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Your calendar is probably the most basic productivity tool that you use.

In many ways, it's the lowest common denominator when it comes to getting things done.

I mean, we all use email to some extent, but some of us use it a lot more frequently than others.

Some use it a lot less.

Some use it a lot more.

A lot of us use a to-do list or a task manager app.

Some of us don't use that at all either.

If you have watched some of my previous videos, you will know that I often use Google Calendar.

I use my calendar to manage my tasks as all-day events.

It's a great way to keep them front of mind.

They're at the top of my list, and I can't ignore them because I'm in my calendar so often, looking at other appointments and other events, places that I need to be.

I really like having those tasks in front of me at the top of my calendar.

Well, today, I want to show you how to adjust some of your notifications in Google Calendar.

Make them optimal for you, make them optimal for your specific workflow, and in particular, I'm going to show you one little checkbox that you may not have used before in the past that's going to help you set yourself up for a great day.

To adjust your notifications in Google Calendar, we want to select the little gear icon in the top right-hand corner and find settings.

Now, the very first tab that you're going to see here in settings is going to be a general one.

We want to click on the calendars tab here, and here you're going to find the list of all of the calendars that you have associated with your Google calendar.

Now, in this particular example, I really don't have that many other calendars, but if you have more, you're going to see them under this other calendar setting.

But if we go all the way to the right, we're going to see the notifications column, and we want to be able to select the edit notifications link.

This is going to give us a variety of options of how we receive and when we receive these notifications.

Now, at the very top, we've got two different types of notification settings.

The first one is event notifications.

The second one is all-day event notifications.

Now, the second one probably has cleared up what the first one means, right?

The second one is things like the tasks I just showed you on my calendar.

These are things that are all-day events.

They don't necessarily have a start and an end time, but they're attached to an entire day, or they may be stretched over multiple days.

The one up above, event notifications, are specific meetings or activities, places that you need to be.

These have a distinct start time and finish time, right?

It can be a meeting with Greg at 1 p.m., or a dentist appointment, which starts at 10:30 in the morning.

Now, we've got a few different options as to how and when we will receive those notifications.

So here you see I have set up for my event notifications.

I'm going to receive a notification 10 minutes before each event.

Now, when it says notification, it means that I'm going to receive a desktop notification.

Right when I'm here in my browser, that's where that notification will appear.

And this notification will also apply to your smartphone, phone, or your tablet device, if you'll be notified by those notifications as well.

The only other option that we have here is email.

If you'd rather have an email notification, you can make that selection.

And then you might want to adjust the time difference as to when you will receive that notification.

Ten minutes just before an event might not be long enough.

You might want an hour before.

You may want a few hours before to remind you for those events.

But for the way that I use Google Calendar, just the desktop, just the in-browser notifications suffice my needs, and 10 minutes is about right for me.

Now, the one thing to note is that you can have multiple notifications set up.

So if you do want email notifications as well, you can do that.

You can do that too.

You can continue to add notifications, maybe at different time lengths, or maybe just at different times, you know, different types, email and regular notifications.

You can also change these settings within your individual events.

So, for example, I like the default here of 10-minute notifications for all of my events.

And if there's something particular, I might adjust the length, or I might adjust the type in that individual event.

A good example would be something significant like a birthday in my family.

I will often have multiple notifications for someone's birthday coming up.

I might have an email that comes out maybe two weeks before someone's birthday, my mother's birthday, for example.

And then maybe I'll set up a second email three or four days before her birthday in case I've forgotten.

Because in case I ignored that first email, just another reminder, hey, this special event is coming up.

You don't want to miss it.

You want to make sure you've got your presents or your cards or whatever else you need to get together for that event.

Now, for my all-day events, you can add further notifications if you like, but I prefer not to.

You know, these are my to-dos.

I'm very engaged and involved in my calendar, so, you know, for me, I would rather not have a notification shown.

But of course, just like our time-based event notifications, you can add multiple ones as well.

Now, the only thing left on this notification settings page is the last section, which is entitled "Choose how you would like to be kept up-to-date."

And here you have two options, either email or SMS.

These would be text messages.

Now, you will need to set up your mobile phone in order to receive those text messages.

And here you can see I have not linked up my phone with this account.

That's because I really have no interest at this time in receiving text messages for these updates.

Email will suffice.

And you know, these first few choices have a lot to do with events where you have been invited to or you've invited others to.

So I have things here like new events.

Receive an update when someone sends you an invitation, when someone changes an event, when someone cancels an event, or here, receive an update when guests respond to an event for which you can see the guest list.

So again, most of these things are involving other people, either people that I've invited to a calendar event or I've been invited to.

But the last one on this list is where I really want to focus our attention.

The daily agenda sort of gets hidden here at the bottom of the page, so I'm sure there's many of you who have maybe not been aware of this option.

So by selecting this box, "Daily Agenda," you will receive an email with your calendar's agenda every day at 5:00 a.m. in your current time zone.

So depending on your personal workflow, depending on how you receive information, depending on how you would like to get a summary of your day, this may be an excellent way to receive it.

Google is going to send you a very short, a very concise email showing both your time-based events but also your all-day events in one single email.

And the great thing is that if you do manage multiple calendars within Google Calendar, you might have seven, you might have 12, you might have many, many more calendars.

For each one that you check this box, you will need to go into each calendar to select this box.

But no matter how many you've selected, you're only going to receive one email.

A single email.

So don't worry about checking this box for four or five or six different Google Calendars thinking that you're going to receive four, five, or six different emails at 5:00 a.m.

No, it's going to combine it all into one single email.

One single email for you to review.

So it can be an excellent way to start your day or review your day to get that email in your inbox and see all of your events there.

Now, be sure whatever changes that you make on this page, be sure to select "Save" so that those changes can be applied and you can start to receive your daily agenda.

Now yes, that time, as you can see, it is hardwired.

You cannot adjust that time for 5:00 a.m., and it is going to be based in your current time zone.

But I think for most people, that's probably a good time.

I can't see many people wanting it much earlier than that.

And if you're wanting it for sort of a planning purpose or what's coming up today, that's typically a good time to receive that daily agenda.

So try out and investigate some of the notification settings that you have for your Google Calendar.

You can experiment with different time lengths and different times and see if you like the daily agenda.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you liked this video, I would encourage you to show it.

Give me a thumbs up down below.

Add a comment.

What do you think about the notification settings within Google Calendar?

And we have many other videos here at Simpletivity, so we would love to have you subscribe.

Tell us what you think.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

I'm going to assume that in your role you probably have to do some type of writing

perhaps you write a regular blog article for your own personal website

or perhaps you write blog content for your company or organization

perhaps you are starting to write a book and you have a goal to write a new chapter each and every week

or perhaps you just need to get that marketing report done or some other piece of written work done this week

well today I want to introduce you to the most dangerous writing app and I love that title

you can find it at the most dangerous writing app.com and the entire purpose of this application this web-based tool is to keep you in flow

I don't know if you're like me but when I go to write something I'm often a bit of a perfectionist

and I overanalyze what I'm writing while I'm writing

too often I have started to write an article or started to write a report and after the first two sentences I start to overanalyze those sentences saying well that's not exactly what I wanted to say

or maybe I'd like it to sound a bit more like this

and I waste a lot of time because as any established or professional author will tell you

you want to get into to some type of flow

you want to get into some type of rhythm

you can always edit it later and in most cases you should edit it later

and that's what the most dangerous writing app can help you with

here you can see their tagline don't stop typing or all progress will be lost and that is very and 100% true when it comes to the most dangerous writing app

here's how it works you get a choice of either the length of time that you would like to write or the number of words that you would like to write

so it has several different defaults

no you cannot select your own specific length or your own specific word count

but they give enough variety here I think for any writer to use or benefit from

so here's the number of minutes that you can select from

and I usually prefer this one is the number of words

when I sit down to write a new blog article I'm usually targeting somewhere around 500 Words so that's the length that I will select

I'm not really sure about this one 1667 words I don't know if that's an inside joke for writers or authors

if you know what this number is referring to please leave your answer or leave your comments in the section below

now I'm going to get back to hardcore mode a little bit later but let's don't worry about that just yet

so let's say you want to sit down and you want to write for five minutes so we've got minute selected and then we've got five

the next step is we select the big start writing button and then we get a blank page

we get a blank canvas to start typing

now just before I begin start typing I just want to highlight few of the other things that we see on this screen

number one I love that most of it is blank

this is not a place to do any editing bold italicize bullet points this is pure for writing

if you have a preference of a dark contrast or a light contrast it allows you to do that

you can expand the entire screen if you want to hide even your web browser

and then at the very bottom you can see we have our word count and it doesn't matter if you've selected a time limit or a word count limit it's always going to show you the number of words down below

and then lastly you will see right here creeping out from the top left corner there will a progress bar that will start to branch out

now this will either represent the amount of time that I've selected

and so in this case we've selected 5 minutes so you know it's going to slowly creep out across here until we get to 5 minutes on the right hand side of the screen

or it will represent the number of words that you have typed if that was your goal

so how does it work

so I haven't started yet as soon as I start typing it is keeping track of how often my key are on the screen and if I pause it's going to start fade

oh did you see that it started fading there a little bit now I have a tough time talking and typing at the same time so yeah this is a little gobbly go

but I'm going to stop again and watch it's going to start to fade

and I'm going to stop it once more now this next time I'm going to let it fade out and it's about a 5-second interval and if you stop typing for 5 seconds it's gone

I failed even gives me a big red screen and yeah you can see how many words you wrote

and no I don't feel like tweeting this out to anyone but the entire concept is this if you stop typing within that interval whether it's a time-based or a word-based you are going to lose everything

the goal here is just to keep writing

keep it coming keep writing

you can always edit it later and if you achieve that milestone if you achieve that limit that you have set out to do well then can keep the work

right nothing's going to happen you're not going to get this red screen in the future so if we say try again it's just going to bring us back and keep us at that time limit

let me show you that fail once again

so again I'm a poor typer and speaker at the same time so I'm just sort of putting some garbage down here in front of me

and here you can see this progress bar right which is a timer in this case

but if I wait right it's going to give a slight fade

oh oh I better yeah let's keep writing let's keep writing

so it is going to give us a bit of a visual indicator and then if I wait too long and it is gone

I fail oh nine words again they weren't really words it was really more a mashing of keys in this example

but I have actually used this quite regularly over the last few weeks

let's go back to the home screen just so I can show you that last setting which is hardcore mode

now this one really surprised me and I think this is only for experienced writers because I'll show you exactly what happens when you select hardcore mode

you can do it for minutes or words it's available in both both options

but if I say start writing you'll see that my screen looks a little bit fuzzier right

you can't even see that that says start typing and watch as I start entering in some keys it quickly puts the letter of the key that I'm hitting at that moment but you can see I can't actually read what I'm writing

now I guess for some very experienced writers or authors this is fine

you know just a stream of Consciousness just keep it coming without even being able to proofread it

and of course if you stop typing you're going to get the exact same fail screen

I have not used hardcore mode before I am not ready for that and I don't think I'll ever be ready for that

I do want to see what I have just written down and how that forms what comes next

but this may be a very big help to you especially if you're in a bit of a writing rut

I've used this for a variety of different content

most often for articles and blog content

recently I actually used it when I wanted to compose a letter to a relative of mine

it was around the holidays I really wanted to reach out to this person and I sort of kept putting it off

but I wanted to give something a bit more meaningful than just a five-sentence email or short paragraph in an email

and the most dangerous writing app helped me to do so

it allowed me to sit down write about 500 Words

just let it come out just whatever was on my mind whatever I wanted to say and express

and then of course I didn't send that letter as is

I went back

it's very easy you you'll get it in a in a Note file in a text file

sorry is how you can export it or you can just copy and paste what you see on the screen and then put it in a Word document

put it in a web page put it in your blog editor

wherever you'd like to edit it afterwards

and in my particular example it was great

I could edit the letter

I could edit some of the content

but the important thing was it allowed me to do it in a much shorter period of time

because I knew if I stopped writing I was going to lose it all

so check out the most dangerous writing app

you might want to start out just by doing it for fun

but you might be surprised how it can help you get more done and really get into that writer's Zone

achieve that type of flow with your writing

I'd love to hear your experience with the most dangerous writing app

so be sure to share your experience in the comments below

remember being productive does not need to be difficult

in fact it's very simple

Trello gives us so many different options on how we can add information to our cards.

You can add labels.

You can add colors.

You can add due dates and checkboxes.

There are so many different pieces of information to an individual Trello card.

But maybe you want to add something a little more specific.

Maybe you would like to add a custom field depending on how you work or perhaps what industry you work in.

That might be very beneficial for you to start using custom fields.

Today I'm going to show you how to use, how to add custom fields and edit those fields so that they can appear on your cards.

You can use them as frequently or as often as you need to.

To do so, we are first going to have to enable the custom field powerup.

To do so, click on your menu and then come down here to power-ups.

Now note if you are using the free version of Trello, the basic version of Trello, you are only allowed one powerup per board.

For example, I already have my custom fields powerup enabled in this case.

But if you're wanting to use more than one, let's say you're using the calendar powerup and you want to use the custom fields powerup.

You will need to upgrade your Trello plan.

But for today's example, I'm just going to use the free version as an example.

After hitting enable here on the right-hand side, you are going to see a gear icon here.

By selecting the gear icon, you actually have to make one more selection, and that's the edit the powerup settings.

This is where we can start adding custom fields that will appear on our card.

The first option they give us is to add a field.

If we select the add a field option, we need to give our new custom field a name.

Let's say this first one is going to be the name of a person, so I'm actually going to label it as name.

From the dropdown type, I'm going to select text.

This field is just going to be used for entering someone's name.

The final option I have here is, would I like this custom field information to show on the front of the card?

You're probably already familiar with things like checkboxes and due dates, and if a card does have notes, you have some little icons, some little indicators on the front of the card if that information is present.

Now by default, when you're adding a new custom field, this is going to be unchecked.

But if this is information you would like to see, you can simply check that box, and then it will show on the front.

I think I'm going to check this one just as an example so we can see it when we go and apply it to a card.

I'm going to hit save.

The great thing is that you're not limited by the number of custom fields that you can add to a card.

We've just added the name field here.

Now I'm going to go ahead and add some additional fields as well.

I can add another text type if I like, but there's actually five choices for us to choose from.

We can include a number.

We can include a checkbox.

We can include a date or a dropdown list.

Remember, these will behave differently than the existing checkbox functionality or due date, for example.

Maybe you just want to capture a date.

It's not a due date.

You just want to capture a date.

That's the type of custom field that you would select.

The checkbox is going to be an either/or checkbox, so this is not going to be a list of items.

This would simply be a yes-or-no checkbox for you to select from.

A dropdown list can probably be very, very helpful if there is a list of selections that you regularly need to choose from, or you want members of your team to choose from.

The dropdown list can be very helpful in that case.

Let's pick checkbox in this case here, and maybe the name of this checkbox is going to be, we recorded a name in the first one.

Let's say, were they satisfied?

Was the customer satisfied?

Or something to that effect.

I'm going to say satisfied.

I'm going to leave this one unchecked this time around to show the field information on the front of the card.

I'm going to hit save.

Again, you can continue to add additional fields here.

You can also add fields within the card, and I'll show you how to do that in just a moment.

The last thing I want to show you is the button name.

By default, the name is custom fields.

That's what we're going to see within the card, but we can even change that as well.

I'm going to change it for this example.

I'm just going to say more info, or maybe more details would make more sense.

I'm just going to say more details.

That's going to be the name of the button.

Now let's go take a look at how that looks on a new or an existing card.

I'm going to come over here.

This is a test card here.

I'm going to open it up.

Here under the heading power-ups, you see there's our new button titled more details, or we can label it whatever we want.

When I click on that button, it's going to give us the options that we specified.

Here's the name.

I can put in the name of the person who may be helped me in this example if that's what we're trying to capture.

Was I satisfied or not?

I can check that box or leave it unchecked, depending on, I guess, the level of my service.

I can hit save.

Now you can see just above the description and just below the title, you can see those two fields now appear.

I have the name.

I have the satisfied.

It's no or yes.

If I click on them, I can toggle them and change them as well.

I can change the name just by selecting on them.

Let me click this one back to yes.

Then I'm going to minimize the card.

Lastly, I want to show you, remember with the name field we said that we wanted it to display on the front of the card.

There it is.

Now we can see the name of that person on the front of the card.

If I go to any other card, let's add a name to this one over here.

I'm going to say Jane.

I'm going to say I was satisfied this time.

Hit save.

There we see the name now appears on the front of that card.

Again, it could be a date.

It could be a dropdown menu.

It could be a number that you are trying to attach.

You can give it any label that you like, and you can even edit it within the card.

So instead of going back to the menu, let's click on this card, and I'm going to click on the more details.

So that's the label we gave it.

You can see that the settings option is also located here.

If I select this, I can either edit the ones I've already created, my existing fields, I can edit the button name if I'd like, or I can keep adding fields.

Maybe I want to add a date here.

Maybe I want to add a start date.

We use a lot of due dates in Trello.

What if I want to add a start date?

When did this really get underway?

Just for fun, I'm going to say yes, show it on the front of the card.

I'm going to hit save.

I'm going to click over here, and now when I hit more details, hey, look at that.

I've got a date and a time field that I can select.

I can hit save.

It's going to be recorded here, and it's going to show on the front of the card.

Explore some of the uses of adding custom fields to your Trello board.

Again, it may be particular to your industry.

Maybe there are some certain words that you and your team use on a regular basis, and it would be helpful to include that within a Trello card.

Let me know how you find using custom fields.

I'd love to hear your experience if you have used custom fields in the past and how that has benefited your workflow, how that's benefited your productivity.

If you have not already subscribed to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, I would encourage you to do so.

We would love to hear from you.

We would love to hear what you think about Trello and custom fields.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Google Keep has gotten a lot of attention over the past year, partly because of some changes Evernote has made.

Evernote first ruffled some feathers by changing the number of devices you could use the Evernote application with if you were using their basic or free version.

Then, very late in 2016, Evernote changed its privacy policy. The way it was announced and some of the wording around it led to a lot of people looking for other note applications.

You can find articles and news about both of these changes if you'd like to learn more.

Today, we're not comparing Google Keep to Evernote, but rather focusing on managing different notes in Google Keep.

One of the most common questions I get is: "Scott, I’m used to dealing with notebooks and folders in Evernote. Google Keep doesn’t have that functionality. How do I manage all of my notes in Google Keep?"

I want to make one disclaimer at the beginning of today's video: I don't think it's fair to compare note applications head-to-head.

The way we use our note applications is quite personal and unique, unlike email, where you can compare Google Gmail to Microsoft Outlook on a basic level.

With notes, some of us take very brief notes, while others use note applications to craft articles, write short books, or bookmark blog articles.

So, it really comes down to how you use your notes and what you want from your note application to determine which is best for you.

I will admit that my notes have a lifespan of roughly two weeks. About 90% of my notes live for about two weeks before they’re gone.

I want a note application that is quick and easy. I can get in, type a quick note, and get back to the rest of my day. I usually review my notes daily or weekly, then convert them into a to-do list, add them to my calendar, or turn them into an email.

I’m not storing a lot of reference material in my note application.

You might be similar to me, or you might be different. That will determine which note application is best for you.

Managing and organizing notes in Google Keep without true notebooks or folders—how can we do it?

The first obvious option is to use labels. Google Keep makes it easy to create and add new labels. You can see a few samples on the left side of the application’s menu. You can quickly filter and see all notes associated with a particular label.

Google Keep also allows adding multiple labels at the same time. For example, a note might have both the "family" and "reference" labels attached.

Google Keep also lets you add a label using a hashtag. When starting a new note, you can hit the hashtag and see all your labels. You can select the label you want or type it in yourself.

Labels are likely your first choice for organizing notes in Google Keep, especially if you don't want to see everything on the home screen.

The second method is using color coding. Google Keep offers eight shades for color coding your notes. You might choose yellow for personal notes, blue for professional ones, and red for another category.

If you don’t need a long list of labels or folders, colors can be a solution. For visual learners, this can help filter notes by color.

To filter notes by color, click on the search bar at the top. You’ll see options to filter by labels and color. At the bottom of the search options, you can select different colors and see all notes colored that way, regardless of labels.

These are your two primary and easiest ways to categorize notes in Google Keep: using labels or color coding.

I’d love to hear from you about your experience with Google Keep. How do you organize your notes? Do you use one of the methods mentioned or something different that might benefit other Simpletivity users?

Share your experience in the comments below. If you haven’t yet subscribed to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, please do. We have new videos each week and would love to have you in the Simpletivity community.

Remember, being productive doesn’t need to be difficult. In fact, it’s very simple.

In order for you to work at your productive best, you need to be able to ignore certain things so you can focus on your most important work. And although email is a necessity as a part of our business world, we need to be able to ignore email from time to time.

However, that can be difficult when you have email desktop alerts turned on. So today I want to show you how to turn your desktop alerts off and also set up some custom rules so that you don't miss messages from particular senders or those that may be of high importance.

What are Outlook Alerts

Now, this video is particular to Microsoft Outlook users. If you are a user of Microsoft Outlook, you're probably very familiar with email desktop alerts.

They usually appear in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, and they give you a brief summary of that new email which has just arrived. It will show you the sender, the subject line, the first few words or the first few sentences of that message, and the date and time that it arrived.

Now, I'm not exactly sure why it includes the date and time because these notifications arrive immediately as soon as that message arrives. And they can be so distracting, pulling you away from other work or other things that you were engaged in at that moment.

They don't just appear when you have Outlook open as the active window. As long as you have Outlook running, even if it's minimized in your taskbar, these messages will continue to pop up, distract you, and pull you away from your most important work.

So how do we go about turning these distracting notifications off? Well, let's jump into Outlook and see where we need to go.

How to Turn Off Outlook Alerts

In order for you to turn off your notifications that appear in the bottom right-hand corner, we want to start by selecting file. At the very bottom, just above exit, is options.

Let's select options, and that's going to give us a whole lot of options. Right near the top is mail, so let's select mail.

About halfway down this screen, you shouldn't have to scroll. You will see the section heading called message arrival.

By default, Microsoft usually has all of these turned on: when new messages arrive, play a sound, briefly change the mouse pointer, show an envelope icon in the taskbar, and display a desktop alert. I don't think you need any of these notifications for new email, so I strongly encourage you to uncheck all of them.

Especially play a sound. You don't need an audible sound for every email that comes in, and of course, this last one, displaying a desktop alert, we do not want to see these interruptions for every single message.

Whether it's something important, a message from your boss, or something that is spam, remember it doesn't filter out anything. Every single message will pop up there in the lower right-hand corner, so we want to turn all of them off.

How to Create a Rule

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, well, wait a minute, Scott. Once in a while, that notification has been helpful. Once in a while, I have received an important message, and I was able to act upon it because it showed up here.

Well, I'm going to show you how to create a rule for specific senders or for those which have been flagged as high important so that they can still appear and notify you, yet you won't receive notifications for every single message.

Let's start with a particular sender. For many people, they don't want to miss a message from their boss, perhaps a superior, maybe a very important client, or maybe it could be a spouse or a significant other.

The easiest way to create a rule for that individual is to find an email that they have sent to you. So I'm going to select this one as an example.

We can either select rules up here at the top in the ribbon, or we can right-click and select rules. They will both get us to the same place, and we are going to select create a rule.

This is someone that we want to be notified when their emails arrive. So I'm going to select create a rule, and it's going to show us this dialog here.

Nothing is checked so far. The way that this dialog works is that it gives us sort of an if this, then do that scenario.

So when I get an email with all the selected conditions, we're going to make that selection here, do the following. I'm going to tell it what to do here.

In this case, when I get an email with all the selected conditions, I'm going to select from this person. That's the only thing I'm going to check is from this individual.

What I want it to do is to display in the new item alert window, so I'm going to select that checkbox and select ok. Now it's gonna give us a brief warning saying that this rule is a client-only rule, and what that means is that this is only going to apply when Outlook is running.

Which is fine, the desktop notifications that we just turned off were the same thing. They were only going to show up when Outlook is running.

So we're gonna say ok, and now whenever I receive a message from this particular sender, I'm going to get a notification. It's gonna look a little bit different than the one we saw here, but it's gonna show up right in the middle of our screen in a new dialog box telling us that we've got a message from that individual.

So you can do this for as many senders as you like, but I would encourage you to keep it to a small number, probably no more than 4 or 5. Think of the four or five people that you really want to see their message every single time they send you something.

I'm hoping that's a relatively small number. The rest you can come and deal with their messages as you go through email throughout the day or throughout set times that you make time with email.

But these are just your extra important people that you want to receive that notification when they send you an email. Now there's a second circumstance in which you may wish to receive a notification immediately, and that's if someone sends you a message marked high importance.

Those are messages with those little red exclamation marks on them in Outlook. In this situation, we're gonna select rules up above, and instead of selecting create rule, we're gonna select manage rules and alerts.

This is an easier way to get to the new rule section. We're gonna start a rule from scratch down below.

We can see the one that we just created, right? These are the new item alert window alert for this particular sender, and as we add more people, they will show here as well.

So we can add or remove people if we like, but this time we want to select a new rule. Now this may look a little busy, it may look a little intimidating, but it's actually much easier than you may think.

The one we want to select is in the middle under stay up to date. We want to select display mail from someone in the new item alert window. That is what type of rule we are setting up.

In the next screen, if we click next at the bottom, we get to say, well, which conditions do you want to check? By default, they select from people or public group.

This is so you can choose a particular individual, kind of like what we did in that first rule. We're going to uncheck that because the condition that we want this time around is marked as importance.

That's the one we want to have checked. But before we move on, we have to make one more step in it and actually click on the importance link.

The reason is that there are three different levels of importance. There is normal, which is just your standard email. There is low importance that I find not a lot of people use, and then there's high importance.

This is the one with the red exclamation mark, so you want to make sure you select high importance level and then select ok. You can read the description of the rule down below as we go along.

Apply this rule after the message arrives marked as high importance. Let's select next once again.

It gives us the option as to, well, what do we want to do? Do we want to move it, do we want to redirect it, do we want to play a sound?

You can make additional options here. What I suggest is just having just the first one display a specific message in the new item alert window.

If we select that link, we can say, you know what we want to call this? I'm just gonna call it high importance.

You can put my own exclamation mark on it if I like. So that's just gonna show up in the dialog box when this message arrives.

I'm gonna select ok. We are gonna select the next button.

It's gonna ask us, are there any exceptions? In most cases, there is not going to be any exception, so we'll leave everything here unchecked.

On this screen, we're gonna select next. We can give it a specific name if we like.

I'm just going to leave it at high importance. Turn on this rule should be checked by default, and then we select finish.

Now once again, we are going to receive a warning saying that this rule will only run when you check your email in Outlook. That's fine.

We only want this rule to run when Outlook is open, either in the background or if we actually have it as the active window. So we'll select ok, and now you see we have that rule added here.

Going forward, every email from this particular sender, and if I add other people, that will show up as a new desktop alert. Every single email, regardless of who sends it, any email that comes in with a high importance label on it will show up in front of me as well.

Those are maybe the only two or three circumstances that I want. You can think of other rules or other situations in which you may want an email to show up.

But please, in order for you to reduce the amount of distractions in your

day-to-day, turn off your desktop notifications for every single email and instead create a few rules for just those important people or those important situations. I hope that has helped you out, and I wish you a very productive day.

If you would like to learn more about how you can stay productive, particularly when it comes to email, I would encourage you to like, subscribe, and comment below. What are some of your biggest distractions when it comes to working with your computer or working with your email application?

If you haven't visited Simpletivity.com, I would encourage you to do so. You will find many more tips and techniques to help you work at your productive best.

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

Folders, folders, and more folders. It doesn't matter what you do for work, you are managing files and documents in some type of folder system. It may be directly on your computer or your device, or it could be in a cloud service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

But over time, folders can become very frustrating because folders often lead to subfolders, and then there are subfolders of subfolders, and then even more subfolders of subfolders. And although you may have started out with a particular theme or a particular structure, often things can get very complicated, and long lines and long branches can branch out from your file folder structure.

I'm sure you've had the experience of getting to the bottom of one of those long lines and then being frustrated discovering that the file or the document or the picture you are looking for does not reside there at all. And then you have to back up and go looking elsewhere. Where would I have put this particular file?

Today, I want to show you a simple but very powerful way to structure all of your files in what I call the ABC folder method. What exactly is the ABC folder method?

Let me jump to my folder structure right here. We're actually looking at my actual Dropbox folder. You will notice at the top level, I have 26 file folders, all of them listed A through Z. I've got the entire alphabet here in front of me.

The way that the ABC file folder structure works is that we want to be able to quickly get to the files that we are after and not have to expand and collapse multiple file folders to get to the thing that we're looking for. In fact, we only want to click twice to get to the file that we're looking for.

The reason that we start with the alphabet is that we want to group our subfolders beneath based on the letter in that alphabet. Let me expand my C folder to give you an example.

Within my C folder, I have coaching resources, completed contracts, content outlines, and courses. These really are not related to one another in any way except for the fact that they all begin with C.

So if I'm looking for information about courses, I know it's going to be under my C folder. I don't have to look anywhere else. When I click on my C folder, I have my files right there. Only two clicks: I can click on the C and then the courses, and then directly to the file that I'm looking for.

Let's take a look at another example. Let's expand my P folder. Here we have payment, pictures, pricing, products, and public speaking training. Again, not really related to one another except that they all begin with P.

So I don't need to think about what other subfolders or what other groupings. I can just go to the P folder and find exactly what I'm looking for.

This may take a few minutes or even a little longer for you to convert your existing file folder structure into the ABC method. But you will be amazed at how quickly you can retrieve, how quickly you can find exactly the file that you are looking for.

If I open up my Links folder or my L folder, for example, here you will find my Links. Makes sense, links start with L, that's why I put it there.

I don't have to second guess myself and think, "Did I put links under website because it's web related? Did I put it under Online Resources because that would also be related?" No, links start with L, that's where the folder is, so it's going to be under my L folder.

I would encourage you, whether you manage your files directly on your computer, or use Dropbox, Google Drive, regardless of the application that you're using, consider the ABC folder method. Remember, we are not talking about a website design or menu structure, so it doesn't have to make sense by a particular theme.

What we want to be able to achieve is to get to the information that we're looking for quickly and easily, and in as little as two clicks. If you enjoyed this video, I would encourage you to like, subscribe, and comment below.

What has your experience been with managing different folders? Have you used the ABC folder method before or not? I would love to hear your comments.

Please be sure to subscribe, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Hello, Scot Friesen here at Simpletivity. If you are a longtime viewer or subscriber to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, you know that I recommend Trello as the best way to manage or organize your projects.

Whether you're working with several other individuals, on a team project, or just managing your own personal to-do list, Trello is such a flexible tool. It's an easy tool to use to manage everything you would like to organize and accomplish.

Why use Trello

I often get asked the question, how do I set one of my Trello cards as completed? If I have finished one of these tasks, what do I do once I've completed that task?

Today, I'm going to show you some of the more traditional methods of how to do that and introduce you to a brand new feature. It was just introduced a few days ago, allowing you to set a due date to mark it as completed.

How to archive a Trello card

Let's start off with some of the more traditional ways that people have used to show a card is completed. Probably the most basic one is to just archive the card.

For users who really don't want to see the card on their Trello board anymore, archiving a card in Trello is an option. You can always search it, go back, and bring it back to your main Trello board.

Sometimes the most effective way to show that a card is completed is just to remove it altogether. However, I realize that is not the best solution for everyone, and often people would like to see it on the same screen.

Maybe you get to the end of your day or the end of your week, and you want to be able to review all of the things that you've completed. An alternative option is to create a separate list.

How to create a done list

Here, I've created a Done list. If I've already emailed Jane about this situation, I can just drag it over to my Done list.

If I've gone ahead and booked this flight for my Chicago trip, I can just drag it over to the Done list. This is very much the Kanban method of moving a task through a particular process.

Once I've finished it, I can just drag it over into my Done list and view them there. I can review what I've accomplished and, maybe at the end of the week, archive this entire list or these tasks individually.

How to use labels

The third method, and probably one of the more common methods that people use to indicate that a card is completed, is by using labels. Trello makes different colored labels available, and you can go beyond just having a color.

You can actually put a piece of text on that color as well. I've already gone ahead and put completed on the red shade.

When I add this to this card, it's going to add a little red bar there. When I'm viewing my entire Trello board, if I click to open up that card, you can see I even have the text to tell me what that color means.

This can be very helpful if you just want to manage fewer lists or keep those to-dos in a single list. You can just add that color, letting you know that you've completed that particular task.

How to use the Due Date Checkbox

Just recently, Trello introduced a new way of indicating that a card is completed if you use the due date feature. The key thing is that you need to have a due date associated with a card in order to use this completed feature.

I'm going to first start by adding a due date to this card and hit save. Here, you can see as per usual, we have our due date listed within the card.

You'll see that there's something new. There is now a checkbox just to the left of it.

Before I click that checkbox, I'm just going to click outside of the card. Let's see if anything has changed on the front.

You'll see on the front, it looks exactly the same. If you've added a due date to a card, you have the date and the little clock icon telling you that this particular card is due by December 16th.

Now, if I go ahead and complete this task today, I can check this box. My due date icon area has changed to the color green, indicating that I have completed that task.

Of course, that green shows up on the front of the card as well. Longtime Trello users will notice that green is a new shade for the due date area.

How the Due Date Checkbox works

You could have a yellow shade if you were getting close to the due date or within 24 hours of your selected due date. You may be used to a red shade when it's past due.

When you've set something and passed that due date, selecting this checkbox will change whatever color it is to green, indicating that the task is finished. Now, I can quickly review all of my tasks in this list and see which ones have been completed.

Issues with the Due Date Checkbox

A few things you may want to note: I'm going to open up this card once again. If we scroll down to the bottom here in the Activity Feed, you will notice that it is not keeping track of this checkbox.

If I uncheck or check the due date, it is actually not keeping a record of that action. You can see that I added this card to the to-do list and set the due date to December 16th.

There's no record as of yet as to when I have completed this task. That could be a problem or something you may be disappointed in with this particular feature.

If you've completed this task early or even late, Trello is currently not keeping a record of that action. I'm assuming that this is something that Trello will be adding relatively shortly.

We can see this behavior show up in other areas. Let's take an example of a checklist.

I'm just going to quickly add a checklist to this card. It will say that I just added a checklist.

If I check this first one here, this question's one, you will notice that Scott Friesen completed questions on this card is recorded. I'll check the next one, and it shows Scott Friesen completed review the contract on this card.

The ability to record these individual tasks or checklists here within the card is being kept track of. The capability is there, and I'm going to assume in short time that Trello will start to record this particular action.

Whether it's unchecked or checked, it will record when you've completed that task. As of right now, it is not showing up in the Activity Feed.

Conclusion

With this new feature in Trello, the ability to check a due date off is available only if you've added a due date to a card. Not every task or to-do needs a due date.

Perhaps you are fine with using a color-coded method, moving that card into a Done or Completed list, or using the archive function to get it off your Trello board completely. I would encourage you to test the new completed due date feature, giving you the ability to check things off in Trello.

If you liked this video, I would encourage you to like, subscribe, and comment below. What do you think of this new feature in Trello, and how are you planning to use it?

If you have not checked out the Simpletivity.com website, I would encourage you to do so. You will find many more tips and techniques to help you stay productive there.

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

Hi, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity. I want to thank you for all of your comments and questions on my last video.

It's so great to see people get excited about spending less time with their email. Remember, the average professional currently spends 6.3 hours a day dealing with email, and that's simply way too much time in our inboxes.

It takes us away from our more important work and our most important projects. For nearly a decade, I've been helping people be more effective and efficient with their workday, and dealing with email is such a core part of being more productive.

As a former IT manager, I used to receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of new emails each and every day. I know firsthand what it feels like to suffer from inbox overload.

But over time, I was able to apply a few simple techniques to drastically reduce my relationship with email. So much so that I was able to deal with email as little as three or four times a day.

So how did I do it? How did I drastically reduce the amount of time that I spend with my email?

Well, I want to show you one of those techniques right now, something that you can apply right away to help you reduce the amount of time you spend with email. One of the most frustrating things when it comes to dealing with email is determining which messages need our attention and which messages we can ignore.

It often leads to a lot of stress as we arrive at an inbox overflowing with new messages and determining where should we put our attention. Now, most of us tend to work through our email in some type of chronological or top-down manner.

We start at the top of our list and we determine, does this need my attention, does this need my reply? No, move on to the next one.

But when we do get to a message that does need our attention or does need a reply, we do it immediately. And the longer we spend with that message or subsequent messages, the longer it's going to take us to get to messages later on in the list.

In many cases, there are very important messages waiting for us there as well. So the longer I spend on this message, for example, if I spend a few minutes grabbing an attachment, maybe referring to another email before I can give a complete reply, it means that several minutes have gone by before I get to something which perhaps needs my attention now.

So I want to show you a simple way, something that you can apply to any email client, so you can quickly process through a large number of emails in just a matter of minutes. Now, in this example, I only have about eight emails, but the exact same principle applies whether you have 18, 80, or even 800 emails waiting for you in your inbox.

You will notice on the left-hand side, there is a section that shows my folders. In all caps, I have a folder labeled "needs action."

This is the key folder that we're going to be using for this process. Everything that requires our attention, everything that's important and needs a reply from us, is going to go into this folder.

Everything else is either going to be archived or deleted. Archived if we think we may need to reference it later in the future, deleted if we're pretty sure we will never need to lay eyes on it ever again.

So we're in our inbox. This is how it works.

I get to my first message and I say nope, doesn't need anything here, I'm gonna drag it to my archive. Nope, nothing important here, I don't need to reply, maybe I'll need to reference it again, I'm gonna put it to my archive.

No, just information, let's archive that. Oh, this one does need my attention and it needs a thoughtful reply, I'm going to drag it to my needs action folder.

Next one, no, I can archive that. This one, no, nothing important here, archive.

This one, oh yes, I do need to address this, let's put that in my needs action folder. And the last one is just a receipt, I'm gonna put it in my archive folder.

Now my inbox is cleared. I've gone through everything in my inbox, and I can click on my needs action folder, and there are the only two in that set that I just went through, the only two emails that really need my attention.

Now, with myself outside of my inbox, I can focus exclusively only on those messages that require my attention. I may be receiving new emails as I'm replying to these messages, and that's perfectly okay.

We receive emails throughout the day. The goal is not to keep your inbox at zero, but now I can focus on the messages that require my attention.

Once I'm done, I will again go and archive those messages. So create your own needs action folder, or maybe it could be labeled "needs a reply."

It doesn't matter what you call it, create a separate folder so that you can quickly filter out those messages that you need to reply to from your inbox. In my next video, I'm going to be answering your most frequently asked questions, so please be sure to drop a line in the comment section below.

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about what you have to say. Thanks so much for watching this video, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Did you know that the average person spends 6.3 hours a day checking email?

That’s right, more than 6 hours dealing with email.

That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to work on more important tasks or your very big goals.

Or maybe meeting with your most important people or your most important customers.

Well, today I want to show you a very simple technique to reduce the amount of email that hits your inbox.

Our inbox is usually the primary folder that we spend most of our time in.

This is where all of our new email shows up.

This is where we're responding and replying and dealing with the majority of our email.

But sometimes you receive email that is less important.

And maybe quite frequently you receive email from a particular sender or maybe even something that’s particular to the subject line.

And I'm going to show you how to make that email avoid hitting the inbox and instead have it appear somewhere else that you can check on your own time.

Somewhere else where you can check on your own terms.

So to do this, we want to start by creating a new folder.

At the top of the menu, you'll see the folder option.

We select new folder and I'm going to name this folder “Less Important.”

This isn’t stuff that is junk mail.

This isn’t stuff that I want to get rid of or unsubscribe to.

It’s just things that I don’t need to see immediately as soon as they enter my email client.

I don’t need to see it right away.

I’d like to check it maybe once a day or even some of these things just once a week.

I just want to glance at it, stay on top of it, but I don’t need to see it immediately.

Now, you can create this new folder in any of these areas down below.

I want to actually create it at the top level under my email address.

So I'm going to select that option there.

I'm going to hit OK.

And you can see over here on the left-hand side of the screen I have a “Less Important” folder.

Let me just drag that up here to my favorites area.

This is sort of my primary work area here.

So now I've got a “Less Important” folder.

Something that I can go look at and find an email that is not crucial.

That I need to lay my eyes on it immediately.

Of course, I've got nothing in there just yet.

We’ve just created the folder at this point.

So the second step is to find or identify email that is less important.

Things that you don’t need to see immediately.

And let's say, for example, this one here is a sender that you know I like the stuff they’re sending me.

I enjoy reading it once in a while.

But I certainly don’t need to see it as soon as it hits my inbox.

So to automatically send this message to this folder so it doesn’t appear in my inbox, you simply right-click on the message.

And if you scroll down, you’ve got plenty of options.

We want to go to Rules and at the very top, we see an option “Always move messages from this sender.”

The sender is right there in the name.

I’m going to click on that option.

It’s going to open up a dialogue.

And here we can select where we want to put that email.

Where do you want to send it?

Well, here is the “Less Important” folder that we just created.

I’m going to select that.

I’m going to say OK.

And now it’s already done the work for me.

You can see it actually sent that email.

And if I click on the “Less Important” folder, there it is.

It’s in that “Less Important” folder now.

For this example, we’ve just moved this existing message.

But going forward, any new email that I receive from this sender is going to show up here directly and not hit my inbox.

I will no longer receive messages from that sender here where I’m doing my day-to-day, where I’m doing my most serious work.

The emails and messages that I want to see right away.

Instead, I can come to my “Less Important” folder and see what’s there.

Come back to it once in a while, maybe it’s daily, maybe it’s every couple of days, and check on what has come in that time.

Now one other hint I’ll show you here is that it can be helpful to see how many messages are in my “Less Important” folder.

You’ll see that’s pretty standard in some of the other folders.

Inbox shows three, which indicates messages that I have not read yet.

If there’s a bracket around it, it means that’s the number of total messages that are in that folder.

So we want to right-click on the folder itself.

And if you go all the way down, you’ll see the option is Properties.

Clicking on Properties gives me two radio buttons: “Show the number of unread items” or “Show the total number of items.”

So currently it’s set by “Show number of unread items.”

That’s why there’s no number there.

I’ve already read it.

I’ve already opened up this email.

I’m going to select the second option “Show total number of items.”

I’m going to hit Apply.

I’m going to hit OK.

And now you can see there’s a small bracket with a number one.

So now I can go about my day.

I can spend most of my time in my inbox.

And then I can look over here and say, “Oh, you know what? I’ve received something in my ‘Less Important’ folder.”

Oh, there’s only one; that’s fine.

I’ll go check on it tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon.

But maybe when this number reaches something like 10 or 12, then I’ll want to open it up and start browsing what is in this folder.

And when I’m done with it, I can delete it.

I can archive it.

I can move it somewhere else.

But a great way to move things from your inbox.

Now if you want to move something that is beyond just a sender, of course, you can make that change as well.

Maybe there’s a particular subject line that if it appears in the subject line, you also want to move it to that “Less Important” folder.

This can often be the case of certain newsletters or maybe it’s an application that you work with and they send you automated notifications.

Often those notifications aren’t very urgent.

Things that you might want to browse or you might want to make yourself aware of.

But you certainly don’t need to see them immediately when they hit that.

So let’s take this email as an example.

And let’s say I don’t want to see anything that has “Pumpkin” in it.

I’m just going to use that as my example.

Anything that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, I don’t want to see it.

So again, we’re going to right-click it.

We’re going to select Rules.

But instead of saying “Always move messages from this sender,” that’s not what I want to do.

I still want to receive some messages from this sender in my inbox.

What I want to do is select the “Create Rule” option.

We’re going to get a different dialogue box.

And here we have a few different choices.

On the top half, it says “When I get email with all of the selected conditions.”

You make your selections here.

The second half says “Do the following.”

So if this, then do that.

And then we’re going to say OK.

So in this example, I want to deal with the subject line.

So I’m going to select the “Subject contains” box.

It’s already pre-populated this with the exact subject line for this email.

But that’s much too specific.

I just want things with “Pumpkin” in the subject line.

So I’m going to delete the rest of this subject.

I’ve just got “Pumpkin.”

So when I get an email with all of the selected conditions, all email that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, please move it to the “Less Important” folder.

And you can select a different folder if you need to.

But I’m going to stick with my “Less Important” folder.

I’m going to select OK.

The rule “Pumpkin” has been created.

Now I’ve got a choice: do I want to run this rule now or do I just want to leave everything where it is?

I’m going to select Run for this example and say OK.

And there you see that message has moved as well.

“Less Important” folder now has two items.

There is my message with “Pumpkin” in it.

And now going forward, any email that I receive that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line will no longer appear in my inbox.

It’s going to appear in my “Less Important” folder.

So consider some of the senders that you do want to see their email.

You would like to review their email but you never or rarely need to see it immediately.

Or do you have certain automated or regular emails that have a repetitive subject line?

Again, same circumstance: you don’t need to see it right away.

If you can try to reduce the number of things that hit your inbox, you can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend with your email.

So create a “Less Important” folder.

You can name it to help you stay productive.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it’s very simple.

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