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 If you're a small business, you probably fall into one of these two scenarios. Either you're using outdated tools, like a spreadsheet, to manage all of your customers and projects or you're using an enterprise level CRM system that was designed for hundreds of employees.

Well, there's a much better and simpler solution, and best of all, it's free. Here I am within Bigin by Zoho CRM, and if that name Zoho sounds familiar to you, it's because they already build one of the best enterprise level CRM systems out there.

But Bigin is different because it's specifically designed with small business users in mind. So one of the first things that you'll notice is that Bigin is designed under a Kanban or board style view. Now that's nothing new for CRM systems, right?

Starting with a client here on the left hand side and then dragging or moving them through the different stages or the different funnels of your sale or your deal or your booking. But this type of design becomes even more powerful, because we can manage other things than just deals and sales.

We can manage projects

and other customer related activities. On the left hand side, you can see that we can quickly take a glance at all of our contacts. Many of your contacts of course, are associated with companies, but we can also manage our products, activities, and even see a high level dashboard.

So you can see everything that is going on at just a glance. But back to our pipeline's view, I really appreciate the cleanness of this view and Bigin doesn't add anything additional that we don't need if we're a small business user.

If I want to start or add a new booking, I can simply click this button

in the top right hand corner and input the relevant details. And of course, I can set up in advance, which of these fields are required and which are not. But let's jump into an existing booking and just see how clean and easy it is to see and access the information that we need.

Of course, we've got the size of the deal and the name at the very top. We have contact information here on the left hand side, so we can see details like the stage history, when did it move into a different stage, how long did it remain in that particular area, and who made the change itself?

Are there any relevant notes that I want to go back and reference and what is the full timeline of this particular deal? The other thing that I really appreciate about this view is that we can still see those different phases in a visual manner at the top of the screen.

Of course, we should be able to move things along or move things back, but I especially appreciate that they keep that Kanban, or pipeline feel happening even within the record itself. So I can either jump directly to one area of my pipeline or see exactly where it is within that particular phase.

But to call Bigin simply a CRM system, isn't giving it justice because it's real strength is allowing you to manage the other customer relationships and other customer activities that happen after the sale or the contract or the booking. Often there is some customer onboarding involved

or maybe the delivery of a product or a service or a request for a refund. Well, you can continue to manage the entire customer life cycle, along with other projects right here, from within Bigin.

Here on the left hand side, you can see that I have other pipelines that I'm using, including cancellation requests, which of course are very different than my booking requests. And rather than creating a board or a pipeline that is 27 phases in length, I can break them up in a much more reasonable manner.

I have reschedule requests here, I have refunds and support, and in this last one here,

perhaps I have a form on my website which feeds directly into my customer feedback.

So either myself or other members of my team can reply in a timely manner  We can manage it here within the same system, within the same screen, and without having to bounce back and forth between other applications. Think for a moment how many other tools you either currently use or you're thinking of using just for one specific function.

And if it's just for one specific function, you're probably only using a fraction of those total features, but you're paying full price. Here, we can keep as much if not all of our customer related activities in one place and set up as many pipelines as we like. Down below, you can see that there are a number of templates

that can help you get started quickly and easily. The sales pipeline is going to be the most standard, but like we've seen before, we can manage refunds, we can recruit. So if we want to use Bigin to hire new staff, we can do that all here as well.

What better place to gather and manage contact information than within a system that was designed nfor contact information?

We can even do a website launch or other project management right here from within the system. And there are additional templates designed specifically for industries as well. So for example, if you are providing

some type of consulting, we already have a template ready for you to go, and of course you can edit any of the fields or any of the phases within this pipeline. But what exactly are you getting with the free version of Bigin and what are the other versions available to you?

Here we can see that the Bigin Free Plan gives you a single pipeline and up to 500 records, and of course, you only need to upgrade when you need to.

The Express version at only $7 a month, gives you up to three different pipelines and 50,000 records but it also gives you a lot of additional features, including email integration, custom fields, and customizable dashboards and KPIs.

But wait, would you like to try out all of the Premier features of Bigin for absolutely nothing? If you click the link in the description, you'll get exclusive access to a 15 day free trial and can experience all of the features of the Premier Edition.

And if you have further questions about Bigin, CRMs, or managing your small business, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Gmail Extension 1

There are so many different Gmail extensions to choose from, and over the years, I've recommended and tested out many of them. But today, I'm doing something a little different.

I'm going to take a look at one, two, three, four, five different extensions, which I have never used before. We're going to take a look at how each might be able to help you and if it's worth adding it to your Gmail setup.

Now, the first extension on our list is something called Dictation for Gmail. And by looking at the screenshot here, it looks like it's going to give us a new button

so we can start dictating, we can just start to speak our emails here.It looks like it's also available in 50 plus languages. So let's go take a look. I'm back in my Gmail account,

and I'm going to select Compose, and yes, it looks like we have this new microphone button and we've also have a dropdown for Languages. Let me just maximize this so we can take a better look.

So let's see how this works. I'm going to start the microphone button here. Hi Jane, comma, I just wanted to follow up from our meeting last week, period. Are you able to join me and the client for a quick call later this afternoon, question mark? New paragraph.

Let's keep in touch, so that we can finish this deal before the weekend, period. Wishing you all the best and talk to you very soon, period. All right, I'm going to hit the Toggle button here. And so far, not too bad.

I was a little surprised at where it jumped the cursor down. You'll notice that these two lines here are actually being generated from the email signature and for some reason, it came down below that. It didn't put it up above where the cursor was originally, it came down below.

Now, I could just delete that and move everything back up, so that looks a bit more tidy there,

but I was impressed that it did respond to periods, question mark. I told it to come down here for a new paragraph. And from a spelling and dictation point of view, this looks fairly clean.

Now, let's go and reply to a message just to see if it responds any differently. So here I am within a reply, and let's see if that cursor jumps anywhere else. Hi Scott, comma, thank you so much for passing along this additional information, period.

I look forward to meeting with you early next week, period. So I've got no issue with the dictation and how quickly and accurately it is,

but yes, once again, it seems to automatically jump that cursor down, which is interesting.

I don't know if that's a bug. I don't know if that's a piece of behavior that is intended here,

but that is Dictation for Gmail. So a quick and easy way for you to dictate your messages. Would love to hear someone else's feedback as to some of the other languages in here and if it's as accurate in their language as well.

Gmail Extension 2

Next, let's take a look at an extensioncalled Simplify Gmail. And I must admit,

this opening screenshot that it has on the extension page is rather puzzling to me because it looks vacant. That's a little boat here in the ocean.

I'm not exactly sure what that's supposed to represent, but if I go over, I believe the idea here is to remove some of the buttons and maybe some of the other options that we typically see within our Gmail inbox.

So just before turning it on, here is my standard Gmail inbox, and you'll notice I have the extension installed. It's currently off, so you can easily toggle this on or off. Let's see the difference.

I'm going to say toggle on, and it has certainly removed some things, and it seems to have condensed my messages here in the middle.Probably the most noticeable  is that that Google sidebar has now been disappeared.

It is no longer here on the right-hand side. But I almost have to go back and fort to see the differences. So it's certainly condensing the messages, making it a bit more narrower, the logo has gone. Let's take a look at this left-hand side. What else changes there?

Yeah, it just sort of removes that big Compose button, which I don't think is maybe the most helpful. I would imagine I would want the Compose button there. But even if I open up one of these messages, I guess it's brought everything in a little bit. Maybe it's a little more focused,

a little bit easier to read. If I click up here to my Simplify Gmail options, you can see that there's a number of things in which we can toggle. One of the ones that stood out to me is the message font.

So this is something that you can't control natively within Gmail. So Gmail's default is a 13 size, but we could punch that up. So if I wanted something like 19, for example, so that might make it that much easier for me to read, right, depending on my eyesight or visibility.

So that might be helpful. You can also change the actual font itself so you don't have to stay with Gmail's default, but there's an awful lot of options here. So the conversation list here, you can see, is changing the list width, which might be helpful because if I turn this off again, you'll notice everything is always stretched to the full, right? Even if we go to our inbox, everything from the sender here to the left, all the way to my Snooze button and the date on the right-hand side

depending on your screen size, that's an awful lot of real estate. So maybe that is going to be helpful for some of you. Let me turn it back on here to go to this default view. Now, there's far too many options to cover in this video. You can see they break it down by conversation,

by message, by compose, by navigation, and even chat and some of the other features as well.It looks like you could toggle off some of the shortcut keys as well. So an interesting one here, I'm not sure if it's made as big of a difference as I thought. I'm not sure if you can hide some of your labels on the left-hand side as well, but at the same time, I'm not sure how helpful

or productive that would be as well. So maybe if you're looking for some increased font sizes,

maybe if you're looking to minimize and just go to the icons here at the top, that might be helpful for you. But at first glance, I'm not sure if Simplify Gmail is worth installing. Now, just before we get to our next extension, I want to thank today's sponsor, SaneBox.

SaneBox is not an extension, but it is a complete way to manage your entire inbox. SaneBox actually uses artificial intelligence to get to know your behavior, so you can separate those distractions and unwanted emails from everything else, so you can focus on what's most important to you.

SaneBox actually uses something called Trainable Folders, meaning that the more that you use it, the more that it gets to know what should be kept in your inbox and what can be saved for a later time. In particular, I've been enjoying SaneBox's latest feature called Email Deep Clean.

As a Gmail user, you know how important it is to stay within your storage limits, and Email Deep Clean allows you to quickly and easily identify which messages are taking up the most storage

or which senders you no longer want to hear from. To learn more and to start your free trial with SaneBox, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity1.

Gmail Extension 3

Next on our list, we have an extension called Streak Email Tracking for Gmail. Now, you'll find an awful lot of email tracking extensions here within the Chrome Store. And pretty straightforward, at least by these screenshots here, is that there's going to be some type of indicator where we can turn email tracking on or off. And then we should get some type of notice

when someone has opened or viewed that particular email. So I'm going to come here into Gmail. Streak is now turned on. It looks like they have both a Basic Free plan but also a Pro plan. And I'm going to hit Compose. Let's open this up a little bit further.

And down below, you can see there's three different orange icons. Now, this first one is called Add to Box, and I was playing around with it a little bit earlier. It looks like this is something CRM-related.

I'm not going to go into those details because this is why I installed, and this is really what this extension is advertised for. So Streak view and link tracking is on. It's on, I guess, by default for all of our emails.

And let's put together a test email here. (keyboard clacking) So I've just created a very quick test email here because when it comes to email tracking, you want to strike when the fire is hot.

And let's say in this example, I want to see if this person has taken a look at the proposal and I really want to know when they open up this email because maybe I can follow up with a phone call just a few minutes after or send another email shortly after I know when I'm confident that they have seen, laid eyes on this email. So the tracking is already turned on.

It looks like I could toggle it, I could turn it off at any time if I want to, but let's turn it back on, and I'm going to hit Send. The only other thing we will notice is that it has created some additional folders or additional options under our Send or Sent area here.

So under All Tracked Emails, it's going to take a look at the different emails here. Now, I happened to have used the exact same subject line for a previous test.

This is one that I sent, and you'll notice it's telling me it was viewed seven minutes ago, but the one above, the one that I just sent, has that little cross through the eye, meaning that it has not been viewed yet. So let me jump into my test email account.

And here is that email that we just sent. I'm going to click on it. So it has now been opened. I'm going to jump back to my inbox and I'm going to pretend that I'm just going through my other emails for the day. And let's see what happens.

Now, we can anticipate that there's going to be a short delay as information is passed between accounts and along the web, but I should receive some type of notification. I believe there should be some type of pop-up letting me know.

So nothing yet, it's taking a few seconds here. I would imagine that we should be notified within about two minutes. If it's going to take more than two minutes

to let us know when something has been opened, then I'm not sure how valuable that service is. Under All Tracked Emails, it's still showing that that one has not been opened. But again, let's let it do its thing, and I'm just going to wait here until we actually see the the popup. Okay, so now, even though I allowed my notifications,

my desktop notifications to be turned on, I never actually did see a pop-up notification here within my screen, but you will notice that it has tracked that one. It's showing me that it was opened two minutes ago here by the indicator on the right-hand side.

So when you open the email, you'll notice that there's this little green icon. And if you hover over it, it will give us this little dialog. So it's telling us that there has been one view and the latest view was three minutes ago.

It's even going to tell us where that view happened and approximately at one time. So although it didn't give me a push notification or something visual on screen, it is letting me know that it has been viewed.

I do appreciate the fact that it creates this other area. Rather than just seeing everything that has been sent, you can see all of your tracked emails here

and see which ones have been viewed and which ones are still pending. I imagine we can choose the default for this if we don't want it to be on at all times. Let me just go ahead and delete that.

If I select Compose, it looks like that is going to be on again. If I click on Streak Basic and if I click on Settings, here you can see we can choose if we want to make that enabled or disabled by default. So all in all, it does work.

It's a fairly simple tool. Some of the other features such as the CRM is not what I'm looking for, but if you're looking for a basic and an efficient email tracking tool,

Gmail Extension 4

this might be the right one for you. The next extension on our list is called Gmail Sender Icons. And it looks like this is all about more easily identifying who has sent those emails.

It looks like it's going to add both a logo and the name of that particular sender, so you can more quickly and easily identify who has sent that message. So I've installed the extension, and here I am back in my inbox.

And you can see right here to the left of the subject line, it has added a logo or it looks like it's the favicon.

This is the icon that is associated with that domain and the name of the domain as well. So it's awfully quick and easy for me to see that this is from LastPass and it's the only one here from LastPass.

And if I scroll down, here's from Todoist, here's from Jotform. Now, there's a bunch in here where if it's not coming from perhaps a marketing or an official domain, it may be just saying something like gmail.com and have a picture of the world.

Now, looking here at some of the options, it is pretty straightforward. You can either choose to show both the domain icons and the text, like what we see here, or maybe I don't want to see the text.

So if I toggle this off and then just choose to refresh my screen, now you can see we are only seeing the icons. And of course, I could just choose to show the text and not the icons if I wanted to as well. Let me refresh that once again.

Now, if I click on the message itself, it doesn't look like there's anything added here so we're only going to see that in the Inbox view. And this is not clickable, either. So for example, if I click on this LastPass, it's going to be the exact same as opening up the email.

So it's not like it's giving me any additional functionality, but it is essentially doing exactly what it promises. It's just making it a little bit easier by adding these sender icons.

Now, if we do start to add some labels to our messages here, those labels are always going to be to the right of it. So the labels are still going to easily stand out. But if you're wanting to weed out maybe some of those marketing emails or from some of those key senders

Gmail Extension 5

this might be a good extension to check out. Now, the last extension on our list might work very well with the previous one where we're wanting to identify things which we would like to unsubscribe.

This one is called Trimbox, and it promises to unsubscribe from emails with just one click. And at first glance, it looks like it's going to add a little scissor icon besides some of our messages, so we can unsubscribe without even having to open up those messages.

So now that I've got the Trimbox extension installed, let's take a look. So you can see here in my inbox, we have several of our messages with this little icon beside it. Now it's very, very visible, which is what I like.

It's very quick for me to identify what might be a marketing email or a newsletter if I want to unsubscribe. And if I hover over it, we actually don't click on it immediately, it looks like. If we hover over it, it's giving us three options. Do we want to unsubscribe?

Do we want to delete all emails? Now, this, I think, is both very helpful, but you might also want to be very careful with this because it's going to delete all of the emails

from the sender. And then, I guess, if we want to keep this off of the list if we don't want this little icon beside it, we could choose this last option. I'm actually going to test this out first. If I select that, okay, now that little icon is gone, so, and it's given me a little bit of a message there at the bottom letting me know. But this one up here,

if I hover over this and I'm going to say Unsubscribe, it's going to unsubscribe from that. And then it keeps asking me delete all emails from this mailing list. I guess that's always the secondary option.

Here you can see that that icon has now changed, so I no longer have the option to unsubscribe. I could either unblock the sender or I still have the option to delete all emails. So this could be a very helpful extension.

Maybe something you don't need all the time, but maybe you just enable it from time to time when you need it. If I click on the icon here, you can see that I've unsubscribed from one list and deleted zero emails.

Unlock unlimited access to all features. So I'm not sure of what all of the features are. I'm not sure if there's a limitation in terms of how often I can use this, but this would certainly be a quick and easy way for you to unsubscribe from an awful lot of emails.

Now, if you enjoy today's video and are looking for even more features to get the most out of Gmail, be sure to click on this video next where I take a look at seven missing features within Gmail and the extensions, which you can use to improve your experience.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Creating a note

Whether you're a brand new Google Keep user or perhaps you've been using this note taking app for many years and want to make sure that you can get the most out of Google Keep this video is for you because I'm going to go through every single feature so you know how to get the most out of Google Keep. (air wooshing) Hello everyone.

Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And we're going to start with the notes section, of course, but we're also going to make sure that we know how to search, how we can use all of our labels,

and even get into some specific settings. So first things first, taking a note is right here at the top of the screen and by entering in our cursor we can start to take our brand new note. Now you'll notice that the cursor goes directly into the note field.

It is not a requirement for you to add a title. So if I select close at this point you can see that that new note is still very visible. And if I click on it, I could give it a title. Let's call this one Title 1 and I'm going to close it.

The title may actually appear a little smaller in this case because I don't have a lot of text, but keep in mind that a title is not a requirement. So whenever you have that idea or want to grab that new note,

you can simply enter in your cursor here. Now, we're going to go through the different details of what you can do within our note but remember that's not the only way

in which you can take a note. If you want to start with a checklist, we can check the checklist option. If you want to start with a drawing, you can choose that option as well. And last but not least, if you want to upload an image, you can do that here as well.

So you don't have to start with something text-based and then add these components. We're going to get into the details of each of these three in just a moment, but I wanted to point that out from the start.

Setting a reminder

So let's open up our new note here and go through the various options down below.

The first thing we will see is this remind me option. And by selecting this we have a few options available to us. There are going to be a couple of defaults which we can change within our settings. So if we want to quickly remind ourselves later today,

tomorrow, or next week, it's going to give us our default settings. But of course we can also pick a particular date and time. So if I want to be reminded tomorrow, for example and let's say I want to be reminded in the evening I'm going to hit save.

You also have the option to make this a repeating note as well, which can be great

if there's something that you need to do on a weekly basis, a daily basis, or some other interval. I'm going to hit save and it will declare or show that reminder right here within the note. You'll see in the top left hand corner of the screen we have an area for reminders.

So if we need to filter just our reminders that's where we will find that new note and anything else that has a reminder as well. But for our example, let's go back to the notes main screen.

I'm going to open up this note again but this time I'm going to delete the reminder which I can do by just hovering over that little icon.

But you may have noticed within the remind me icon there's one additional way in which we can set a reminder and that is by selecting a place. If I select this option

I can start to type in any address I want or maybe the name of a store. So let's say I'm creating a list of items that I need to buy at my local Staples store. So by typing in the word Staples, that's my nearest store, Now, what Google Keep is going to do on my mobile device is remind me when I'm within a close proximity of that address.

Now, I'm not exactly sure of the exact proximity that Google Keep uses for this reminder, but I believe it is roughly a half mile or a full mile in terms of when it will notify you when you're close to this location. Again, we can hit X if we need to remove that reminder.

Sharing notes with others

Next, we have the ability to add a collaborator and this is as easy as simply adding in an email address. Now, the collaboration functionality within Google Keep is very, very simple. Essentially you've given this other individual access to this note where they can do really anything with it including the ability to delete the note as well.

So you are truly sharing the note as equals. If you need to remove this individual,

all you need to do is click on their profile and then you can hit X beside their name and then hit save. But this can be a great way to share a list or to collaborate with others in a very simple manner.

Adding colors and backgrounds

Next, we have the ability to change the background color. So if you want to change what this note looks like, maybe I want to give it a bit of a dark blue shade and maybe all of my notes with a dark blue shade are going to be work related or they're going to be related to some other topic.

Of course, I can change from a variety of different colors or leave it in the standard white. Down below, you can also see

that there are some more creative backgrounds that we can add. So here is a recipe background perhaps, here's something else that is food related.

Maybe this is a little more fun related, so we can add that to our cards as well. So here you can see that this note really stands out with that background. You'll also notice that most

of these features are also available from the front of the note, so you don't always have to open up the note, but we can make those changes here as well. You may notice that you can actually add both a color but also a background as well

and that can be important. Later, when we get into the details of our search functionality you can see that we can filter by specific colors, but you cannot filter by specific backgrounds.

So if I want this particular note to be in the same category as this red note down below I would perhaps give it that same shade, but the background is more of a fun or creative way to make your notes stand out.

Adding and editing images

Next, we have the ability to add an image to our notes. So in this example, maybe I'm going to add my logo because perhaps I'm in the process of redesigning my logo.

And so I'm going to take some notes about what I like or dislike about this image.

You are not limited to just one image per note. If I select add image again, maybe I'll add this other element of my logo and now you can see I have both images added.

But that's not where it stops when it comes to images. If we do open up this note, you can see if I hover over either of them, we have this trashcan icon. So if we need to remove a note we can do so quickly and easily. But if I click on that image, we also have not only a full screen preview of that image and the ability to print that image,

we can also edit any of our images. So by selecting the edit option now I can take a pen for example and I can start to highlight the things that I don't like. Maybe I don't like the arrows at the end or maybe I want to highlight some other component

for someone to take a look at. It even gives us some more advanced options including adding rulers or dots or a grid if we're doing something a little more intricate. And at any time you can always choose the back, the undo and redo options.

Or if we come back to the top left and choose this second option we can choose to clear the page. So here I've removed all of my drawings. I think one of the most useful tools here within this page is that we can add a drawing. Let me just put a X between this for an example, and then in the top right hand corner we can say new drawing.

So what it's going to do is actually save the previous drawing that I just had and now I've got a blank canvas to start something else. I can start to draw something, attempt to draw my signature in some fancy way or do something else here if I'm sketching out an idea.

So a lot more power available to you here within the drawing world. We can delete the current drawing, we can export it as an image.

So a lot of fun features and helpful features here within the image options. And whenever you're finished you can come up here to the top left and hit the arrow

which will return you to your note. And here you can see that that image now has that faint little X in it which I added while editing.

Archiving notes

Next to our image, we have the ability to archive our messages. And where does the archive go? I'm going to select this, which is going to remove my note from my main notes home screen and I will now find it in the archive folder.

Now, nothing in the archive folder will automatically expire or be deleted. Things in the trash will be deleted after seven days, but within archive you can keep anything that you don't want to appear in your main notes screen.

This can be a very helpful way to keep this area current, up to date and more manageable, but still have access to everything in your archive. And yes, this is all searchable and filterable as well.

If you want to unarchive something, all you need to do is select the unarchive button beside it

and now it will be returned to the main notes screen.

Selecting multiple notes

Now just before I get to the more option here in the lower right hand corner,

I want to take a look at this check mark and also pin, which you will see on each card

including the ones that you hover over. So what we can do is select multiple notes at one time. So here you can see I'm going to select these first four notes and maybe I want to change them all to a single shade.

So now, in the top right hand corner I can come up and change my background options. I'm going to make them all a yellow shade, so this can be a very efficient way to make changes in bulk to multiple cards.

Or maybe I want to come up here and give them all the same reminder. Or maybe I want to archive them all at once. So that is what this check mark is doing at the top

of each note, you simply need to select it or any of the notes on the screen

Pinning notes to the top

and then you can apply those bulk actions. The other icon that you'll notice either when you're hovering over a note or when you're within a note is this push pin icon.

And this allows us to pin a note to the top of the screen. Here you can see that this note is now separated from all of the others on this screen. And I'm going to hit the pin for this one and maybe this one as well.

Pinning notes to the top of the screen is a great way to never forget those notes, but can also be used to prioritize certain notes

that you want to appear at the top. And yes, you can pin or unpin in bulk

Adding labels

if you need to as well. Lastly, when it comes to features within the note let's go to that more option. By selecting this, you'll see that there are seven options available to us.

First, is where we can delete this note. Second, we can add a label. By selecting this, we can either choose a label we have created before or maybe we can start a new one. So I'm going to say that there is a new label, I want a new label, and that has now been created for me.

It will also be listed here on the left hand side. Now, you're not limited to just one label per note. So maybe this is not only new but it's also related to work. So I'm going to select that option as well.

And if you want to remove the label you can either come back here and select change labels or you can come over here and select the X to remove the specific label that you like. Below changing and add labels, we have the ability to add our own drawings.

So just like I showed you within the image space if I select this, this will immediately bring me to the drawing space where once again I can start to create any drawing that I like.

We also have the ability to make a copy of this note and down below that we have the option to show checkboxes.

Using checklists

By selecting this, it will convert any text within our note into a checkbox. Now, within Google Keep, you cannot have a combination of checkboxes and simple text. It's either all or nothing.

So here is the standard note, but I can come here and say show checkboxes and maybe if I'm making that list at the computer store, I need to buy a new mouse and I also need to buy a new keyboard, I can start to create that checklist right away.

As you saw earlier, we can start with a checklist by choosing the new list option directly here from the top of the screen. But let's continue our example within this existing note. Now you can add as many checklist items as you like.

and as you start to check off those items you will see them crossed off down below.

If you want to minimize that, you can choose to do so. It will tell you how many things have been checked off and you can always expand it if you want to see the full list.

Keep in mind if you uncheck something it will be removed to the top. So this can be a great way if you want to repurpose a particular list. But there's a few other features we want to take note of here within the checklist area.

Let me move this one back to the top of the list. On the left hand side, of course, we can rearrange any of our checklist items, so maybe getting the keyboard and then the mouse are most important, I want to put that at the top of the list.

But we can also indent our checklist items. So for example, maybe I want to change this new note checklist and I'm going to create a section called computer tools. Here, I'm going to drag this to the top,

but now what I can do is click and drag and indent the keyboard and indent the mouse. So now they are a part of this master checklist at the top. Let me add just a few more items for our example here so you can see how it works.

By indenting certain items not only does it make it easier to read and group certain things together, but if I've already put the keyboard and mouse into my cart, I can come up here and select computer tools and now everything is checked within that category.

So it keeps everything nice and together. If I uncheck it, everything will be unchecked up above as well. So a nice time saving tip when it comes to using checklists within Google Keep.

Grabbing image text

Returning to our more dropdown, below the check boxes option. We have the ability to grab image text. Now this is only going to be available to you if you have an image attached to your note. In this case we do, and the good thing is we have some text

within those images as well. So I'm going to select grab image text and look what it's done. It's brought in two S's, attempting to mimic these two logos and then it's brought in Simpletivity as well. So this is a fantastic way if you are taking a picture

of something when you're on the go or if you've uploaded other things into your note

and you want to get all of that text into the note itself, you can simply select grab image text. Lastly, we have the option to copy to Google Docs. So if you have perhaps a lengthy note, maybe the start of an article or a blog post or a lot of information

you can quickly and easily convert that into a Google Doc by selecting this last option. Lastly, each note also has an undo and a redo button. So if you want to go back and maybe remove certain text or remove certain labels, you can quickly go back and forth with these options as well.

Using the side menu

(air wooshing) Now that you know everything about taking and editing your notes, let's take a look at searching and categorizing our notes as well. Let's first start in the top left hand corner where if we select the main menu option it will either minimize or maximize our options on the left hand side.

This can be a great way to gain a little more real estate on your screen and especially if you're comfortable with these icons. Of course, by dragging your cursor over it will automatically expand.

I'm going to expand it here for our case and notes is our first option,  our main screen here within Google Keep. Next up is our reminder section where we're going to see a separation between a reminder which is past in this case, this has happened in the past.

and we will also see our upcoming options here as well. You'll notice if something has been past we can choose to mark it as done and that will remove the reminder and therefore remove it from this screen as well.

Down below you will find all of your labels. Here is the new label which we created just a few moments ago

and since I removed it, we have no labels here. But if I click onto some of the other labels here you can see what notes are listed.

And yes, things such as pinned or archived will be listed here as well. You'll notice that most of the ones that I have

in my example are archived, but it doesn't mean that only archive notes will be listed here. So for example, I'm going to come back to my main note screen and select three additional notes here and I'm going to come up here and apply the same label to them.

I'm going to make them all as work. Now you can see there's actually a third category, not only the one that was pinned and will remain pinned here. We have all of our other notes down below and our archive notes. So a nice clean separation

between those three distinct areas. Below that, we have a choice to edit our labels

either if we want to create a new label or if we want to edit an existing label. Down below that we have our archive which we've seen before. And then last but not least is our trash. And yes, anything in the trash will be deleted after seven days, but if we like we can go ahead and empty the trash right away.

Searching and filtering notes

Now while it can sometimes feel overwhelming to manage so many notes on a single screen, even if you are using labels, that's where the search feature comes into play.

By selecting our cursor at the top of the screen our display changes so that we can not only search by a basic text search but we can also use a variety of filters.

So if I type in the word simple it will actually bring a variety of different notes. Here you can see that I have a note that actually uses the word simple, but it is also bringing back these two notes because simple is a part of the image.

Even if you have not grabbed the text from that image Google Keep will search for any text within those images. Last but not least, as we look at this archive note you may think that it has made a mistake 'cause I don't see the word simple and I don't see an image that says simple.

But if I hover over this collaborator, you can see that his name is listed as Simple Scott. So yes, that is being returned as a part of the search results as well. Let me clear this out and quickly look at some of the other filter types that we can use as well.

So if you want to filter simply by reminders or checklists or images, you can do so. But keep in mind, in order to make use of any of these filters, we need to select them first. So I'm going to select images which will bring back all of my images, but now I can continue that image search by selecting simple. And now we only have these two returned.

You can see that we can also search by any notes that have a URL. So anything where I've included a link, it will be displayed as a part of the results. Down below we can search by labels.

We can also search by things and this is using some smart technology to quickly identify things such as food or groceries. Here you can see I have a list which is quite obviously a shopping list. 

So this can be a quick and easy way for it to find things that you may not have thought of. Lastly, we can also filter and search by people or by specific colors, just not by those backgrounds.

Viewing notes differently

(air wooshing) Next, let's move to the far right hand side of the screen where we start with a refresh button. If you are frequently taking notes on your mobile device or other machines you can always select this option to make sure that all of your Keep accounts are up to date.

Next up, we have the choice to alter the way that we view our notes. Here we are looking at the grid view which we can still click and drag

and move things around into different orders. But we can also transition to a list view

which is more of a top down view where everything is in order. This view may be more preferred for people who want to prioritize or stack rank their notes into a particular category, but we can always return to the grid view

Settings and special features

when we wish as well. Lastly, let's select our gear icon and go to settings where we have a few other options where we can customize our Google Keep experience.

The first one is the add new items to the bottom option and this is pertaining to checklists. You'll notice here with this selected, any new item will be displayed below. If I was to uncheck this item when I'm adding a new checklist, that will always be apparent at the top of the list. So this really comes down to personal preference.

Next up is moved checked items to the bottom. (air wooshing) In my example, you saw that as I checked things off they are moved to the bottom of the list and I can even hide them if I want. But if we go back to our settings and let me de-select this option, don't forget to hit save down below. When I come here you can see

that those checked items will now remain within my list. So again, something else

that comes down to personal preference. Our third option is to display rich link previews. With this selected, you can see that I have an article here which is showing a preview of that image and the website where it's coming from.

But if you don't want to see these previews and you only want to see these links, all you need to do is come here and deselect this box. Lastly, if you prefer a dark theme and hit save you can convert Google Keep into that dark theme.

Below notes and lists, we have our reminder defaults for morning, afternoon, and evening. So when you are setting a reminder, you will recall that I had these times available to me.

Now pay special attention because what you change here is actually going to be attached to your Gmail account as well. So for example, you'll notice that my reminder defaults are 7:30, 2:00PM and 8:30. I'm going to hit save and jump into my Gmail account.

Here if I come over and select the snooze option, you can see that 7:30 and 8:30 are the default times that are being displayed here. But if I jump back to my Google Keep account and let's say I want to change my morning reminder time to 5:00 AM and I'm going to hit save.

Now when I return to my Gmail account and select snooze, 5:00 AM is the default time which is presented to me as well. So when editing these defaults within Keep, you may want to pay special attention as to where these will affect you the most either within your email account or here within Google Keep.

Last but not least, we have the ability to disable sharing.

So if you don't want to accidentally share your notes with anyone, you can come in here and uncheck this box. After hitting Save, you can see that that icon is still visible, but it has been grayed out so we can no longer share within this account. (air wooshing) So now that you know every single feature and function within Google Keep, I would love to hear from you next.

Do you still have questions on how to organize and set up your Keep account?

Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult,

in fact, it's very simple.

Efficient file organization is crucial for productivity, enabling quick access to necessary documents and reducing time spent searching through cluttered directories. Two effective methods to streamline your digital filing system are the Three-Level Method and the ABC Method. Implementing these strategies can help ensure you locate any file within three clicks or less.

‍

The Three-Level Method

The Three-Level Method emphasizes maintaining a shallow folder structure, limiting it to three tiers deep. This approach prevents the complexity and confusion that often arise from deeply nested folders.

1. Top-Level Folders

Begin by creating a minimal number of top-level folders—ideally no more than five. Each should represent a broad category relevant to your work or personal life. For instance:

• Admin: Contains subfolders for accounting, legal documents, taxes, budgeting, and other administrative tasks.
• Clients: Houses individual folders for each client, storing related tasks, projects, and correspondence.
• Projects: Includes folders for internal initiatives or endeavors involving multiple clients, such as developing an online course or redesigning a website.
• Topics: Encompasses folders for various subjects or resources you reference periodically, like feedback surveys, presentations, or social media ideas.

2. Second-Level Folders

Within each top-level folder, create subfolders to further organize content. For example, under Admin, you might have:

• Accounting
• Legal
• Taxes

Under Clients, each client would have a dedicated folder:

• Client A
• Client B

3. Third-Level Folders

The third level is used to categorize specific details. For instance, within a client's folder:

• Ad Campaigns: Stores marketing materials and strategies.
• Invoices: Contains billing documents.
• Meeting Notes: Includes records of discussions and plans.

By adhering to this three-tier structure, you can swiftly navigate to any file without wading through excessive layers of folders.

‍‍

The ABC Method

The ABC Method organizes files alphabetically, assigning each top-level folder a letter from A to Z. This system focuses on the initial letter of a file or folder name, facilitating direct access.

1. Top-Level Alphabet Folders

Create 26 folders, each labeled with a letter of the alphabet. This setup serves as the primary directory.

2. Second-Level Folders

Within each lettered folder, store files and subfolders that begin with the corresponding letter. For example, in the B folder:

• Banking Information
• Blog Resources
• Branding
• Budget
• Business Cards

Similarly, the S folder might contain:

• Surveys
• Sponsorships
• Social Media
• Sales Cycle

3. Navigating the ABC Method

To locate a file, select the folder corresponding to the first letter of the item's name, then browse to the specific file or subfolder. This method reduces the time spent searching through unrelated categories.

‍

Advantages of These Methods

• Simplicity: Both methods offer straightforward structures that are easy to implement and maintain.
• Efficiency: Limiting folder depth and organizing alphabetically streamline the process of locating files.
• Flexibility: These systems can be customized to fit various personal or professional needs.

Implementing Your System

1. Assess Your Current Structure: Review your existing files and folders to identify areas of improvement.
2. Choose a Method: Select the Three-Level Method or the ABC Method based on your organizational preferences.
3. Reorganize: Move your files into the new structure, ensuring consistency in naming and categorization.
4. Maintain Regularly: Periodically review and update your system to accommodate new files and remove outdated ones.

By adopting the Three-Level Method or the ABC Method, you can create an organized, efficient, and user-friendly filing system that enhances productivity and reduces the frustration of misplaced files.

- [Scott] Are you tired of switching apps and tabs just to see your to-do list? Do you wish you could easily see your calendar events and tasks on the same screen? In this video, I'm going to show you a secret way to use Outlook Calendar so you can turn it into the ultimate productivity tool. (electronic whirring) (graphics whooshing) This video is sponsored by SaneBox, the email inbox lifesaver.

With AI technology, SaneBox prioritizes essential messages, saving you hours of time each week, and by learning from your behavior, SaneBox will clean up your inbox, get rid of spam, and organize your emails into relevant folders. Best of all, SaneBox works with any email provider.

To get started, click the link in the description to get your free 14-day trial. If you're a Microsoft Outlook user, you're familiar with the Tasks area, where you can manage all of your tasks if you want to use some kind of archaic system.

You can also upgrade and take advantage of Microsoft To Do, which is a much more user friendly, and also comes with a nice mobile app, but there is still a problem here. We still have to switch back and forth from either of these locations back to our Outlook Calendar.

So instead of switching back and forth from different areas, or if you manage your to-dos in some other application outside of Outlook, why don't we manage them right here within our calendar?

Why? Because you're already spending an awful lot of time here, managing all of your events and checking in as to where you need to be.

Well, here at the very top of our calendar is a section which I feel is underused, the all-day event area.

Now, you may be familiar with this area if you need to block off time for vacation, or maybe you are going to be busy for the entire day, but this area can be so much more valuable than just presenting stat holidays and days that we are going to be out of office.

This is also a space where you can create your own customized to-do list and never, ever forget what you need to accomplish today.

One of the best things about the all-day event area is that they never go away.

Let me click on here and add a few tasks. Maybe I need to send an email to Karen

regarding the Friday meeting. I'm going to hit Enter there. I also need to review the Q3 budget report, I'm going to hit Enter, and maybe on Wednesday, I need to prepare for my travel to conference.

Okay, so I've got a number of different tasks waiting for me here at the top of the screen. And as you can see, no matter how far up or down I scroll, they will always remain visible.

Even if I come in here, and let's take a look at a different view, such as my daily view, doesn't matter where I go, those tasks will always be visible.

Something that we can't get with other to-do list managers, because we tend to have to hop back and forth between those areas.

But it gets even better. Not only will my tasks never be hidden from me from a screen that I'm already using regularly, but I can see the relationship between these tasks and what else is going on within my schedule.

When we are dealing with other to-do list managers, far too often, we change our due dates and defer them to tomorrow or next week without much thinking, because we can't really see what is going on other than the other tasks in front of us. But with our all-day event method, we can see exactly what is going on with the rest of the week.

So for example, maybe I'm having a fairly busy Tuesday, and I can't get to everything. I'm going to say, you know what?

I'll email Karen a little later in the week. But wait a minute, I've got a very hectic Thursday, including a bunch of travel, and this reminder has to do with this meeting on Friday. I better make sure I get that done on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I can't simply just defer it by two days or four days without looking at what else is going on. The same goes for preparing for my travel to this conference, and this is another benefit of using this method.

If I want to see a deeper connection between my tasks up here and what is going on below, I can color code them appropriately. So for example, let's say that reviewing this budget report is directly tied to my upcoming client consultation. Well, all I need to do here is come to my categories and I'm going to list it as client work.

Now I can see that relationship between this task and what is actually happening on my calendar as well. And keep in mind, by default, all of your all-day event tasks up here will not block out time, so people can't book you if you have a scheduling app.

Here, you can see if I open up this app by default, it will be set to Free. You can always change that if you want to, but don't be afraid that you are going to block out the entire day. But here, within the dialogue view, you might say that things get even better, because as opposed to many other to-do list managers

and to-do list apps, we have all of this space to create and add as much information as we want, including the ability to attach files, include a table, include pictures and screenshots.

In fact, we can do everything that we've come used to doing here within Outlook all within our task. So if I want to list out all of my subtasks, if I want to capture some meeting notes, I can have it here all waiting for me when it comes for me to actually execute and work on this particular task.

And speaking of added convenience, it is so easy to be able to drag and move your task to a particular day,

push something forward, push something back again depending on what else is going on within your schedule. Now, a common question is how do I show that something is completed if I'm using this all-day event task method?

Well, there's a couple of things that you can consider. Number one, you could simply just delete the task if you don't need a running record of all of the things that you've completed.

In this case, this is a simple email, so I'm probably safe in just saying Delete. But what if you would like to keep a record and have a distinction between what you've yet to do

and what you have completed? Well, in this case, I would again recommend that you use categories. So I've selected a category here. I've chosen the color yellow where I'm going to identify what is completed.

So when this task is done, when I'm finished preparing for my conference, I'm going to choose that category. Now I can easily see that that has been done or completed, but I still need to work on this particular task.

And then moving forward, I can see if there's anything left behind. Lastly, I want to address the single biggest con with this method, which I also feel might be its single biggest benefit.

Unlike our traditional to-do list apps, which clearly show things that are overdue, things that we left over from yesterday. In this case, you can see this red font telling me it was overdue, and it was due yesterday.

And just like many other to-do list apps, if we sort them, they will always appear at the top of the list. But with this all-day event method, you're probably saying to yourself, "Scott, if you don't accomplish these tasks and move on to tomorrow, they will not automatically move ahead.

They will be left behind." And you are absolutely right. And I think that is very, very important.

This method forces you to really engage with your to-do list. How often have we looked at a number of things that are overdue and we don't treat them seriously, because we know they'll never be left behind, and we can very easily, in just a few clicks, bring them up to today.

But with this method, it forces you to engage with your task list, to do a quick review at the end of each day. And if I haven't accomplished this particular task, I need to come over here and drag it forward.

I think that this is key, and is actually a benefit rather than a consequence. Far too often, we don't engage with our tasks, and things become stale, and we simply defer things to the next day or the next week.

With this method, it forces you to look at everything on your schedule, all of your meetings, all of your events, and decide carefully what should you accomplish today, or what should you accomplish next week? And if you're wanting to get even more out of your task list, then I'd love to send you this free guide.

Inside, I show you a simple method for creating a more focused to-do list. To get your copy, click the link on the screen now.

Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.

How to find Google Forms Add-Ons

- [Scott] Would you like to add some more advanced functionality to your Google Forms, including the ability to limit responses, send custom emails, and even turn it into a custom booking calendar?

Well in this video, I'm going to show you how to use three add-ons that every Google Forms user should know. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And Google Forms is great for creating surveys, quizzes, and really any type of form that you like.

But sometimes there is some functionality that we can't simply add or change within the settings. So let's take a look at how we can get more out of our Google Forms.

And by doing so, we are going to be using some add-ons. Now to add a add-on or to search for add-ons, all you need to do is select the more icon here

within any Google form. We're going to come all the way down to the bottom and select Get add-ons. And here we will be brought to the Google Workspace marketplace.

Limit form responses

And the first one that we are going to be looking at is called formLimiter. I'm going to click on it right here. This is what it looks like. Don't be confused by the number of other tools that may have a limiting option as well.

Often there will be a number of different add-ons that serve a very similar purpose but we are going to us formLimiter. All you need to do is select install. And now if we select this puzzle piece icon, you will have access to all of your add-ons.

So let's select formLimiter, and we are going to select Set limit. How often have you wanted to give a specific date and time as a end date? Or maybe you want to limit the number of responses after you've received a certain number of responses such as 50, or maybe the first 100.

Well, we can apply either of those types of limits with the formLimiter add-on.

And it's really simple to set up. Here in the bottom right hand corner of the screen our first option is to choose what type of limit do we want to apply. Is it going to be a date and time, or a number of form responses?

FormLimiter actually gives us one further option here if we want to choose a specific spreadsheet cell value. But let's stay with the first two options because I think they would be the most common.

So first up is date and time, and maybe I'm only going to have this form available through to the end of the month. So here I can select the date. I'm going to say August 31st and I can also select a specific time. I'm going to say 11:55 PM, and hit Set.

Now the last thing that we need to review before we hit Save and enable is this message that people will receive if they choose to submit the form after this due date. Now by default, it's going to say the following.

This form is no longer accepting responses, and has been set to automatically close by my email address. And in many cases, I don't want to show that. So I can customize this message. Maybe I'm just happy with the first part here.

Just allowing people to know why their form has not been submitted. But of course, you can add further details here as well if you want to redirect them to another webpage, if you'd like to invite them to contact you, or if you want to include a custom support email address.

So make sure you review this default message

and change it to your liking. Lastly, this checkbox is checked by default. Email the form owner when submissions are closed. And I would recommend that you keep this checked because you don't want to be puzzled as to why am I not receiving any responses from this forum.

This is a helpful reminder which will only be sent when you have reached this limit. Now at this stage we can say Save and enable and it will apply this limit to this form.

But let's quickly go back and take a look at the number of form responses because maybe there's a case where you only want to allow the first 10 or the first 25 forms to be submitted. With this option selected, the only thing that we need to think about is the number itself, and maybe I'm going to choose the number 25. Our default message has stayed the same.

It won't change as you toggle back and forth but maybe I want to let them know that I've only accepted the first 25.

I can add that information here as well. And now going forward, this limited form response will be applied.

Custom form notifications & email

Next, let's take a look at how we can receive better notifications when people submit a form, but also allow ourselves to send them a custom email message once they've submitted.

So for this purpose, we are going to use an add-on called Form Notifications. And this add-on is actually developed by Google themselves. After hitting install and giving a permission,n it will also appear here within your add-ons options.

So after selecting Form Notifications, we want to select Open from the dialogue which is presented.

And again, we will be presented with an interface in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Now here we actually have two options available to us. The first one has to do if we want to be notified of form responses,

and the one below is if we want to send anyone who submits a form, a custom thank you message. So let's start with the first one. If I want to be notified of form responses,

I can toggle this on and by default, the email address associated with my Google Forms account will be displayed here.

But I don't have to use this address. I can get rid of it and add something else, or I can come down below and start to enter in other email addresses if I want others to be notified as well.

The only other option that we need to choose here is how often do we want to receive those notifications?

And this can be really helpful if you don't want to receive a notification for every single response. So here, maybe I can enter in the number 10. Meaning, I only want to receive a response after every 10 submissions.

Maybe it'll be just a gentle reminder for me to come in here and to check in on all of those responses. If I do want a notification for every single response, well I would simply enter in the number one.

Now I'm just going to untoggle this for a moment as we look at the second option down below, but you're not limited to only one. You can have both of these turned on at the same time.

With the thank you email option turned on, we can go be on just the simple message which is set up under Settings. You may be familiar with the presentation area here where we can edit the confirmation message.

But remember, this message will only be displayed on the screen immediately after they fill out the form. Nothing will be sent to their inbox. So here with thank you email toggled on,

we can choose to customize that message. Now the first thing that we'll need to choose is which is going to be the email address that we are collecting. If I did not already have an email address included in my form, I could choose this automatically option.

But I'm going to select form field, and here I could choose any other form if it was listed or described in a different way but I've chosen to describe it as the email address. This is what it's going to be using to send out those emails.

Down below, I can add my own email address or someone else if I want to send a copy to someone. And then I can choose both my email subject line and the body of my email down below.

These are simply just the defaults that are included here

but of course, I could add so much more detail if I want to provide them further information or when they can expect to hear from me or maybe I want to add links that they can follow, I can do that here as well.

And remember, if you come down here to this little icon, you can always drag if you need more room as you're filling out the body of that email. When you're finished, all you need to do is hit Save configuration.

And now each time that someone fills out this form, they will receive that custom email message.

Add form booking calendar

Last but not least, let's turn our form into a custom booking calendar.

Because although you may be familiar with other tools such as Calendly, they don't give you the ability to add as much detail and additional questions as you can add here

within Google Forms. But if you want people to be able to book time on your calendar with custom time slots, we can do that right here within Google Forms. So to get started, we will first need to go back to our add-ons marketplace and install the Booking Calendar add-on. Once installed, again, we will be able to find it here

in the Add-ons menu. Now just before I show you how to set up the add-on

within Google Forms, we first want to go to our Google Calendar because here is where we will set up the available slots that people can choose from within our Google Form. What we want to do is come down here and create a new calendar.

Remember, you can create as many calendars as you need within Google Calendar

and this is going to keep things separate from your primary or main calendar.

So I'm going to say that this is my booking calendar, just so I can see it that it's different from everything else. And I'm going to select Create calendar Now when I go to view the list of all of my calendars here is my new booking calendar.

Separate from my other calendars which I can toggle on or off. Next, we want to be able to create the event times which people can book.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with tomorrow at 11:00 AM, and I'm going to create this bonus coaching call. Remember, whatever you include here is exactly what others will see when they book this time and it becomes added to their calendar.

So you'll want to pay special attention to the description field, and if you need to provide a link as well. Let's just add some sample welcome text here. And let's pretend that I've added a Zoom link down below.

Now Google Calendar makes it really easy for us to repeat a single event. So what I like to do is create one of these slots and then come down to this repeat bar and select Custom. And now what I can choose to do is select all the days

in which I want to add this time. So maybe I want to say every weekday, I want to be able to include a possible slot. And I'm going to say that we're going to make this available just for the next 10 occurrences.

I'm going to hit Done, and then I'm going to hit Save. And now as we come back to our week view, you can see I have 10 slots that have been made available for the coming two weeks. Next, let's go back to our Google Form.

And we are going to select the Booking Calendar and select Configure Booking Calendar. Now it may take just a few seconds to load and then we can start configuring the settings that we want for this booking option. So our very first choice here is to Select the Calendar.

That's why we started by creating that new booking calendar. Here you will see a list of all of the calendars available to us. But of course, we want to now choose that Booking Calendar and hit Save.

It lets us know that the selected calendar has been save and we can select Next. Next, we need to create the sync dropdown field. By selecting this button, it will create a special dropdown field.

This is where users will be able to select their desired time. And don't worry, we can change the name of this field after we're done. I'm going to hit Next, and it's going to take us to the next step in the process.

Here it needs to know where to find the user's email address. And like we saw in our previous add-ons, we can choose from the other fields in this form. In this case, we want to keep it at the email address and hit Save.

We then hit Next, and it will tell us that all of the requirements are met. And now we can see that those slots which we have created within Google Calendar are now made available here, so that a user will be able to use a dropdown menu.

Now we can always come back in here and choose a few other options or go back and change some of the options, but let's go ahead and see how this looks to the end user. I can always minimize this option here.

And the first thing I'm going to do is come up and change the title of it. Instead of event slots, I'm going to say, Please select a time. Of course, you can add as much or little information here as you like.

But now if we come up and select the preview option, here is what the form will look like. They will fill in their name, their email address, and down below, we have a nice clean dropdown menu which includes all of the available times.

So I'm going to choose August 24th in this case and I'm going to select Submit. Now when I return to my Google Calendar, you'll notice that something is a little different from my other options.

Here you can see that this August 24th time slot has changed to the color purple. I actually really like this feature because it lets me know which has been booked and which are still available to others.

And when I click on the details of this event, here you can see the email address of the person who submitted this request.

All of my meeting details will be listed down below. And it will even let me know

that the submitter booked this event via this particular form. So both myself and the attendee have all of the information needed to make this meeting happen.

Now if we go back and attempt to submit another form, the great thing about this feature is of course, that August 24 slot is now no longer available. It will automatically remove that from the choices here because someone has booked that time already.

Back within the booking calendar interface, I can also choose to skip displaying events

that are too close to the current time.

So maybe I want to change this to perhaps 10 hours, meaning nothing within 10 hours will be displayed to those users. And lastly, I can also choose to minimize or change the number of maximum slots.

This is really helpful so that you are not displaying a very, very long dropdown list. You can still have those slots available on your Google Calendar but you can minimize what they see within your Google form.

Remember to hit Save once you've made any changes here and then that will be applied to your form immediately. Now I would love to hear from you next, which of today's three add-ons do you find will be most helpful? Or do you have an add-on that you would like to share with others? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

And if you'd like to receive more tips and tricks on how to simplify your software directly to your inbox, be sure to sign up for the Simpletivity newsletter. Thank you so much for watching.

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

Does every small business need a CRM or customer relationship management system? Well, it depends. In this video, I'm going to help you answer that question and also show you the features which you may be missing out on if you're not currently using a CRM.

Should I be using a CRM?

Hello everyone! Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And a common question I receive is Scott, Should I be using a CRM system for my small business?

Whether I'm an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, a freelancer should I be using a CRM? Well, if you fall into one of these two categories I would highly recommend you keep watching.

Number one, if you are spending much of your time managing your business including your customer information and your deals and projects in a spreadsheet, yes, a CRM is going to be so much more efficient.

It's going to relieve so many headaches that we often face when managing things within a spreadsheet. Now, don't get me wrong, spreadsheets are incredibly useful especially when it comes to accounting and finance and when we're dealing with numbers. 

But when it comes to managing customer contact information and then connecting that with multiple projects, deals and activities, spreadsheets tend to fall very, very short.

Now the second scenario could be if you're managing all of your contact information and sales progress within a project management tool. Now you're probably thinking aren't project management tools designed for this purpose? Well, it's true.

Tools like Notion, Click Up, Asana and many more look a bit like a CRM system. However, they tend to also fall short when it comes to making those connections.

And as you're about to see there's so many other features that you may be missing out on if you spend most of your time within a spreadsheet or a project management tool. So let's dive into one of my favorite CRM tools and show you what you may be missing.

Pipedrive CRM

Here I am within my Pipedrive CRM account, and one of the reasons why I highly recommend Pipedrive is that not only does it have all of the features that you will need, it keeps things relatively simple and easy to use.

Now, when it comes to a CRM system, I believe that there are three key areas or components. Here we are on our deal page, which may look very similar to a project management tool that you are currently using or have used before in the past.

This is where we want to manage our deals. And after I've made contact with this customer, I'm going to move them to demo schedule. We've got something on the calendar.

It's a great way to keep track of where we are in negotiating or managing this deal. 

A second area is the activities area, because more than just the deal itself, what should we be doing next? Is it an email, is it a phone call? Do I need to send out a contract or an agreement?

You can almost think of this section as your to-do list but the great thing is, is that it's tied directly to your most important projects, and that is your customers, your potential customers and those deals.

But last but not least, is perhaps the most important part of any CRM system, and that is the contacts area. Now, at first glance, this may look an awful lot like your Outlook contacts or your Google contacts or some other contact manager that you use but there is so much more functionality.

There are so many wonderful features here that we can use. 

Of course, we're going to track things such as name, email address, phone number and what organization they're a part of.

And unlike a spreadsheet, even if you are managing multiple people within the same organization you can keep everything linked together. But let's go ahead and click on one of these individuals just to show you how much more power you have at your fingertips.

So here I've clicked on this contact, and yes I've got my basic contact information here but beyond just the organization I can see a full history of my contact with this person.

I can see exactly when we made first contact. About 10 days later, we sent the proposal and now fast forward to today, they have accepted the work and they want to start work right away. 

So I can see that history in an instant and I can even take notes here within the customer profile but it gets so much better than that because rather than jumping around from multiple applications, having to jump back into my email account I can actually email or even phone call this individual directly from within my CRM.

So if I come over here to my email tab I've already connected this with my email account so I can give this a subject. I can start writing directly to this individual and hit send without ever leaving my CRM system.

And CRM systems such as Pipedrive also make it super easy for us to create and make use of templates. Let's say in this example, I want to send an introduction. I'm going to come down here and select the intro template. 

And immediately you will see that the name of the customer is automatically input into this field.

I can have as many variables that I would like here within the template itself, including dates, including quantity, including names of some of my products and services. But it's also put my name at the bottom as well.

This is important if you do work with a small team and maybe there are multiple people who are reaching out or who could be sending communication. And because I can send email from directly within my CRM I can see that history here as well.

I don't have to jump back into my email client and try and do a search and figure out when I last reached out. Here within my activity feed, I can always expand and see exactly what that message is and if I need to reply, I'm just one click away as well.

Now, another quick feature that I particularly like here within the contact section is called the contacts timeline.

Because when you are managing multiple deals and multiple contacts, you may want to see a history of how long have things been in the queue or when was the last milestone when you reached out to that customer.

Here you can see I have my organizations listed on the left hand side. And then across the top I have the months of the year.

And you can see exactly when I first made contact with this customer, when I followed up with a phone call and then when I made a final phone call attempt. And then on top of that we have some other helpful visual indicators. 

So red here means the date in which we lost that negotiation or lost that deal, but then we have others which have green and this indicates when we won that particular deal.

I also appreciate that Pipedrive makes it really easy for us to add actions on almost any screen so we don't have to be jumping back to our deal page or our activity view. If I want to send a follow up here, I can select this action and I can add an activity directly from this screen.

So less clicking, less jumping back between menus and tabs. And you can be a lot more actionable when you're on the screen. Now, jumping back to our deal page, we are never limited to just this Kanban or pipeline style of view. 

While I find this very helpful and easy to read if you are coming from a spreadsheet and prefer to view it in a list view, you can easily do so as well. And if we want to sort any of these columns it's as easy as you would if not easier than doing this within Excel or Google Sheets.

But we also have access to some additional views which you can't get in other pieces of software. Here you can see I have a forecasting tab which again is putting some months of the year at the top of the screen.

And since I'm in the month of September here it is showing all of my active deals and giving me a forecast as to what I can expect. 

At the top of the screen it's showing me that I have $117,000 of potential deals. These are potential customers, people that I'm still speaking with or hoping to reach out and connect with. But in green, we have $42,000 of deals that we've actually won.

So combined, we have a potential of this number and then down below I can easily see the difference between those two groups. Here at the bottom, shaded in green, I have my won deals and here are the other deals that we still have the opportunity to win.

Activities Page

Last but not least, let's take a look at the activity screen because this is where we want to take action so we can turn it into revenue, turn it into sales. So beyond just labeling your projects or your deals, you want to keep track of when do you need to make that next call.

When do you need to make a final attempt or when do you need to show a demo of your product or your service. And again, Pipedrive makes it super easy for us to see things that are past due in red, here in green are the things that I should be doing by today.

And then I have future activities that I need to be thinking about in the coming week. So if I need to send this proposal today, I'm just one click away. It's even smart enough to bring me to the email tab so I can immediately attach that proposal and send that email.

If I come down here to my next item, which is a context call for a different customer, you'll notice that it will automatically bring me to the call tab.

So again, cutting down on the number of clicks, the number of places or even the number of devices that I need to engage with, I can start making calls directly from my computer without having to pick up my phone.

So if you're tired of wasting time in a spreadsheet or your existing tool, maybe it's time for you to use a CRM. You can try Pipedrive free for 30 days and Simpletivity users get 20% off of their first year. To learn more, click the link in the description down below.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Over the past year, it seems as if every productivity tool has included AI as a part of its feature.

But in many cases, I've been very disappointed. Either they're adding AI to something that doesn't make sense or actually doesn't improve the product. And even when they do add it to something that might be helpful, the results are often very poor.

Fortunately, that's not the case with Walling. One of my favorite productivity tools especially when it comes to creating projects, proposals, and if you're wanting to share those things with other clients or people outside of your team.

So in this video, I'm going to show you how to use AI in Walling and get the most out of this new feature.

Getting Started

So here I am within my walling account and typically we have two options to get started. We can either begin with a completely blank wall or we can come down here to the many excellent templates.

But I think with this new AI generate feature you may never come back to these templated options because we can get so much further, so much faster by just giving it a little bit of instruction. So all we need to do is click on AI generate and tell it in a brief description what exactly it is that we are looking for.

So in this example, perhaps I want to create a marketing plan for a real estate business in Seattle.

I'm going to take on the role of a marketing consultant and I'm working with this client and I want to put together a quick plan so I can show them what I'm capable of doing for them and to get them to sign a contract by the end of the week. 

So I've given it just a brief direction here exactly what I stated marketing plan for a real estate business in Seattle. 

And all I have to do is hit enter and in just a few seconds it's provided me with a complete project proposal with all of the details necessary for me to get started.

It's even included a checklist, bullet points, a table, even a Kanban board, in terms of how we can move forward with this project, even has included pictures that I can use as a part of this proposal. And unlike using a generic template where we could probably find a marketing plan.

In fact, there's probably a number of marketing plan templates out there if we read in the details here of the overview, the objectives, if we go into the actual bullet points, these are things specific to both the Seattle area but also the real estate market.

If I come down here to the bottom under market analysis it knows a little bit about the Seattle real estate market and the strong economy, low employment rate yet a high demand for real estate. 

So this is a lot more specific. It allows me to not have to fill in so many blanks. I can focus on the key points and move on with my proposal. So let's quickly go through the different sections of this wall, which it has provided.

And remember, for each prompt or each instruction that you give it, it's going to come out with a different layout depending on what you are wanting. So here at the top I have the combination of a cover image and a title.

Of course, if I want to come here and change this cover, let's see if we can find something that is a little more specific to Seattle. Yes, that speaks Seattle to me. So we can quickly and easily change these images.

We've got an executive summary which is going to cover the overview and the objectives of this marketing plan. It goes over some of the metrics that we are going to use and a combination of bullet points and a checklist here.

And of course, if I want to change something, I can click on absolutely anything and delete or add it or edit.

In this example here of evaluation and measurement it might not make that much sense to have a checklist here unless I'm wanting to work through this with the client. 

But because I'm going to be using this page as a proposal I'm going to come over here and I want to turn this into a bulleted list. So again, in just a few keystrokes I can make those simple changes here. It's even provided me with a budget and a timeline.

And think with just that one key prompt, it's given me a couple of tasks to get started on. Here's the estimated time or estimated cost who it's assigned to, and then the due date.

Of course, I can add as many additional columns or additional rows as I would like but it's already got me started with a fantastic beginning. And then below under marketing strategies it's given me a great view here of the different areas the online marketing, local advertising and partnerships.

It's put it into a Kanban style board here so I can clearly see the differences that we are going to engage in or the different possibilities that we have for this plan. 

And then lastly, we have our market research area here at the end. And don't forget, it's not just easy to edit the text but we can completely edit the layout and swap out other pieces of information.

So for example, since we're talking about market research for a real estate project, it doesn't make that much sense that it's given me these microscopes here. So I'm going to come up here and say replace.

Let's type in something like real estate, see what it comes back with. And I think this makes a lot more sense. But if I want to go and grab images or video here, I've got a video to show how I do my market research I can simply drag and drop it directly into my wall.

So now when they receive this proposal they'll be able to quickly and easily play this video when they view this screen. And then if I want some other things to stand out such as maybe this competitor research I want to have just a different shade just so that they see the difference between these sections.

I can do so here as well but the AI doesn't stop with just generating your wall.

Adding more sections 

We can continue to add further sections and add further content within our wall. So for example, maybe at the bottom of the wall I want to stress why they should be working with me and maybe what do they stand to lose if they don't work with my organization.

So I'm going to click on new section here and although I can start to add my own details I'm going to continue and select AI generate. Now again, we are asked for a prompt but here we don't have to give as much detail.

In fact, instead of giving it instruction I'm just going to give it a simple title for this section why you should work with us. I'm going to hit enter, and now in just a few seconds

Sharing your project

it's given me a great summary paragraph,a great way to sign off and encourage them to complete this proposal or at least continue the conversation. Now, you may be asking how do I share this with others safely? And without having to confuse my clients or the people that I'm working with adding them to walling, giving them a login.

Well, remember, you can share your proposal your page, your wall, whatever you built here with or without AI using the publishing tool at the top of the screen. So here I'm going to come up to the top and I'm going to select publish.

And when I'm happy with it, all I need to do is select publish to the web. And now I can safely share this link. If I open up a new incognito window I'm going to paste in this link. This is exactly what they will see but in a much nicer format.

In fact, what I really love about this formatting is that it gives a nice clickable table of contents on the left hand side so they can quickly and easily go to different sections of this proposal than just a few clicks. 

But wait a minute, maybe I don't want to share the budget and timeline because we haven't discussed those details yet and I didn't want to introduce a budget at this point. Well, no problem.

When I go back to my Walling account and access the publish page, I can choose which sections I want or do not want to include when sharing the page. So in this case, I'm going to uncheck budget and timeline.

Now, when I go to share this wall with others they will see everything on this screen except for this particular section. So you can create something full and complete but only share the sections that you desire.

And since more and more people are doing more of their work on a mobile device such as a phone or a tablet, don't worry. Walling has got you covered with a completely responsive design. 

So no matter what device they use your proposal or project will look professional and contain all the information that you've included.

So now that you know how quickly and easily you can create a project or a proposal and share it with others what do you need to get done today? What's something that you are behind on or something that you're dreading getting started? Instead of staring at a blank page why don't you let AI generate something for you which will get you 80% of the way there? To get started with Walling, go to Walling app, or click the link in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

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

What is the best way to name your files? Well, here's a simple three step formula you can use by adding a subject, a date and a code to each of your files, it will make it that much easier for you to both organize and find your files in the future.

Here on the screen in front of you, I've got three different folders with different examples, all of them including a subject, a date and a code and a great thing about this formula is that you don't have to keep it in this order, you can mix and match it based on your needs.

So for example, in my first folder, I've got the subject name, followed by the code, followed by the date. In the middle folder, I have the date, followed by the subject name, followed by the code. 

And in the last folder, I have the code, followed by the name, followed by the date. Now let's take a closer look at what makes this file naming system so powerful.

Of course, when it comes to the name or the subject of your file, that's going to differ on each and every file type, but you will notice that I've included a dash between the file name anywhere where a space would normally appear.

Instead of writing a new space hire space process, I've included a dash. Why? Many applications still will not accept a file or process it correctly if you've included a space somewhere within your file name and in some cases they will add special characters in between those spaces.

So in order to make sure that your file can be used or shared with almost any application, I encourage that you include these dashes. 

You'll also notice that I've included an underscore which separates these three components. In this example, I have the date, underscore, the subject name and then underscore and then finally the code.

That makes it a lot easier to read and also to see the distinction between these three different parts. Now, when it comes to the date, I highly recommend that you use the following date format, the full four digit year, followed by the two digit month, followed by the two digit date.

And it doesn't matter what country you live in or what the standard date format is for your region, we want to follow this order so it can sort properly. By using the year, month, date format, we can always sort, especially if you've included the date at the beginning of that file name. 

Lastly, let's take a look at the final component of our formula and that is by adding a unique code or a unique identifier. Here within the left folder, the special code is as a version number.

Within the middle folder, I've got a combination of different things. I have some, which are the initials, perhaps of the last person who edited or who created this file. It could be a version number or, like in the last two examples, I'm identifying the difference between a draft and a final version.

And then in the right hand side folder, the unique code happens to be a purchase order number, which again makes it nice and easy for me to sort everything that is going on within this folder.

The other thing that you will notice is that I recommend that that unique code is in all capitals. 

By using capitals for your code, it will stand out that much more and you can better see the distinction between the three different parts of our file name.

Now, one thing to note, if you are using version numbering, I highly recommend that you use a two digit system like we see here, version zero one followed by zero two and so on.

Why? Even if you don't think that you will get to version 10 or greater, if you do, you want to make sure that this will sort or can be read easily if you do get two double digits. This will save an awful lot of headache and an awful lot of edits in the future.

So the next time you go to create or save a file, just remember this three-step formula of adding a subject, a date and a code, it will make organizing your files and folders so much easier.

Thank you so much for watching today's video and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.

This video is brought to you by SaneBox More about them a little later in the video.

Are you tired of staring at a blank email wondering how you should reply or create a new message? Well, if you are a Google Gemini user, we can take advantage of AI directly here from within Gmail.

We're going to get started by coming all the way down to the bottom and to the right of your send button, you will see that there is an icon called Help me Write By Selecting This, we get this Help Me Write button and a few other buttons that will become available once we've added some text or once we've input some information.

So I'm going to go ahead and select Help me write, and this is where we can enter in our prompt. Now it's only a single line. I don't know what the maximum number of characters are, but of course you don't have to give it a whole lot of detail to get something worthwhile.

So here, I've given it this prompt. I wanted to write an email to a potential client who is wanting to pay at the end of the project instead of a deposit upfront. Express that I'm hoping we can revise the agreement to reflect this here. I can go to the right and select Create. 

And of course, AI is going to do its magic and it's important to note it's not going to input it directly into my email just yet. So before we get to the content of what it's come up with here, you can see that there's this line around the content and there's even a little X here, which I can use immediately to close or remove this.

But down at the very bottom of the email, you can see that we now have this big blue button, which will allow us to insert that content. Nothing will go into the email itself until we say so, but we also have a few other options available to us here as well. We can recreate, meaning we can ask it to do another version of this using the exact same prompt that we did, but we can also choose to refine it.

I'm going to come down here to this refine dropdown, and here I've got three options available to me. I can make it more formal. I can choose to elaborate, or I can choose to shorten. Now if I find that I haven't given it the most appropriate prompt, or perhaps it's not coming up with what I'm looking for, I've got one of two options. I can hit this X button here and this will close everything down and bring me back to the beginning where I can enter in a new prompt, or I can come right up here and select the prompt itself.

So in this example, I'm going to say an email to a new client who has not been satisfied with my service. Suggest that we set up a free consultation. I'm going to go ahead and select update in this case.

And you will notice by the response that it's given that there is no mention of the agreement or the contract from the previous prompt. Just keep in mind, every time that you go to change the prompt, it is not going - To the previous one. You are basically starting fresh, or this is a single prompt line each and every time.

Let's say I am happy with this one. I can't edit anything yet until I select insert, and now it has been put into my email. I can go ahead and either add my name here or just remove it since I have my signature down below.

And of course, I'm also going to come up here and make sure that I mention them by name. You may want to do a double check in terms of how many brackets or boilerplate information is there.

The last thing you want to do is send out an email that says Hi client's name. So make sure to do a double check before you hit send.

Now, if you'd like AI to make managing your email that much easier, I recommend you check out SaneBox with AI technology. SaneBox prioritizes essential messages, saving you hours of time each week, and by learning from your behavior, same box will clean up your inbox, get rid of spam, and organize your emails into relevant folders. Best of all, same box works with any email provider.

To get started, go to same box.com/simplivity or click the link in the description below.