that sync between this document and the note that I'm taking here. I'm going to select Done, and now when I go back to my Keep tab, there you see that same Keep integration link.

If I select it, it's going to bring me right back to this document. You don't have to have all of your notes synced to the actual document where you kept it.

Let's say I just want to add a new note, and it's unrelated to this document. All I need to do is select X, remove that source, and now the note that I take here will not link or be related to this area.

But I know that there are people who are starting to use their Keep notes as another way of keeping track of comments within a particular document. Remember, you can highlight that area, bring it in here, and make other revisions as well.

You can use labels, search by labels if you like, and see everything that is integrated or directly related to this document. Just a couple of ways that we can do so.

Let's go back to our Keep account and see how we can create a new document directly from our Keep environment. Let's say I've got the start of an article here, something titled New Blog Idea.

It's just a rough scratch. I've been writing a few things, or maybe I've grabbed a long piece of text from the internet, for example.

We can actually start a new Google document directly from this note. Here's how to do it.

If we go to the More option down below, you will see at the very bottom there's an option called Copy to Google Docs. When we select this option, it may take just a moment.

It says it has been copied to Google Docs. Let's open that document.

What has happened? Look at this.

It's brought in all that text, everything that I got started in my Keep environment. It's now got me set up within a new document in Google Drive.

It's brought over the title of that note and all of the information that was within that note. Maybe you're a writer, or maybe you have a long piece of information, lots of text or lots of information in a note, and you want to branch that out or apply some rich text editing.

You can flesh it out into an article or report by selecting Copy to Google Docs. Another way of bringing in information, this time from Keep, and bringing it directly into a brand-new document within Google Docs.

There's one other example that I want to show you today and how Google Docs and Google Keep can integrate with one another. Another advantage of using both of these tools together is the OCR technology that is built right into the Keep environment.

Let's start this one in Keep. I've taken a screenshot of a poster here.

You may already be aware that when you are grabbing an image with text on it, Google Keep has the ability to grab and convert any text on that image into real text. If you want to edit this text, let's say these bullet points that are listed here, and you'd like to include that in your Google document, all you need to do is come down to this menu again.

Above the Copy to Google Docs option, we have Grab Image Text. I'm going to select it this time, and what has happened is you can see just down below, it has taken the text up above and it has put it into this note.

I'm going to open it up so we can see it in a bit more detail. It's not always perfect, as you can see.

It's missing a couple of letters here and there. It's supposed to be "at the beach," right? I'm going to put in a capital B there.

This is supposed to have an L, long sleeved shirts and pants. But otherwise, it's done a pretty good job of grabbing the text that we see up above.

Now it's here down below. Now we're going to go back to Google Drive.

If I go and find this note, here it is. Now I have the text within here, right now I have the text available to me.

If I'd want to bring that into my document, I can select it, grab it, and bring it in here. Now it will bring in the entire note, so I've got the image up above, but now I've got all that great text as well.

That's really what I wanted. I can come up here, delete the image, but now I've got all that text that I wanted from that poster.

It only took me a couple of seconds, and now I can edit it, manipulate it here within Google Docs. Those are a number of different ways that you can use information in both Google Docs and Google Keep, and send it between them.

You can have the information that you've grabbed, click and drag, add images, text, even bullet points and checklists directly to Google Documents. I hope you enjoyed today's video, and I would love to hear from you.

What is your favorite tip about the integration between Google Keep and Google Docs? Be sure to include it in the comments below.

Thank you again for watching. I encourage you to give this video a like, and please subscribe to the Simpletivity YouTube channel.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Managing a team is never easy. However, there are some things you can do to get the most out of your staff.

Today, I want to show you how you can use Trello to manage all of the job responsibilities, all the job tasks for your team, regardless of how many employees are part of your organization. Recently, I was speaking with Michael Timms of Avail Leadership.

Michael is the expert when it comes to succession planning and getting the most out of your team. He shared with me this fantastic idea of how to use Trello to manage all of your staff's responsibilities.

Job Roles

Now, when we talk about responsibilities, we're not talking about daily to-dos. No, we're talking about things like job roles or the types of things that you might find on a job description.

Let me show you what I've got set up here in my Trello sample board. In this example, I've got a team that consists of four individuals, or a department that consists of four individuals.

At the top, I've got one list for each job title. Here you see I've got an Operations Manager, Business Analyst, Quality Control Coordinator, and an Administrative Assistant.

Headshots

Below the very first card in each of these lists is the individual that has that title. Here we have Sue, Joe, Phil, and Diane.

I highly recommend that you use headshots of your team or your staff when you're creating such a board in Trello. It makes it much easier to know what you're talking about and as you're moving cards around, to have that picture, to have that visual in front of you.

Now, below the headshot, we have a number of job roles. These are the responsibilities of these individuals.

As I said before, these are the types of things that you might include in a job description. What are they responsible for on a day-to-day or weekly basis?

As Michael shared with me, to get the most out of your team, you want your staff to play to their strengths. You don't want them to just fulfill the assignment that they were perhaps hired for, but if they are especially skilled in a particular area, perhaps they can take on someone else's role as well.

For example, let's take a look at our Operations Manager. Let's say that Joe has a background in HR, training, and recruitment.

This is something that he loves to do, and he's got experience in it, whereas Sue, this is something that she doesn't particularly like; it actually eats up too much of her time. So even though recruitment and training are part of her responsibilities, what we can do is take this card and drag it over into Joe's list.

Now, this is something that is under Joe's area of responsibility. But we don't want to stop there.

You may notice a few other things about this particular Trello board. You will notice that each and every card actually has an hours value labeled underneath it.

Weekly Hours

These are the estimated number of weekly hours that they are using on those particular tasks. We have just added 2.5 additional hours to Joe's responsibilities here.

So now we may want to look at whether there is something else on Joe's list that maybe Phil, Diane, or even Sue is better suited for. We want our teams to be playing to their strengths whenever possible.

Another thing that you will notice here on the Trello board is that I have a few different cards that have different labels or different colors associated with them as well. This can be very helpful if there are certain themes you want to group together as you're looking at your different employees and the different tasks that they do on a regular basis.

Filtering Tasks

In this example, I have a red label which stands for quality-related tasks, and I also have a green label which stands for reporting activities. Trello makes it really easy to filter out these labels.

Let's say, for example, I want to see all of the reporting tasks among my team. All I have to do is select reporting, and now I have a quick look at all of the tasks and who has those tasks that are related to reporting.

Maybe I want to turn reporting off and I want to look at quality. I want to see who's got the most quality-related tasks.

It's probably not surprising that our Quality Control Coordinator has the most quality-related tasks here. But are there things that perhaps he should also be adding to his list, or are there certain things here that can be deferred or assigned to someone else as part of their job responsibilities as well?

Advantages of Trello

Let me turn that filter off for a moment and show you a few more of the advantages of setting up a Trello board like this. You will notice that the front of the cards is relatively short, and that's on purpose.

We don't want to be dealing with full paragraphs on the front of the card. It's hard to scan, it's hard to read the job descriptions or those job tasks as we're reviewing this board.

But the great thing about Trello is that if we click on that card, within the card we can add a detailed and full description of these job responsibilities if we like. We can even add attachments or links to other websites or other documents which might pertain to this particular task.

Creating a Team Board

You can keep the front of your card nice and simple, nice and clean, and then add as many further details as you like within that card as well. Take a look at creating an HR staff or a team board like this for all of the employees within your organization.

Or maybe you want to test this out with just one department or one area of your company. It's a great way to get everyone on the same page.

Just before I wrap up, I want to highlight one last thing. Let's say, for example, Phil decides to leave the organization.

What happens in most organizations? Often, they go back to the last job description or the last job posting that they had.

But with the Trello board, these are Phil's actual current job responsibilities. So maybe this is where we want to generate that job posting or that job description from.

Conclusion

It's another one of the advantages of having the title as the list and then the individual as the first card. We hire someone new or bring someone new into the organization, and then the process repeats itself.

It's dynamic. We might want to change and adjust some of the cards, some of the job responsibilities throughout the team.

I'd love to hear from you. What do you think about having a board to manage all of your team's job responsibilities?

Have you created something like this yourself? I'd love to hear your questions and comments down below.

I also want to give a big thanks to Michael Timms for providing the suggestion. I'm also going to provide a link to Michael's original article, which goes into even more detail about this process.

You can find that in the description below. Thank you again for watching.

I encourage you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel. Give this video a like, and of course, I'd love to hear your comments down below.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Trello is an amazing tool to manage all of your projects, all of your to-do's, and especially when it comes to collaborating with others. Whether it's for your own personal use or if you're using it with your business or with your work, Trello is a very advanced tool for managing all of those ideas and following all those tasks through a particular process.

But perhaps you've used Trello and said to yourself, This isn't just for me, or maybe I want it to do something a little more than what Trello is capable of. Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you three alternatives to Trello, things that can do many of the same things that Trello does but perhaps in a very different way.

So if you're not such a big fan of Trello, stay tuned for three of my favorite alternatives to the Trello system.

Asana

My first suggestion is Asana. Asana is probably an application you've heard of before if you are already using Trello.

There's a lot of debate over which of these applications is better, Trello versus Asana, and that's because many of the same features that you find in Trello can be found here in Asana as well. If I open up one of these tasks here on the left-hand side, you can see I can assign members to it, I can add a due date, I can add attachments, and there's a description area.

There's even a comment section below. In fact, even the inside of one of the tasks within Asana looks very familiar to what we see within a Trello card.

But Asana may be a preference for you or for your team if you are wanting pure task management. Here you can see I have a number of tasks laid out, and I can have multiple members assigned to them.

I can easily see the due dates here, and Asana also makes it very easy for me to check things off. I can simply check this little check mark icon, and I can check my tasks off as I'm going about my day.

Asana is also very powerful when it comes to subtasks, and if you don't like the arrangements or the relationships in Trello, you may like the way that Asana associates subtasks within its system. Asana also allows you to have conversations outside of the particular tasks themselves.

Here you see the Conversations tab. We also have things such as a Files tab, so you can see all of the files associated with this particular project instead of having that file attached to a particular card.

But Asana has also gone one step further, and if you still like the board-style format, Asana has that as well. So you can still create lists, you can still create cards as you would within Trello, and enjoy that Kanban style.

Todoist

Now, my second suggestion as an alternative to Trello would be Todoist. Many people are using Trello as their primary task manager, something for their personal to-do's.

If you want something that maybe isn't quite as full-featured, and maybe you don't need so many lists, you might enjoy Todoist. Todoist is arguably the most popular to-do list app today, and you can see why.

It's a very simple yet powerful layout. Here you can see my tasks for today, and I've got my overdue assignments up here at the top.

It's very easy to add new tasks. Just select this plus button at the top of your screen, and you can add tasks immediately to your list.

Todoist also gives you the ability to separate out your lists into different projects. Here I've got a personal to-do list, a work to-do list, and I can have other lists as well, such as a shopping or perhaps an errands to-do list.

Now, if you are wanting more features out of Todoist though, you may need to pay for their premium service. For example, labels are something that you will need to upgrade to their premium service, and if you want to add more details such as attachments and comments to a particular task, you are also going to need to upgrade to premium.

So if you want a quick and simple to-do list, if you want something that is primarily one-sentence tasks and you don't need to add further information, Todoist may be a great solution. But if you're wanting a few more features, you may need to subscribe to their premium service.

Now, the last application I want to share with you today may just be the best of both worlds. The functionality and the team collaboration of Asana combined with the easy and simple layout of Todoist.

SquidHub

That is SquidHub. SquidHub is a little bit newer than both Asana and Todoist, but I really enjoy the layout that SquidHub has going on with their project management tool.

Here you can see SquidHub has three different columns. On the left-hand side, we have our to-do's and our meetings, which we can separate by different subheaders.

SquidHub also makes it very easy to check things off. If I just check this button, I can check off tasks as I'm going about my day.

In the middle, we have our files and our links. Instead of necessarily having them attached directly to these tasks, we can have a nice directory or a nice folder of all the files and links associated with this project.

What I really like about SquidHub is that you have a messages column as well. As you're collaborating with team members, you can see that discussion, add your message, and add your comments right here on the right-hand side.

You don't have to go to some other area. You don't necessarily have to integrate with Slack or some other communication tool; you can do so right here.

Now, if you don't want to see all of these three columns at the same time, that's fine. You can minimize them and just focus on your to-do's for the day.

On the left-hand side, you can see our menu area where you can have multiple groups and multiple projects. You can also direct message individuals here and view a calendar of all your tasks.

No, this is not a power-up. The calendar is built right into the SquidHub application.

When it comes to adding attachments and adding additional information, I'm going to open up one of these tasks. You won't have quite as many options in terms of adding labels and adding more custom buttons, things that you might find within Trello and Asana.

But for many people, this is enough for them to be at their productive best. It's enough for them to get going, get their project underway, and not maybe deal with all the complexities of all the subtasks and everything else going on.

But again, having that central repository for all of your files and having those messages on the right-hand side of the screen. So there you have it, my three alternatives to Trello: Asana, Todoist, and SquidHub.

Now, what I would love to learn from you is, are you using any one of these three Trello alternatives? If so, I would love to hear your feedback and let me know what your favorite feature is of either Asana, Todoist, or SquidHub.

Of course, I would love to have you subscribe here on the Simpletivity YouTube channel. I also want to give a big shout-out to SquidHub for sponsoring today's video.

If you'd like to learn more about the SquidHub application, I'll leave a link in the description below. Thank you again for watching, and I hope you subscribe, like, and comment on today's video.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

One of the most popular videos here on the Simpletivity channel is this one about the best way to manage files and folders. In fact, if you do any type of search based on file management, how to organize your folders, or how to structure your files, chances are this video is going to come up number one in your search results.

In this video, I show you the ABC folder method, a very simple but powerful way to not only organize your files but also a very easy way for you to retrieve and find those files afterward. Let me give you just a brief overview of what the ABC method is.

The ABC Method

What it requires is for you to create one folder for every single letter in the alphabet at the top level. Here you see I've got a folder for each letter from A to Z.

Within those folders, I have the contents starting with that letter. Here I've selected my folder W, and I've got subfolders that are nothing but things that start with W: webinar, website, worksheets, and workshops.

If I want to click on something, let's say the website resources, I'm only two clicks away. It's W, and then it's website, and then here I have all of my files.

I do not have some complicated branch structure. I do not have some complicated system of subfolder within subfolder within subfolder.

You know what I'm talking about, like seven, maybe eight levels down, and then you still haven't found the thing that you're looking for. So it can be a very quick and easy way to find and organize all of your files.

FAQs

But with a popular system like this and with a very popular video, I get an awful lot of questions. So today, I wanted to address a few of the most frequent questions I get about the ABC method.

The first one is: "Scott, what if I forget what I labeled it? What if I labeled it 'website,' but then I go looking under 'O' for 'online resources,' for example? What if I start guessing in the wrong places?"

Well, that's very true, and that may happen to you from time to time, that even after you've created that folder, you may go looking somewhere else to try and find it. But I would argue, and it has been my experience, that it is still much faster to guess once incorrectly and then guess the second time correctly than going down that complicated branch structure or subfolder structure and then getting to a dead end and having to work your way back out of that subfolder system.

So it's true that once in a while you may guess incorrectly, but I would still argue that it's going to be quicker, it's going to be faster, to guess wrong once and then find it correctly the second time around. The other great thing about this system is that it often works based on intuition.

I recommend that when you're setting up your system or when you're naming new file folders, you go with the first name that comes to mind. What makes the most sense for the files that you're going to be putting within that folder?

Because chances are that is what you're going to be thinking about in the future when you go to retrieve those files. Another question that I get most often is: "Scott, why not just put these folders at the top level? Why do you have to start with the letter of the alphabet?"

If you just put these folders at the top level, they would still be in alphabetical order, right? You could still view them that way, so why not do it in that sense?

Well, there are a couple of reasons. Number one, if you just put these folders at the top level, how many folders would you have? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? How many different folders would you have to manage?

That's an awful lot of scrolling, and I would much rather you can get to things with just two clicks rather than having to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the file or the folder that you're looking for. But more so than just managing your files within File Explorer or within your system's file system, what about when we're dealing with things online?

Let's go back online, and I'm going to use a common example: uploading a file or perhaps attaching a file to an email or some other resource. When I select computer here, I'm given a relatively small dialog box.

Now, it's true, I could come down here to the bottom right-hand corner and expand this out a little bit, but even in this small, cramped space, it's still relatively accessible for me to select the folder that I'm looking for. Let's go back to W for a second, and there I can find all of my file folders, and one more step down, I can find the file that I'm looking for within that folder.

So think of how often you're uploading, how often you're attaching a file to some type of online resource. You're sharing something with someone else, and we are often given these small dialog boxes.

That's why I really enjoy having only 26 folders to deal with here on the left-hand side. I can quickly get to the file that I'm looking for.

Now, the last question I receive most often when it comes to the ABC method is: "Scott, well, this doesn't really work if you're sharing your files or you're collaborating with a team." I would say that the ABC method is primarily designed for your personal or individual files.

It's true that this is going to be a difficult system to manage with other team members or a large group because what I think makes sense for a particular set of files, someone else may think differently. So, of course, you can still share these folders, you can still share the individual files.

But the ABC method is designed primarily for your individual or personal files. Things that you're not sharing this entire Dropbox folder with, not the entire thing, maybe components of it, but things that you are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, things that make the most sense for you.

So I'm sure you have many other questions when it comes to the ABC file and folder management system. I'd love to hear from you.

Have you used the ABC method, and what other questions do you have about this way of managing your folders and managing all of your files? Be sure to leave that question or leave that comment in the comments section below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video, and I would encourage you to subscribe right here to Simpletivity and give us a thumbs up. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Google keep is a fantastic application for managing all of your notes and ideas but over the last few years more and more people are starting to use keep as their to-do list manager.

So today I want to show you a few different ways on how you can use Keep to manage all of your tasks. Now the most simple or basic way to create a to-do list in Keep is by using the checklist function here.

If we select "new list" we are given a new list format, so we can just start entering our items immediately here on this new card. Down below you can see that I've already created two different to-do lists.

I have one titled "to-do list work" and another titled "to-do lists personal," and I recommend that you keep a separation between those two things. It's fine to have them side-by-side like you see here, but when you're dealing with work, you want to be focused on those work items.

Now it's very easy to add new items here. Simply type in your new item, hit enter on the keyboard, and you can get your second item in nice and quickly.

Keep makes it very easy for you to prioritize and move your tasks in a different order—just drag and drop. As soon as you check something off, it will be kept for you, and you can review it down here in the completed items area.

In case you made a mistake, just uncheck that box and it will be returned to your master list up above. Like I mentioned, you can create as many of these lists as possible.

You can go much further than just the work and personal categories which I've created here. But that's not the only way that you can create a to-do list within Google Keep.

You will notice that I have a number of other notes or other note cards here within Keep, each one of them representing an individual task. So this is another way in which you can keep on top of all of your tasks, on top of all of your to-do's.

The great thing about doing this at the individual note level is that I can always add images to these cards. I can add notes and further descriptions to these cards if I want.

I can even share and collaborate with others when I do it at the individual card level as well. But don't worry about separation; some of you may be thinking, "Well, I don't want all of my notes just in one unmanageable list."

That's where labels come into play. Over here on the left-hand side, you can see I've also created a personal label and a work label.

When I click on the work label, now all I see are my work-related tasks. The great thing is, when I add a new task up here, it will automatically add it to the work label area.

So anything that I add when I'm focused here on my work-related tasks, it's all gonna come back here to my work-related items. If I click on personal, again all I see are my personal-related items.

These colors, for example, and other things that I set up can be unique to those labels or unique to that particular space. Now there's one other advantage of using the individual note level for your tasks, and that is that you can add reminders to any task that you want.

Let's say I want to make sure that I phone Kim later today, so I'm gonna set a reminder. Actually, let's pick a more specific time—I want to make sure I do it before the end of today.

So I'm going to say this afternoon by 1 p.m., and you can also see that some of my other tasks have reminders attached to them as well—tomorrow 8:00 a.m., today at 12:00 noon. If I'm using Google Keep on my mobile devices, I can receive a reminder when these tasks are due.

But there's an additional benefit: if you use Google Calendar, and for most of you who are already using Google Keep, you're probably using Google Calendar. These reminders show up there as well.

Here you see in red, these are the reminders that were created from those tasks within Google Keep. You'll need to turn on your reminders calendar in order for you to see that on your Google Calendar.

But here I have the exact same task that I created in Google Keep, but I can see it on my calendar. I can even mark it as done directly here from my calendar.

If I want to change the date, I don't have to go back into Keep—I can actually edit and change the date right here within Google Calendar. It also gives us a handy link, so if I want to view further details or if I want to go back into Keep, I can just select this and I can view this note directly in Keep.

So this can be a great way to manage your tasks, especially if you don't want to be going back and forth between multiple applications. You can set up your to-do list in the morning, for example, and then work in your calendar around your other meetings.

Then you can see those tasks appear at the most appropriate time. So those are just a few ways on how you can use Google Keep as a to-do list manager—either set up individual cards or multiple cards as checklists.

Whether you're separating out work and personal or maybe you want to go even a little more granular, you can have a to-do list just for the emails or phone calls, the communication that you're going to be doing today.

You can even have a list that is specific for today and a separate list for things that you want to accomplish later in the week. An alternative method is that each and every note, each and every card you see here, can be a task itself.

Again, you can add further details, images, you can change the colors on these to represent something specific to you. And don't forget about labels—you can have multiple lists.

Here we're viewing my personal list, and here you are looking at my work list. So I'd love to hear from you next: have you used Google Keep as a to-do list before?

If so, how are you using Keep as your task manager? Thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, and I'd love to hear from you, so be sure to leave a comment down below. Remember, being productive doesn't need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.