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Would you like a quick distraction-free way to capture your tasks and notes?

In this video, I'm going to show you how to turn Google Forms into your own custom tool for managing ideas, tasks, and so much more.

Hello everyone.

Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

The distracted way of capturing tasks & ideas.

And tell me if this sounds familiar, you're at your computer and you're focusing intently on your number one task, when that idea pops up into your head.

What do you do?

Well, maybe you jump into your notes app and create a new note or maybe you go into your favorite task manager and you create a new to-do.

But no matter what app you use, there is often a major problem even before you've created that new task or note.

You can't help but browse and glance at all of the other tasks that you need to accomplish today or this week.

This can not only be very depressing, but sometimes we are tempted to go and look for something else and actually start working on a different task.

Well, with the help of Google Forms, we can create a personal form just for our use so we can manage all of our tasks and ideas and never have to see all of the other things that are on our plate so that we can retain that focus and work distraction-free.

Here I've created a form just for me called Quick Tasks and Ideas.

I'm going to run you through how it works and then I'm going to show you how to build it yourself so that you can customize it for the way you like to work.

So here, down below my very first question, I've got two big buttons.

What am I thinking about?

Am I thinking about a new task or is it simply an idea?

I think far too often we mix up these two and we think that everything is a to-do when in some cases it is just a maybe or a someday or something I want to come back to.

Let's start with a task.

So I'm going to select task and then select next.

And now this is going to bring me to four other questions customized for my needs, the types of things that I want to be thinking about so that I can quickly add this task and then get back to my work.

So let's say in this case, I need to ‘Email a Soneka about next week's meeting’.

That's one of the tasks that I need to accomplish this week.

I've added a priority level.

Now you could do a variety of things here.

You could make it a dropdown, you could make it multiple choice.

I've chosen to use the ranking system here, so I'm going to say this isn't really incredibly important.

I'm going to give it a two out five.

Down below I've added an estimated time dropdown.

I'm going to say this is only going to take 15 minutes or less.

And then I can also add a due date so I can hit the calendar and say, well, I really do need to do this by the end of this week, so I better put the due date by tomorrow.

Now you'll notice the only thing that I've made required here is the task description, and I think that's important.

We want to make this as seamless and as quick as possible.

I don't have to add these other elements, but there's a good chance you work differently than me and maybe you always want to include a priority level or maybe you always want to include an estimated time.

And of course, all of this is customizable so you don't have to keep it at the values you see here.

I'm going to go ahead and hit submit and I can immediately submit another response.

So if I click this link, I'm brought back to the beginning and maybe I want to add another task or maybe I want to add an idea.

Let's go with an idea.

This time I'm going to select idea I'm going to hit next.

And you'll notice, although I have four questions as well on this screen, they are different.

So maybe my idea is to create a new course about Gmail.

That's my idea.

I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but it's just an idea.

Down below I've got a files or attachment because sometimes maybe we've seen something on a website or maybe we've downloaded A PDF.

So in this case I'm going to say add file.

I can browse and either grab something directly from my Google Drive account or I can grab something here from my computer.

I'm just going to grab an image in this particular example, but I can choose to add multiple files if I want to and include that as a part of my note collection.

Down below the attachments, I've got an area called idea category.

Is this work-related personal side project or future goal?

I'm going to say this is Work-related.

And then lastly, we have another date picker, but the question is a little different.

When would you like to revisit this idea?

We haven't committed to this idea.

It's not a task.

So I'm going to say at the latest, I'd like to revisit this by the end of January.

I'm going to hit submit, and once again, we can very easily submit another response.

Managing your tasks & ideas.

So now that you've seen how my task and idea form works, where does all that information go?

Well, the easiest place to see and filter and sort that information is within the attached sheet.

You may already know that every Google form you can create a linked sheet.

So here I've got all of that valuable information.

In this case, I've got my tasks and my ideas mixed in here, but of course I can easily sort that if I want to.

Let's say I only want to see my tasks.

I'm going to say, okay, and now all I see is my task.

Do I want to maybe sort this by priority?

Yeah, that's something that you would want to do with your task list.

Now I've got all of those tasks sorted by priority and we even have some other pieces of information that you don't always get in your favorite task manager, including this very first column, which is a timestamp.

So when did I capture that task?

Not only the date but the actual time of day as well.

And remember, all of these fields are customizable, so you can choose to change them.

You can choose to add more options.

I've even chosen to add some conditional formatting here.

If something is overdue like you see here, I want it to shade in the color of red.

You could do that for any one of these columns.

You could do multiple colors.

Maybe if something is approaching its due date or is really overdue like two weeks or more.

A lot of these things are hard coded in your favorite task manager or maybe don't even exist at all.

You can customize it here to your heart's content.

Setting up your own custom form.

So let's jump back into Google forums and I'm going to show you how to build a form just like this and show you the other ways in which you can customize your personal task manager or note taker.

We're going to start with a blank form here, and of course you're going to want to title it something like tasks and ideas or really anything that you want.

We're going to put a pause on changing the colors and adding the header like you saw earlier.

You can always watch one of my other Simpletivity tutorials if you're wanting to customize the look and feel.

Now, the very first question in my form was what are you thinking about?

Again, you can do anything that you like.

You can word this any way that you want, but the type of question that we want is a multiple choice question.

Now of course, you could just build a task taking tool or an idea taking tool and not have this separation or this option at the beginning, but I want to show you how to do it nonetheless.

So in this case, my first one was a task, and then my second one was an idea.

So those are the two options that I wanted, but you may remember that I had those two big images that made it even that much easier to select, especially if I'm using this on my mobile device.

So if we come over here, we can add an image.

I'm going to click on browse and I'm going to check that checkbox there.

So that is going to be my task image.

And then over here beside idea, I'm also going to select browse, and I'm going to grab that question image.

Now, when you're building out your form, it may look a little funny.

You'll notice that it looked a lot different when we went to actually use the form, but this is the basis of that form.

Now because we are going to use branching, meaning depending on which of these two we are going to send yourself somewhere differently.

What we need to do is come over to the right hand side and select add a section.

And in fact, we're going to add two different sections.

The first one here is I'm just going to title tasks, and then down below that we are going to add a third section, which I'm going to label as idea.

Now, keep in mind you could add multiple sections if you want.

If wanted something beyond just task and idea, you could do that as well.

But let's keep it simple with this example.

So here within task, we can start adding our questions and you probably want to start with some type of description.

What is this task all about?

I'm going to add that plus button again.

Now as my second question in my form, I choose the new rating system here.

So if I select this, it's going to give me a number of stars, but you can customize this, you can reduce it to maybe only three stars, and they don't even have to be stars.

They could be hearts or they could be thumbs up, whatever you like.

But again, you don't have to follow my lead.

You could always choose multiple choice boxes if you wanted to, you could choose a dropdown, whatever you think is easier here in the question field.

I'm just going to call this a priority because that is the ranking that I want to add here.

And let's go through one last example.

I'm going to add the plus button again.

So let's add a due date.

So now I've got three questions

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

In fact, it's very simple.

Do you ever wish you could instantly open two apps at the same time?

In this video, I'm going to show you a hidden Android trick to boost your productivity.

Hello everyone.

Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And here we are within my Android phone.

Now this has probably happened to you before where you're looking at a particular app, but you want to cross-reference it with something else.

So for example, I want to review my task list here, but then I need to go back to my calendar and see what is going on.

And if I swipe up from the bottom, yes, I can go back and forth, but that gets a little tedious.

I wish I could see these on the same screen.

Well, the good news is, is that you can, now that's not necessarily new, but stay tuned for the second part because this might just blow your mind.

So to get started, let's view these apps in split screen mode.

So you want to open up your first app, which in my case is my calendar.

I'm going to flick up gently from the bottom where again, we can go to any of my other recent apps.

But I'm going to come up here and actually select the app icon at the top.

I'm just going to tap it and it's going to reveal some other information.

I'm going to select split screen, and you can see that it moves it up to the very top of the screen.

Now I can select from any of my recent apps.

And because my task list was just recently opened, I'm going to select that and in just a few seconds here, we have a true split screen of these two apps.

And yes, I can add new events, I can scroll to other views or other dates, and down below within my task list I can come down here and review and add new tasks as well.

Now this is great, this is helpful.

However, if I was to remove this from my view, that is going to be gone for good.

So here is what you really want to pay attention to.

If there are any two apps, like the example I've given here that you would like to see at the same time on a regular basis, we can now save them as an app pair.

All we need to do is once again flick up gently from the bottom of the screen.

And now we can see that both app icons appear at the top.

Once again, we're just going to tap either one of them and you can see one of the options is save app pair.

I'm going to select that and it instantly adds it to my home screen.

And now I can click and drag it.

I can move it to wherever I want to.

But now whenever I want to see those two apps at the same time, I can click on it and it's instantly going to open them.

So consider what two apps would be most helpful and most useful to you and set up your very own app pair.

Now, if you enjoyed this video, why not hit the like button, subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel and leave me a comment down below.

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

In fact, it's very simple.

Are you struggling to keep your Gmail inbox under control?

Well, in this video I'm sharing seven proven tips to reach inbox zero and stay there and be sure to watch to the very end because I have some Gmail shortcuts you don't want to miss.

Hello everyone.

Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

Gmail tip 1

So tip number one has to do with making use of effective labels.

Now, often we view labels here within Gmail as a type of folder, and that's one way of thinking about it.

For example, I've got a label here called Action Required where I can put specific emails and then just go and focus on these particular messages.

But labels are actually a lot more powerful than folders because you don't have to necessarily move things from your inbox.

You can make the messages and the emails that you see here that much more relevant.

So for example, maybe there is a couple of emails here that I want to address a little later on.

I'm going to select these three.

If I come up to the very top, you might be prone to moving those emails somewhere else, but let's be honest, sometimes when we move things over here, they either get lost or we simply forget to go back and check on them.

Well, to the right is actually the labels icon, and by selecting this I can say that yes, I want to apply the action required label.

You can actually apply multiple labels at once if you like.

And I'm going to select Apply.

Now those emails stand out, even if I deselect them here from the top, those emails really stand out and I can zero in on the messages that I like.

And when I want to address one of these emails, let me open up this message here.

Once I've either downloaded or read or replied to this message, I can come up to the top and quickly remove that label just by selecting this X.

And now it's gone back to a regular message.

But let's continue with tip number two because we actually haven't removed anything from our inbox yet.

We've only made a few messages that much easier to read.

Gmail tip 2

Tip number two is all about using the snooze feature, which can be a great way to quickly tame your inbox and reduce the number of messages that are staring back at you.

Now, here from your inbox, you can snooze any message without even having to open it.

So maybe I'm excited to read about these updates.

I just don't want to do it now, and I don't want this message cluttering everything else that I'm looking at.

So I'm going to come over here to the right hand side.

I'm going to select snooze, and it's going to give me the option.

How far in advance do I want to snooze this message?

Now for those who may not be familiar with these snooze functionality, whatever date I select in the future, it is going to immediately remove it here from my inbox, keep it in a bit of a holding pattern, and then return it to the top of my inbox depending on the date and time that I select.

Now we have a couple of defaults here later today, tomorrow, this weekend and next week.

I find that nine times out of 10, I'm selecting one of these four options.

But if I want to push it out even further or pick a particular date and time, I can come down to the bottom, select this.

I get a full calendar.

I can change the date, I can change the time and then select save.

Now where does it go?

It's gone from my inbox.

What if I do want to address that message before it automatically returns to me?

Well, here on the left hand side, you can see that we can go into our snoozed area.

So this is going to show all of the messages which you have snoozed, and on the right hand side, you can see that it's given a bit of an orange color date.

That's telling us when it is expected to come back to our inbox.

Now we can change that here.

If we come over and select that snooze icon, we can not only change the snooze time if we want, but we can also snooze it, which will send it directly back to our inbox.

Now just before we continue, I want to remind you, if you're looking for ways to simplify your day and get organized with Google, why not subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel?

Each week I bring you new tips so you can get more out of Google Apps and other Google Friendly products.

Click subscribe below so you can take advantage of a more simplified day.

Gmail tip 3

Now, speaking of keeping our inbox clean and removing unwanted messages, you're going to want to make sure that you take advantage of tip number three, and that is archiving your messages.

Now, my rule of thumb is that whenever I have finished replying to a message or reading a message and getting the information that I need from it, I hit the archive button because I don't want it to remain here within my inbox.

If you are in the habit of replying or reading and allowing read messages to stay here in your inbox, you are bound to let something slip or just make things look that much more chaotic as you're trying to determine, do I still need to come back to this message even though it's been read?

Do I need to open it up that many more times than necessary?

But if we archive our messages, we can still go back and find them.

We can retrieve them whenever we like.

So for example, I'm going to open up this message again and let's say that I have just finished replying to it.

As soon as I'm done, I'm going to select Archive.

It is removed from my inbox, but it's not gone for good.

If we come over here on the left hand side and select more and then come down to all mail, we will find all of our messages including those in the inbox, but also those that have been archived.

And when you go to search for a message at the top, it will always search through your archive and all mail messages as well.

So this is a great way to keep things nice and clean.

Another great way to take advantage of archiving your messages automatically, especially when you are replying to a message, is to turn on the send and archive feature.

Here, I'm about to reply to this particular message.

I don't want to have to send it first and then hit archive two different steps.

I want to archive it immediately.

Now, if you don't see this send Plus Archive as a part of your button, all you need to do is come up to settings, select, see all settings, and within the first General tab, you will see that there is a send and archive feature.

I would recommend that you turn this on show, send an archive so you can take advantage of this automatic inbox cleaning step.

Gmail tip 4

Now, the next tip for keeping your email decluttered is by bringing in some additional help.

And for this, we are going to be using an extension called SaneBox.

SaneBox is one of my favorite tools for keeping my inbox clean because it does things in the background that I could never do on my own.

In particular, SaneBox has a feature called Email Deep Clean, which you can use absolutely for free.

Email Deep Clean automatically rounds up your old unimportant emails and lets you quickly delete them so you can get to inbox zero sooner.

And yes, you can do this absolutely for free.

Just go to sanebox.com/simpletivity or click the link in the description and you can use all of the features of SaneBox.

And a bonus, you'll get a $25 credit towards a SaneBox subscription.

Once again, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity or click the link down below.

Gmail tip 5

Now while all of my tips so far have involved using a particular feature or turning on a particular setting, my next tip has to do with actually scheduling email as a part of your day.

And for that, I want to show you my daily calendar.

And you'll notice that there are two things that I have scheduled every single workday, one at the beginning and one near the end of my day.

I do my very best to deal with email and spend time with my inbox only twice per day.

First, at the very beginning of my day, I will spend a maximum, not always a full hour, but up to a maximum with email and other smaller admin tasks.

And then I will focus the rest of my day on my number one goal and the other things that I want to accomplish.

Then at the very end of my day, I will return and do some other smaller administrative tasks and return to my inbox and determine what do I need to reply to or respond to before the end of my day.

Now, of course, I don't give myself a limit as to when I can send a message.

Depending on the projects and the tasks that I'm working with, I can of course send an email whenever I need to, but to the best of my ability, I will only read or reply to messages at the very beginning and the very end of my day.

Now, for you, you may have to adjust your schedule accordingly, but at the very least, I ask you to consider creating a schedule, something like this or something that will work better for you.

Gmail tip 6

Now, the next tip on our list has to do with getting another Google app involved, but don't worry, even if you're not in Google Calendar very often, this is going to help you out.

And for this, we're going to turn on Gmail tasks.

Here within a message, let's say it's something that I need to come back to or maybe I need to work on this for the next few days.

You will see that I have the option to add it to my task list.

If I select that icon, you will see that my task window opens up and it adds that particular message to my task list.

Now here I can change the due date if I want to come back to this later this week, or I can even come here and add some notes, some things that I need to address within that message or within that conversation.

Now the reason why I like this so much is that Gmail and Google Tasks work hand in hand.

So for example, if I come to a message here and say, oh, I need to come back to this, I need to make sure that I follow up, I can go and add it to my task list right there, and it automatically shows up within Google Calendar as well.

So this is a great way to make sure that those messages that are really important stay front of mind.

Gmail tip 7

And that brings us to our final tip.

And that is by using Gmail search operators, you can save an incredible amount of time.

Now if you want to find a message, you are probably already familiar with using the search bar at the top of Gmail.

But did you know that you can search within a particular date or even with attachments?

Here are a few of my favorites.

If you want to search by a date, use the before operator with a colon and put in a specific date.

And if you want to search for only those messages that include an attachment, just put has attachment colon yes.

There are lots of these that can be very useful, and I'll leave some links to resources with more Gmail search operators.

So there you have it.

Those are my seven top Gmail tips for reaching inbox zero faster than ever before.

And I'd love to know which tip you're going to try first.

Let me know in the comments down below.

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

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.

Are you ready to level up your appointment scheduling in Google Calendar? In this video, I'm going to show you seven powerful tips so you can manage your meetings easily and get more out of your booked appointments. 

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. 

Custom Weekly Schedule

And here within Google Calendar, if we come up to the create button, we have the opportunity to create our own appointment schedules. The very first tip that I want to share with you is something that we couldn't do when this feature was first released, and it has to do with our availability.

For example, maybe this is going to be a coaching call. This is going to be coaching with Scott, and yes, I'm going to give them an hour of my time, but I don't want to be available all days of the week. Maybe I only want to be available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm going to eliminate those other options.

When this feature was first released, we only had two options: we could say to repeat this schedule weekly, or do not repeat and just select certain dates. But now we have a third option—the ability to customize our schedule. This can be really helpful.

So for example, in my case, I don't want to be available every single week. I'm going to come up here to this repeat weekly dropdown and select custom. Here we can choose to repeat anything from one to—I'm not even sure what the maximum is—but there's a good chance that you're probably going to be somewhere in the one to four range. I'm going to select two in my example.

Then down below, I can customize it that much further. Maybe I don't want it to start this week; that's too soon. I want it to start next week, and I don't want this to go on indefinitely. No, I only want to make these coaching services available until the end of the year. So I'm going to select December 31st and then select done.

Now you'll see the dropdown has changed, but remember you can preview this on your own calendar. If I go to today, you can see that nothing is made available. It's going to start next week, and if I go out in advance, I'm going to have a week off, then a week on, then a week off. You get the idea.

So now you can customize the intervals for your weekly schedule.

Advance Booking Time

Now for tip number two, we want to come down below our weekly schedule and select the scheduling window. There are two things here that you don't want to miss before you create your appointment schedule: the maximum time in which someone can book you and the minimum time in which someone can book you in advance.

Starting with the maximum time, the default is 60 days, which will be checked. This means that someone today, on October 16th, could book me for December 16th if I'm available on that day. In my case, I think that's a little too far out. Maybe I only want to give people a 30-day window, meaning they can only look 30 days in advance to book me.

Also, keep in mind that you don't even have to set a maximum time. Remember, this particular appointment schedule is only going from now until the end of this year. It really comes down to what this appointment schedule represents. I'm going to go ahead and select this and then come down to the minimum, which may be even more important.

Just as a review, a minimum means the minimum amount of time that someone can book you in advance. If we look at our example here of next Tuesday, you can see that I have an appointment slot available at 9:00 AM with my current selection of four hours. That means that someone could theoretically book me as late as 5:00 AM that day—5:00 AM my local time. Maybe it's different for them.

Well, I'm still sleeping at 5:00 AM, and even once I've gotten up a little after six, I may not check my email until 7:30 or 8:00. Do I want to be surprised this close to that appointment time by having someone that I'm meeting with at 9:00 AM? Maybe I need to prepare or do some research on this individual or this company in advance.

In my case, I find that four hours is far too close. I usually stretch this out to at least 16 hours, if not a full 24 hours. But again, you can change this based on your needs. I would highly recommend that you never uncheck this box. Why? Because that means that someone could book you just a minute before your availability, really catching you off guard or surprising you, or maybe making you show up for that appointment.

So, make sure that you have the minimum selected and the number of hours appropriate to your needs.

Buffer Time

Now for tip number three, we're going to come down to the booked appointment settings. We'll expand this option to look at our buffer time. By default, this is going to be unchecked, but I want to ask you a question: How often do you finish your appointments exactly at the top of the hour or just a few minutes before? If that's the case, maybe you're okay with leaving this unchecked.

However, if you're in the habit of going over time or want to give yourself at least a short bio break before your next appointment, you may want to add buffer time. By selecting this option, we can adjust either the number of minutes or the number of hours. The default is 30 minutes.

So, immediately, you can see what this has done to my schedule. It has spaced out and reduced the total number of appointments available on those days. Keep in mind that Google's appointment scheduling feature will never double-book you. Since I already have some meetings on my schedule, it will never book me during those times.

You can adjust the number of minutes as well. For example, if I just want to give myself a 10-minute buffer, you can see what that looks like. This way, you can partially space out your appointments to give yourself a little break and enough time to get to the next meeting.

Lastly, if you're looking for ways to simplify your day and get organized with Google, why not subscribe to the SimpliVity channel? Each week, I bring you new tips for people who use Google apps and Google-friendly products. Click subscribe below to take advantage of a more simplified day.

Maximum Bookings Per Day

Now, the option below can also be helpful in managing your days. This can be a great way to ensure that you don't overbook yourself or overwork yourself, depending on what this appointment scheduling represents. For example, with my coaching calls, I usually go very in-depth with my clients and invest a lot of energy. The last thing I want is to have seven or eight coaching calls in a single day.

If I want to limit the number of bookings, I can select the checkbox for maximum bookings per day and then choose the appropriate number. For instance, I might set this to two. This means that the moment a second appointment is confirmed on any one of my available dates, none of the other slots will be publicly available.

For example, if someone books me at 9:00 AM on a Thursday and another person books me at 1:00 PM, as soon as this second booking is made—regardless of the order in which those bookings occur—none of the other available slots will be shown or made available.

This feature can be really helpful, especially depending on the types of appointments you’re booking, ensuring that you have a bit of variety in your schedule based on how many different appointment slots you have created.

Guests Can Invite Others

Now, the next tip on our list is about a new feature that was not available just a few months ago, found within the booked appointment settings. Under Guest Permissions, we now have a checkbox that we can toggle on or off, allowing guests to invite others.

By default, this option is selected (checked), meaning that anyone who books this particular appointment can invite or add other email addresses. However, if you intend for this to be a one-on-one call and want to keep it that way, you can simply uncheck this box.

Make sure to review the guest permissions according to your needs. In my example appointment schedule, I’ll go ahead and click the Next button to share a tip on the following screen, just before we save and actually create this appointment schedule.

Add Video Call Details

Next, let's discuss how to add a video conferencing link. If you're a Google Meet user, appointment scheduling makes this very easy. Under Location and Conferencing, you can select how and where to meet. By choosing this dropdown, you can select Google Meet video conferencing, which will automatically generate a link once the booking is completed.

But what if you're not a Google Meet user and prefer another service like Zoom? I’ll show you how to make it easy for both yourself and your guests. Instead of selecting an in-person meeting (which would require a physical location) or a phone call (which would need a phone number), choose None/To Be Specified Later.

This approach allows you to provide video call details in the description, which many of us are accustomed to finding. In the description, you might say something like, "Click here to join the Zoom meeting."

Now, while that’s just a piece of text, we can turn it into a clickable link for your Zoom account. First, switch tabs to access your Zoom account and find your Personal Meeting Room. This gives you a Zoom link and meeting space that you can use repeatedly without generating a new one each time.

On the left side, click on Meetings, then select the Personal Room tab. Here, you can find your personal meeting link. You could select Copy Invitation at the bottom, but that typically includes too much information. Instead, click Copy Link to get just the link, excluding any messy details like password information or the meeting ID.

Now, return to your Google Calendar appointment scheduling, select the text ("Click here to join the Zoom meeting"), and choose Insert Link. Paste the Zoom link into the dialog box and click OK.

Now, you have a clickable link that will directly launch their Zoom meeting!

Add Custom Fields

Lastly, my final tip is something that many users overlook when using appointment scheduling: the booking form. By expanding this section, you'll see that, by default, it asks everyone for their first and last name along with their email address. This is important to know who you're meeting with and where to send the invitation.

However, you also have the option to add additional fields. By selecting the button, you can request a phone number or choose to add a custom item. For instance, since this is a coaching call, you might want to ask, "What do you want to talk about?" This allows you to gather more information about their business or the topics they wish to discuss.

You can also decide whether to make this question required. If you want to ensure the user answers, select Required and then click Add Item. Now, when they go to book the appointment, they must fill in that question before completing their booking.

Don’t forget, you’re not limited to just one custom field. You can add additional questions as needed. Take advantage of the booking form to learn more about the people you’re meeting with, ensuring a more impactful and helpful meeting for both parties.

Do you have further questions or perhaps your own tips for maximizing appointment scheduling in Google Calendar? Feel free to share them by leaving a comment below.

Thank you for watching, and remember: being productive doesn’t need to be difficult; in fact, it’s very simple!

Are you tired of jumping between browser tabs just to look up more information? What if you could find what you needed without leaving the current page and without getting your keyboard involved in this video, I'm going to show you how and so much more with Google Lens for Chrome. 

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and to enjoy less stress. 

Searching Images with Google Lens

And here I am browsing some home desktop setups, and I come across this picture. I say, “Ooh, that chair looks very interesting. What is it and where can I possibly get it?” Well, in this particular article, it doesn't tell me. It doesn't tell me below the picture. How am I going to find this out?

I'm going to take my cursor and I'm going to come up here to the URL address bar. When I click on it, no, I'm not going to change the URL. I'm going to come over here. Let me do that one more time. I'm going to click out of it, and then when I click into it, you can see that we have this Google Lens option.

When I select it, it's going to sprinkle some pixie dust on my screen here. You can see that my cursor has changed. I've got a little crosshair here, and if I click over certain images, you can see if I clicked over that chair. I'm going to do that. It's going to immediately bring up a search here on the right-hand side.

Oh, it's a Herman Miller chair! It's a specific type of chair, and it's even linking me directly to Amazon and some other sites where I can purchase this image.

Creating a Google Lens Shortcut

Now, you may not want to come up here to the browser bar each time that you want to use Google Lens. Well, the good news is that we can create a shortcut, but you're probably not going to see this little shortcut here in the top right-hand corner unless you do something else first.

Number one, if you don't see this in your address bar, and if you don't see this shortcut option, we want to come to our more options here within Chrome. Down below, you can see there is this "Search with Google Lens." This will always be available to you. If I select it, the exact same thing is going to happen. It's going to be ready for me to search for something.

So this time around, I'm going to click and drag. Maybe I want to know what type of tower this is. I'm going to click over that, and beautiful! It's brought up some great results. But here is where we want to take advantage of the "Pin" or "Unpin" to toolbar.

Now, I have it pinned at the moment; that's why you can see this little icon. I can always access it by just clicking it here, but if I unpin it, this is actually going to go away. I'm going to hit X, and now it's no longer there. It's still going to be available within my address bar, but I really like that pinned option.

So let's go ahead. We can just Google anything, maybe see what that monitor is like or if there's something similar to it. I'm going to come over here and select "Pin." Now this is always going to be available to me. But it gets better!

Let me scroll up to the top of this screen. This lamp really stood out to me as well. I’d like to get a lamp similar to this, but again, there's no description. How do I do it? I'm going to come over here and select "Search with Google Lens."

You can either point and click; sometimes it will identify. Here you can see it looks like it's trying to hover over this keyboard down below. It looks like it's trying to identify maybe this table. Sometimes it'll be able to identify some larger images, but in this case, we can simply click and drag.

If it's something that's more narrow or widescreen, I'm going to try and not get this little cactus in the frame here. I'm going to release it. And once again, perfect! It looks like that's the exact same lamp that I'm looking for. Now I'm just one click away from actually purchasing this lamp.

The other thing you want to keep in mind is that here you can reduce the size of this side panel. If you only want it to come up here in just a sliver on the right-hand side, you can do so. But you can drag this across and make it much larger if that's easier for your view.

Adding More to Your Search

But here's another tip that you're going to want to take advantage of. At the very top, you can see that it has already done this image search of what we selected over here, but I can add to my search.

So, for example, maybe I want to see if there's something like this in black. The image is still here within the search bar, but now on my keyboard, I'm going to type in the words "black." I'm going to hit enter, and it's going to come up with some comparable results.

Maybe it's not the exact same lamp; maybe they don't make that one in black or a darker shade. But now I can find something very similar. I can add other details here to the search bar.

Now, just before I show you my favorite Google Lens tip, I want to remind you that if you're looking for ways to simplify your day and get organized with Google, why not subscribe right here to the SimpliVity channel? Each and every week, I bring you new tips for people who use Google apps and Google-friendly products. So click subscribe below so you can take advantage of a more simple day.

Using Google Lens to Search Text

Now, with a feature like Google Lens, you may assume that this only applies to images or pictures that you find on the web, but actually, it doesn't stop there. In fact, I might say that this next feature might be the most impressive thing when it comes to Google Lens.

Once again, I'm going to click on Google Lens in this particular case, but you can see I'm not coming down here to where there is an image. I'm actually going to hover over some of this text, and you'll notice that the cursor changes. I still have that little AI bubble beside it, meaning that I'm in Google Lens mode.

But here, I can click and select any text I want, and we're going to get similar search results on the right-hand side. So here, maybe I want to learn more about this new Chrome feature that is coming. I'm going to select the text and let go. Immediately, it has done a Google search on those words and shows it to me here on the right-hand side.

Now, I can pick up other information. Right now, I can view other news articles and other updates related to this particular feature. Again, once I'm done here, I can hit X and I'm returned to my screen.

And maybe there's something else in here that I'm not quite familiar with. I can simply hit that Google Lens option. Let's just go over these three words here for a second and release. Remember, I'm not even having to say "Paste" or anything else. I just said "Bluetooth portable speaker," and it's going to bring up a number of results.

We can still refine this by images, by videos—anything else that we're looking for here, we can do that on the right-hand side without opening up a new tab. Whenever we are done, we can hit that X in the top right-hand corner.

So, if you want to save time the next time you are browsing in Chrome and don't want to open up another tab, be sure to take advantage of Google Lens. If you've got questions or new ways of using Google Lens, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

Gemini AI is integrating with more of our favorite Google tools, including Google Calendar. So in this video I'm going to show you all of the ways in which you can integrate AI with your schedule so you can manage your calendar that much easier. 

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. 

Enabling the Calendar Extension

Now, the first thing that we want to do is open up your side panel. If it's collapsed, come up here and expand it.

Next, we're going to come down to settings and select extensions. You will need to have this Google Workspace extension turned on.

Now, don't let the examples fool you because if we go back to a new chat and come down here to the prompt area and hit the "at" symbol, you will see the full list of all the Google apps and Google tools that we can engage with here at the bottom.

I haven't enabled all of them, but at the top, I have enabled most of my productivity tools, including Google Calendar. Now, I can select Google Calendar and start to enter my prompt. However, in my examples today, I'm actually not even going to use it because all of my prompts are going to be related to a schedule or a calendar.

Getting Your Agenda

So let's start off with prompt number one. How many meetings do I have next week?

Remember, you don't always have to add that question mark. You also don't need to have perfect spelling, but AI is able to tell me in just a few seconds.

"Oh, here's sort of my agenda view. I've got seven meetings next week, and here they are. They're all outlined for me. Some of them will even include a Zoom meeting link or what's in the description."

And best of all, I'm just one click away from breakfast with Kelly. Oh, wait a minute, who's this with? I can click on this, and it will immediately take me to that particular event.

But what I'm going to show you is that you don't actually have to spend almost any time within your calendar.

Rescheduling an Event

Maybe I'm going to say, you know what? I need to move my weekly review meeting.

So my very next prompt is going to be the following: reschedule the weekly review meeting to 1:00 PM because maybe I already know that's not going to work, or I want to leave work a little bit earlier that day.

Now, just before it proceeds with changing any rescheduling or creating a new event, it's actually going to confirm with us. I think this is very, very helpful. It's showing me, "Okay, is this the meeting you were referring to?"

I'm going to simply say, "Yes, that's the one." And of course, it's going to go ahead and make those changes. Here you can see the date has now changed to 1:00 PM.

If I jump into my calendar, let's go to the 11th. Yep, here it is. It's at 1:00 PM. Correct, though.

Create a New Event

Let's see if we can create a new meeting. So this time we're going to create a brand new meeting: create a new meeting for this Thursday at 1:00 PM.

I'm going to say, "Let's just call it something simple like budget review," something like that.

So again, because I'm spending so much time here within Gemini for other things, for other tasks that I'm working on, why jump around to other tabs?

I'm thinking about something else. Yeah, this Thursday, 1:00 PM looks great. I'm just going to hit "Y." Remember, you don't even have to hit yes or give it a full answer.

"Yes, please go ahead and create that meeting." So now that's been added to my calendar as well. But how can AI be even more helpful?

Finding Past Events

Well, I find it's most helpful when we're looking at something that's not in the near term.

If you're like me, you're probably looking at the current week quite regularly, whether you prefer the weekly review or the daily view. You're probably looking at the things in the near term.

But what about if you're wanting to check in? When was the last time you met with someone? This can be especially helpful when you are dealing with sales or you're dealing with an important client.

So for example, I'm going to say, "When was the last time I met with Karen?" Okay, this was maybe an important person, but I know we haven't spoken in a while. How long has it been?

In just a few seconds, it's going to tell me, "Oh, the last time you met was almost two years ago: October 17th, 2022."

Down below, as we saw with our first prompt, it's actually going to show us the sources as well. Now, the first one here says "Email Karen about the meeting." That was a task, and it correctly identified that that wasn't an actual meeting. But this one here, "Meeting with Karen," was. That's the one it is referencing.

Now, if you're wanting to use AI to enhance your business, I recommend using Pipedrive CRM with the latest AI. Pipedrive analyzes your data and arranges a plan of action, prioritizing your activities from top to bottom while tracking your progress along the way.

It'll also rank your leads and tell you how engaged each customer is with your efforts. From there, you'll get more suggestive actions. For example, replying to an email, which can be done using Pipedrive's AI email writing tool.

Pipedrive will show you when you've completed all activities in the queue. But wait, there's more. Just click on the opportunities tab, and you'll get recommended actions on deals that are worth nurturing.

To learn more about Pipedrive AI, click the link in the description below.

Finding Details from the Past

Now, you're probably not surprised that Gemini does a great job of finding time and date information, but what about the other fields attached to our events?

For example, location. I have a monthly breakfast with my friend Tim. So I'm going to say, "Where did Tim and I meet last time?" I’ve got to keep it nice and short.

Let's see. It comes back in just a few seconds. It's going to find the last time we met back in August.

Finding the Next Specific Event

Oh, you met with Tim on this date, and you met at the Cow. That's where we had breakfast together.

Okay, fantastic. Where are Tim and I meeting this week?

Again, keep it nice and simple, nice and short. Just a matter of seconds. You have one event with Tim this week, and there is the location we are eating at: Ology.

So it can look for certain pieces of information as well. If you're wanting to search the description field, for example, something in the past or something in the future, it can do that very, very well.

Uploading Date Information

But there's one last prompt that I want to show you, which may just blow your mind and perhaps remind you of just how powerful AI is.

So this time, I'm going to come over here and upload an image. What I'm uploading here is actually a screenshot of all of the concert dates for an upcoming tour. Maybe I'm wanting to plan a special outing with my teenage son, and there's a lot of information in here. I don't want to have to sift through it myself.

So I'm going to say "open," which is going to attach it here to my prompt. What I'm going to say is, "When is this artist performing in Toronto next year?"

Let's hit submit. Depending on how much information there is, it may take a few seconds.

But actually, that was rather quick. It says from the text, I can see that Weird Al Yankovic is performing in Toronto on Wednesday, July 9th, 2025. To be even more helpful, it's given me a direct link to the Ticketmaster site, so I can immediately go and start to search and purchase tickets for this particular event.

Of course, my very next step would be, "Please add this to my calendar." Why should I jump back to my calendar and go back and forth? Just go ahead and do it for me.

Now, I didn't give it a time. I know that the concert is probably going to start at 7:00 PM. I'm going to say 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and there it is.

Next July, it's already on my calendar. So in less than 60 seconds, you can upload the information you're looking for, retrieve it, buy those tickets, and add it to your calendar, and then move on and get on with whatever it is you want to get done today.

Now, if you have further questions about using Gemini AI with Google Calendar or other Google tools, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

Is Google tasks just too basic for you? Are you frustrated that you can't add tags, you can't attach files, you can't block time on your calendar and you can't assign tasks to others? Well get ready for a to-do list upgrade because I'm going to show you an app that does all of this and more, and it's made just for Google users. 

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. 

Problems with Google Tasks

And don't get me wrong, Google Tasks is fine for millions of users. However, sometimes there could be some features that we are missing, which really impedes our ability to get things done.

For example, here, I need to review last month's website stats. I would love to be able to attach a PDF or link to the file where I keep those website stats, but I can't do that here within Google Tasks. Another complaint that I hear all the time is that even though we can put our tasks directly on our Google Calendar, we can't stretch them out to fill up the time needed here. I want to spend some time following up with prospects, but I want to do it for the full hour, not just this half hour. No matter how I drag it, it's only going to show up as sort of this small reminder.

Advanced To-Do List for Google Users

I want to block out time on my calendar. Well, you can say goodbye to those limitations with GQs, and yes, that G stands for Google because GQs is built specifically for Google users who want to integrate with Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and all of their favorite Google products.

Let me give you a quick tour. Here I am within my GQs account, and right off the bat, I love that it's a very clean interface. In fact, I really love that the tasks themselves are big and bold. If I jump back to my Google Tasks, everything just sort of blends in together. But within GQs, it's very easy to see my tasks as I manage and reprioritize them as well.

On the left-hand side, perhaps the first thing you'll notice is that not only can you manage multiple task lists, which GQs calls queues, but you can also manage multiple folders. So for example, here I've got some personal to-dos that I'm managing, and maybe I want to separate my big goals for the coming year. I also have a big project, which is separate, where I have some important tasks and some things I need to get done right away.

Now, you can have as many folders as you like and then have as many queues. Remember, that's our list here within those folders, so you can manage much more and categorize them and organize them any way that you want.

Now, taking a closer look at the tasks themselves, let's explore some of the best features that you simply can't do within Google Tasks.

Number one, you can see that you can order them any way that you like. You're not just limited to sorting by due date or by starring certain items regardless of what the due date is. Here on the right-hand side, I can drag things up to the top. I can rearrange things here, so if I need to prioritize them in the way that I like, I can do so right here.

And beside the big add task button, you can see that I can reorder and sort in a variety of different ways, including by date, date created, by title, and yes, tagging. We'll get to that in just a moment.

Attach Files & Drive Integration

The other thing I think that you'll recognize is that here I have my attachments. They're big, they're clear, and they're just one click away. So if I want to jump into this spreadsheet data, I can do so and attach multiple files to any one of my tasks.

Now, how easy is it to attach a file? Well, if we come over here to the right-hand side, we can click on that attachment. Not only is it easy to attach a file, but we can also easily select it directly from our Drive account, or we can start to create a new Doc, Sheet, or Slide directly here from within GQs, so I don't have to be bouncing around between different tabs.

If I select this first option here, I'm presented with a dialogue, and I can go and find the file that I want to attach. If that's not what I'm looking for, I can also create a brand new document. Again, without even leaving the tab in front of me, I just need to add a name here, and I can proceed with creating a new document, which will be attached to this file.

Last but not least, of course, if you want to upload something from your computer, you just need to find it. Let's go ahead and drag it and drop it on that particular task. Here it is going to upload that PDF, so no matter what or how many items you'd like to attach to a task, you can do so right here within GQs.

Let's continue down and look at some of the other features we have available at the task level. Now, tagging, again, is something that we cannot do within Google Tasks, but you can see here already that I've added a number of tags. I've got a few things tagged for email, this is going to be a phone call, and this one is design-related.

By selecting that tag option here, we can add or search for a tag or simply check the boxes down below. By now, you've probably already realized that even the design and feel of GQs are in line with Google. Everything from the active and archive sections to the settings and search tasks, which, yeah, that's another big no-no; we can't even search tasks within Google Tasks, but we certainly can right here within GQs.

Google Calendar Integration

Now, of course, GQs wouldn't be a viable alternative if it didn't integrate with all of our other Google products, just like Google Tasks does, but better. So let's jump into our Google Calendar and see how that works.

Here on the left-hand side, you can see that it automatically creates a new calendar when you set up your GQs account. Now, of course, I could rename this if I wanted to, but what it's showing me here in this example is that this rewrite proposal is actually a task within GQs.

That's right, it's not a meeting, it's not an event; it's actually a task, meaning I can use it for time blocking. It's not going to show up as just a tiny little reminder like we're used to with Google Tasks, but it's going to fill up whatever time that you give it because each task can have both a start time and an end time.

If I click on this, not only am I just one click away from viewing the full details of this task, but with the GQs extension, I can access all of that information here as well. This includes not only the date and time and duration, but we can also set an additional reminder, add tags, assign others, add comments, and edit everything that we need to here without having to jump into our GQs account.

So whether you're reviewing an existing task or if you want to create a new task directly from within Google Calendar, you can do so here as well.

Gmail Integration

Now, that functionality continues within our Gmail account. For example, let me open up this email here, and maybe there's something I need to accomplish with this. You're already familiar with the ability to come up here and add it to your Google Tasks, but with GQs, not only is it simpler, we can add a lot more information as well.

If I open up the side panel, I've got everything I need here, including the ability to assign it to a particular list. Here are all of my lists that I can choose from. I can set the due date, tags, assignments—everything that I would need to do directly here within my Gmail account. I can also choose if I want to attach the current email and/or link the email as well.

So let's go ahead and create this task just to see what this looks like within our GQs account. Here within GQs, you can see that I've got a new task, which has been added to my inbox, and yes, I've got direct access to that email.

Because I said I wanted to attach it, not just link it, I can review and view that email right here within GQs without having to open up another tab. You don't always need to reply or respond to the email; maybe you just want to use it as a reference, so I have access to it here as well.

Beyond Calendar and Gmail, GQs also links directly with Drive and your contacts, so you can get the most out of your task manager while we're here within the inbox.

Task Inbox Workflow

This is a great way to show how easy it is to manage your incoming tasks because maybe some of these are coming from my calendar. Maybe some of these are emails like the one that you see here. Just like any good task management system, once they're in the inbox, we want to assign them to something a little more appropriate. So all I need to do is just drag it into the appropriate list. This is a part of the big project. This is more of my personal list. I can quickly empty my inbox, keep this nice and clean, and put things in the correct order, but it doesn't stop there.

Teams & Task Assignments

You'll notice below my queue section, there is something called team queues. And yes, this is an area where we can collaborate with team members, freelancers, clients, or really anyone that you like. Here, I've created a team folder called Content Creation, and then within that, I've got a number of different lists that we need to work with.

Within this section, I can manage all of my team settings. For example, I can add as many members as I like and give them different editing abilities. I can import and export information and manage specific tags for this particular team group. But best of all, when you create and edit your team here within GQs, it will create a new calendar within Google Calendar for you and add all of your respective team members. That's right; you don't have to do anything special here within Google Calendar.

If I go into my settings for this content creation—remember that's my team queue—and I click on settings, you'll see that I have my team members here already. I didn't have to manually add them. I didn't have to invite them to a new Google Calendar. As I add more or edit my team members here, they will stay in sync within Google Calendar. So, this is one more way to make it that much easier for us to manage our projects.

Whenever you're ready to add or assign a task to someone else, it's as simple as clicking on the assignments. Here, you can see that I'll have my team members ready for me, but I can add other email addresses if I want to. Yes, I can even search from my Google Contacts.

Pricing

Now, as for pricing, you can get started with their free Forever option, or you can get GQs for just $3 a month or GQs for business at just $4 a month. To get started, go to gqs.com or click the link in the description down below.

If you have any further questions about GQs and how it integrates with your Google system, be sure to let me know in the comments 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.

Do you want to get more organized with Gmail and Google Calendar?

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you all the clever ways you can use these two apps together. This will help you save time and stay on top of your schedule. Be sure to stick around to the very end because I've got a bonus tip you don't want to miss.

Create an Event from Gmail

Let's get started within our Gmail account and see how we can utilize Google Calendar right here from within our inbox.

So let's say, for example, I've opened up this email, and I need to create a meeting with this particular email or something related to it. The first way that we can incorporate Google Calendar is to come up here and select the "more" option and then select "Create an event."

What this is going to do is open up a new tab with a lot of things already pre-populated for us. You can see right away that the email subject line has been put in the title of this event. If we scroll down a little bit further, we can see that the body of the email is now here within the description.

It has also included the email address of the sender, assuming that we are wanting to create a meeting with that individual. Now, of course, you don't have to keep this sender on here.

Maybe I do want to do something with the body of the email, and I'm probably going to come up here and change the title of the event. Maybe I'm going to say something like "Review this special offer" or something along those lines.

But take special note of your guests down below because you may want to remove the sender or other people who've been included on the email. This way of creating an event is best if you're needing to create a meeting not only related to this particular email but perhaps, more importantly, with the other people who are included on this email.

Create an Event from Gmail

Next, let's look at a second way in which we can create an event within Google Calendar. This time, we can do it without even leaving our Gmail application. Instead of coming up here to the "more" option, we are going to come over here to the side panel and select the calendar.

Now, nothing is going to happen just yet. You can see that I've got my email open here on my main Gmail screen, and I've got a preview of my calendar here on the right-hand side. Now, I can move forward to some other date in the future if I want to. But as soon as I take my mouse and click here at 3:00 PM, what it's going to do is bring over the subject of this particular email.

So again, maybe I want to review this email. Maybe there's something related to ChatGPT that I need to do. I can change the subject line, and it's already highlighted here for me at the very top.

But unlike the first method that we saw, you can see that there are two major differences. Number one, it has not automatically added any guests. So no matter who has sent this or who has been included on this email, they are not going to be pre-populated here.

It's also not going to bring over the description as well. So really, this method is not as handy since it's only going to bring over the subject line. But maybe that's enough to trigger what you need to do with this particular email.

When I'm happy with the date selected and any other options I want to make here, I can simply select "Save." Then here, you can see it has been added to my calendar.

Create a Task from Gmail

Now, that naturally brings us to a third way in which we can bring information over from our email to our calendar, and it may be the most effective one yet. The reason being is that it's probably valuable to link directly to this email if you want to come and review it at a later date and put that on your schedule or maybe time block sometime within your Google Calendar.

For that, what we're going to do is say "add to tasks." Now you're probably thinking, "Well, wait a minute, Scott, tasks is not my calendar, or is it?" Let's jump back to our Google Calendar, and you should know that here in the top right-hand corner, we can switch between two different views. The default is, of course, going to be your calendar, or we can jump into our tasks view because this is where all of our Google tasks live.

Now, any of our tasks that have a due date and/or a time will appear here within our calendar, so that's why I'm including it here as a part of this tutorial. Back in Gmail, I'm going to come up here and select "add to tasks." It's going to open up the side panel here on the right-hand side, just like we saw before. It's going to carry over the email subject line here, which of course I can change and edit.

Down below, you can see that it has linked this email message to this particular task. That is very important and can be very helpful when we go to deal with this within our calendar. The one last thing I'm going to do here is select a date. It's going to be today in this example, and I'm going to say 10:00 AM.

Here, you can see the task we just created appears on our calendar, and we are linked directly back to that message. So, no matter if I archive this message, if I send it and give it a label and put it somewhere over here on the left-hand side, we will still have direct access to this particular email.

Now, if you'd like AI to help you create smart labels right here within Gmail, I recommend that you check out SaneBox with AI technology. SaneBox prioritizes essential messages, saving you hours of time each week. 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, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity or click the link in the description below.

Email from Calendar Event

Now that you're familiar with the ways in which we can add things to Google Calendar from within Gmail, how about the opposite? How can we make the most of email here within Google Calendar?

Well, let's get started by taking a look at this event here, "Client Consultation." I'm going to go ahead and click on it, and you'll see here at the top, just to the right of both edit and delete, we have a little email icon. So if we select this icon, it's going to open up a new dialog where we can go ahead and create a brand new email.

Now, not just an email from scratch. Of course, it is going to be related to the event which we just clicked on. Starting from the top, we can choose if we want to send a copy of this email to ourselves or not. By default, this will always be checked, but you can come up here and deselect this if you like.

Now, down below, you can see that nothing has been added to the email line. You can either add an email address, or you can search through your Google Contacts by starting to type in a name. In this particular example, I'm just going to go back to the event itself. I have not invited anyone else; that's why when I choose this option, this is blank and ready for me to add an email address.

This is probably most helpful if I want to share some information about this event. Maybe I want to see if a colleague would be interested in attending this event. More than just the subject line, which I can edit, it has brought over the name of the event, but I can choose to edit this and the message area.

You can see down below that the event information will be included in the message, meaning the title of the event, the time and date, and the details of that event will be included within this message. So maybe I'm going to write something like, "Hey, would you like to attend this meeting as well?" or "How should I best prepare for this meeting?"

Whatever the case may be, that's why you may want to use this option even if you haven't invited anyone else to that event.

Email from Calendar Event

Next, let's go over to this event here, the "Quarterly Budget Review," and you'll notice that I have invited a few people. The first thing you'll see is that we don't have the option here at the top of the dialog. Instead, that email icon has been moved down here next to the guest list.

Now, if we select it, we're going to see a very similar dialog with just a slight change here at the top of the screen. Once again, we have this "send copy to me," which will be checked by default, but we also have a couple of other options. Do I want to send this message to everyone, the people who have said yes, and those I'm still awaiting a response from, or am I only sending it to a particular group?

For example, if I uncheck the "Yes" option automatically, it will remove the people who have responded yes. Maybe I just want to ask this person, "Hey, are you still able to join us for this meeting?" You can see if I click "Yes" once again, this person is added back.

Or maybe I'm thinking the other way around. This time, I'm going to deselect the "Awaiting Response" option, and I'm going to ask this person to perhaps do something particular within this meeting, such as preparing an agenda or if they can speak to a specific point. Whatever the case may be, you can choose this option here.

Regardless of how many people you've invited to this particular meeting, it will properly filter it for you. Now, that also doesn't stop you from adding other email addresses or other people to this email. You're not limited to just the people that you've invited to this meeting.

Below, the subject and the message are the same, and yes, once again, all of the event information will be included within this message.

Copy Email Addresses from Event

Now, I'm going to hit cancel in this case, and you'll notice that there's another option that's available to us here relating to email: the ability to copy guest emails. Instead of perhaps sending them an email directly here from within Google Calendar, maybe I need to add everyone here to a thread, or maybe I just need to paste their email addresses in a spreadsheet or some other application.

Here, I can single-click "Copy Guest Emails," and then, of course, I can take that wherever I like. If I do choose to come back here to Gmail, I can hit paste, and now I've got those email addresses here that I can add to perhaps an existing email thread or to a brand new email or any other application on the web.

Email from Calendar Event

An additional way in which we can email people directly from within Google Calendar is if we hover over any of the attendees. For example, maybe I need to send Vanessa an email. Instead of going this route and unchecking things and removing participants, I'm just going to hover my mouse over her name.

Down below, you can see that there's a "Send Email" option. This will still keep me here within Google Calendar but will open up a new dialog box. Now, this email is completely unrelated to the event, so there is no pre-populated subject line. They are not going to be sent anything related to this particular event.

I was just perhaps thinking of Vanessa, or I want to send some information to her, which is unrelated to this meeting. With this option, I can start a brand new email, add my subject line, add my details, and hit send, all without leaving Google Calendar.

Bonus Tip

Last but not least, I want to leave you with a bonus tip. Here at the very bottom of your event, you can see that there's a down arrow. If we click this, we have the opportunity to add a note to an event. This option to add a note is actually available not only to organizers of meetings but also to attendees as well.

In this case, I'm going to select that "Add Note" button, and I've got the opportunity here to change if I am going or not to this meeting. Down below, we can see we have the yes, no, and maybe options. I'm going to leave that one alone, but I can add a note. For example, maybe I'm going to say, "I will bring the cookies to the meeting," something like that. Everyone loves refreshments. I'm going to hit send now because there is a send button. Most of us probably assume that this sends an email to everyone else within the event, but that's actually not true.

If we go and open up this event again, you can see that it's actually added that note below my name: "I will bring the cookies to the meeting." Whether we're viewing it here within this preview mode or if we open up the full mode, you can see that that note will exist here as well.

Now, you can always go and change your note. You can't add additional notes, but I can either click on this to edit the existing note or I can select the X to remove that note completely. This is where those notes will appear.

If you're wanting even more simple ways to get organized and stay productive with Google Tools, why not join me at Streamline Academy? At Streamline Academy, we talk about how we can get the most out of our days and our work lives using Google tools and other applications that work well with Google. You can get started today with your 30-day free trial and join myself and other Google users who are simplifying their day.

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

Are you ready to create a free website with Google sites or perhaps you just need a refresher? Either way? In this video, I'm going to show you everything you need to know to get started with Google Sites. 

Select a Template

Now, first things first, how do we get to Google Sites? Well, you can either do a search for Google Sites or go to sites.google.com and you'll end up on a screen that looks like this. Now, we can either get started with a completely blank slate, a blank site. Just note that this will probably take a lot of additional work because there's nothing here waiting for us. So I often recommend that we get started with a template. Now, Google will present us with about four or five examples here, but I recommend clicking on the template gallery where you can see all of the options available to us.

In this case, I am going to use one of these. I'm going to click on this one called Salon, and this will open up our brand new site with the template items included.

Now, don't worry, we can replace anything here, all of the text, all of the images we can delete and remove, and of course add other elements as well. But at least this gives us a framework. So to get started, I'd recommend that you give your new site a name. In this example, I'm just going to call this one Scott's Shop, something nice and simple. We can always come back and change this later. Just know that this will also change the name here in the upper left-hand corner or wherever the homepage or the title of your website is here.

These do not have to be the same, so we can come over here and change this at a later time. Now, the first thing that we're going to want to do is select our theme and also make sure that you're comfortable navigating around your website. So on the right-hand side, you can see that there are three main tabs: insert, pages, and themes.

Choose a Theme

I'm going to click on themes, and on this tab I can click around on these different thumbnails. So I can click on this one. I can see that the text is maybe a little bit smaller. I can click on this diplomat one, this level, this impression. You've got a number of different ones that you can click on to see what works best for you.

I kind of like this one here. It really sort of stands out to me, but that red is not my color. Well, we can continue to customize that down here as well. Maybe I like this green, but that's still not quite my branding color.

If we come over here to the right, we have the option to put in our own hex code, or we can come here and select our own color as well. So maybe I like this blue, but maybe more of a sort of a Navy purplish blue there as well.

Lastly, you will notice once you've selected a particular theme at the bottom, there is a font style as well, and you will always have three choices to choose from here. So I'm going to choose Frank. Hmm, not so wild, Frank, narrow, not too bad. Maybe that first one is the best. I'm going to go back to capital and choose that one as well.

So if you ever want to go back and forth or try out a new theme, you want to come here to the themes tab.

Add & Edit Pages

Next up, let's work our way backwards. I'm going to come to pages. This is where you can see all of the pages, which it's already included within our template. This is really helpful because most businesses are going to have these types of pages—services, about, testimonials, and contact. If I click on any of them, they're going to bring me directly to that particular page.

For example, if I go to the contact page, this already has some great boilerplate information here, so I can just change the address, add my operating hours—it's already done a lot of the work for me. But let's get comfortable with moving our pages around. Maybe the contact information is the most important to me, so I don't want it to be last here in my menu. All I need to do is click and drag it up and make it second behind my homepage. And maybe I want the About section to be after that as well. I can click and drag that up as well, so you can rearrange your pages any way that you like.

Lastly here, within the pages section, what do we do if we want to remove something or add a new page? You can see here as I hover over any of these pages, I can come over and select the more button. We've got a number of different things that we can choose from here, including the ability to delete that page.

At the very bottom of the screen, you'll see that there is a plus button. When we hover over it, we've got a number of different options available to us, but the main one you'll be using is "new page." If I select this option here, I can add a new page. Maybe I want to offer a deals page where I'm going to include special offers and bonuses. I'm going to click Done. Now we can see that the deals page has been added. I can now come in here and start editing that information.

Upload a Logo

Now, just before we start editing and adding content, we do want to look at one more place, and that is under our settings. The reason being is that there are some important things here that we want to keep in mind. Let's take a quick look at brand images.

Remember, you probably have a logo, and you'd like to include that with your website's name. So here, if I come to "Upload," I'm just going to grab something that's quickly available to me here, and now that logo will appear within my menu header as well.

The other nice thing about uploading your own logo is that you can choose one of the colors here that has been selected and apply it directly to your site. So even though we customized this and selected this blue shade, maybe I want to use this red that's coming directly from the logo. Now, everything is very much in line within my website.

Add Custom Domain

Lastly, within settings, I want you to make sure that you know where to go to set up your custom domain. Why? Without a custom domain, your website is going to be something like this: sites.google.com/view/whatever name you would like here, or at least whatever name is available.

This may be okay when you are first getting started, but if you want people to take your website seriously, you're going to want to apply a custom domain. And perhaps the easiest place to get your custom domain is at .online domains. Here, you can easily search for the domain that you like.

So for example, maybe I'm looking for "Scott Shop." I'm going to hit search and let's see what comes up. Yes, ScottShop.online is available. Why should you use a .online domain? Well, it's probably going to be very difficult to find a .com address that is still available, and .online is your next best option. Not only is it professional, it's memorable and fits with any business.

Go to www.get.online and use the coupon code SimpliVity to get your custom domain for the first year for just 99 cents. Click the link in the description below to learn more.

Edit Website Content

So now that we've customized our theme, added our pages, and perhaps added a custom domain, we want to come to the insert tab. This is probably where you'll be spending most of your time because it's where we can add text, images, embed files, embed code, and add our own content blocks as well.

Remember, anything on any of your Google site pages is editable. For example, if I don't like this tagline, all I need to do is click on it and edit. Let's say I want to change it to "Look and Feel Great." Maybe that's my new tagline here. I can change absolutely anything that I want.

If I want the text to be smaller, I can highlight it and reduce it down to, say, size 14. Hmm, maybe that's too small, so how about size 24? That looks better!

Anything you see on the screen can also be clicked and dragged. For example, if I want to move an item to the left-hand side or the right-hand side, I can simply click and drag it. When I click something, a grid format automatically appears, allowing me to easily align and organize my content the way I like.

Upload Images

Down below, we can take advantage of Photos. For example, I can click on an image. I'll click on it a second time to ensure I'm selecting just the image, not the image plus the title. Then, I come up here and select More, and choose Replace Image.

Now, I'll select Choose, which will automatically open up my Google Drive. Let's say I want to upload my SimpliVity image, so I select that and click Insert. Now, my own image or photo is inserted into the page.

One thing I don't like about this template is the all-caps text at the bottom. I could edit it, but instead, I'll select it and click the Remove button to delete it completely.

Insert Content Blocks

Because what I want to make use of is on the right-hand side, one of these content blocks. A content block is a combination of images and text, and it'll give you a quick preview here of what each of them will look like. This first one here I think makes the most sense with what I'd like to add. So all I need to do is click and drag it.

Now you can see I have not let go of my cursor, and you can see that there's a blue image here. Wherever I drop it, that's where it will be located. I do want it to be down here below this set of three images. So now I've got this content block waiting for me.

With this content block applied, I can now immediately start to add a new image, just like you saw me do before. I can come in here and start to add it or edit that text, and everything will remain or continue with the theme, the font, everything else that we've set up before, earlier.

So I can start to edit this text. Maybe I'm going to say new specials. I'm going to add some new deals here, and you can see that this text is identical to what we have up above. Everything else falls into place.

Of course, I can add other information here as well. Here you can see you've got some of the standard formatting options, including bold and italics. You can choose if you want to center a line or left-align it and include things such as bullet points. So you can really edit these sections to your heart's content.

Add Buttons

Now, down below the content blocks, we have a number of other options available to us as well. This includes the ability to add an image carousel, to add a divider, to add some other Google integrations, such as integrating directly a slideshow or a form or a calendar, or of course adding a button. That may be one of the most standard things that you include within your webpages.

I'm going to first select the button, and I need to give it a name. So maybe I'm going to say something like "book." Now I want them to directly go to the contact page when they select this button so they can book an appointment.

Now, down below we have an option here to either select one of the other pages that we have. In this case, I do want to select that contact page, or we can paste any other link.

For example, do you want to send them to your Calendly appointment scheduler? Well, you could paste that link in here. Do you want to send them to a social media site? You can paste in your social media link here as well. But by clicking into this empty text box here, it will show the other pages on our website. I'm going to select contact, and then I'm going to say insert.

Now you can see this "book now" button has been inserted. I don't need to keep it here. I can click and drag it. I can center it here on the screen, but maybe I want to include it here within this new specials area. So I can click and drag it and bring it here as well.

Now, when people read maybe the description of my new specials or the image here on the left-hand side, they can click this "book now" button and go directly to my contact screen.

Preview Website Changes

Now, of course, as you continue to build out your website and make changes, you're going to want to make sure that everything is behaving the way that you like. Google Sites has given us a handy preview button here near the top of the screen. By selecting this option here, we are going to be brought into a live version of our website.

I can click on any of my menu items here at the top of the screen, or I can come down and test that button that we just created. If I select "book now," perfect, it's going directly to that contact us screen.

You can also see how your website will look on other devices. By default, it's going to show you in a large screen what we see here, but so many users are using their phones or mobile devices. So here I can click on the phone version, and it's going to show me how things will be lined up.

We can also view our website in a tablet mode as well. You may want to come in here from time to time to see if the changes that you are making are being displayed the way you want them to when people are viewing your website on different devices.

Once you're done with your preview, simply come down here and select "X" to exit the preview, and you will be returned to your editing window.

Share & Publish Website

Lastly, let's make sure that you're ready to share your website with the world. None of the changes that we've made will be live until we come up here and select that publish button.

Now, to help us out, after selecting the publish button, it's going to show us the differences between the two. For example, on the right-hand side, this is what's currently published; this is what people will currently see. But on the left-hand side, you can see that we have the changes that we've applied. This is just one last way that it can help us decide if we want to proceed with publishing and making this change.

So I'm going to go ahead and hit publish, and now all of those changes have been made live. But now that your website is published, what link do you share with others?

Well, if we come here and select this dropdown arrow beside the publish button and select publish settings, you will find the web address for your website. So all you need to do is go ahead and copy this link and share it with others. But remember, in order to look and sound professional, you'll want to use a custom domain. Here's where you can go to manage your settings.

Now, if you have any other questions about how to get started with Google Sites, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Would you like to access any Google Drive file or folder directly from your Trello cards, and better yet, be able to edit them without ever having to leave your Trello account? Well, in this video I'm going to show you how to use Trello with Google Drive. 

Adding the Drive Power Up

And to get started, we need to access the Google Drive Power Up right here from within Trello.

So I'm going to click on that power-up icon.

I'm going to select Add Power-ups.

And the easiest thing to do is come up here to the search bar and just type in Drive.

It's going to be one of the top five results.

Here it is, Google Drive.

We are going to select Add.

And now if I close this dialogue and come back to my Trello board here, you can see I've got that Google Drive power-up here in the top right-hand corner.

Now clicking it is actually not going to do a whole lot.

Yes, I could start a new slides presentation, but the real value is here when we open up a card.

So let me go ahead and open up this Trello card.

And in the past, I would attach maybe a link to a Drive file, or I might upload something from my computer.

But with the Google Drive Power Up installed here under Power-ups, we have this Google Drive button.

Create and Attach a New Drive File

Now by selecting this Google Drive button, we are given three options. We can create and attach Google Drive files. That's right, a doc, a sheet, and many other things we can create right here from within Trello, or we can attach an existing file or folder from our Drive account.

So let's walk through each one by one.

Let's start with Create and Attach. Here you can see we can either create a document, a drawing, a slide, a sheet, or a new folder, all here from within our Trello account.

I'm going to go ahead and select Create Google Document. What it's going to do is create this document and the link and also give it the name of the card that I'm on.

So here under attachments, you can see I've got something called Jane Ferguson. That's because this Trello card is called Jane Ferguson. I don't need to keep it that way. I can rename it. If I come over here to the right and select these three dots, I can say Edit. Maybe I'm going to call this Jane Ferguson Meeting Notes. This is where I'm going to keep my notes of the phone calls I have or the communication that I have with Jane.

But now if I click on this link, it's going to take me directly to this Google document where I can start to add my notes, edit existing notes, or whatever I want to do with this file. It is saved, stored, and secured within my Google Drive account, but I can access that information here.

Let me just put something here, like maybe this meeting notes template, just so we've got some boilerplate information here that I can show you in just a moment.

Because one of the best things of using this Google Drive Power Up is that not only can I access it immediately, if I click that link and see other relevant information, like when it was last updated, I can say Open Preview.

Now you may think, "Oh, this is just a preview of what's inside that particular document." No, I can edit my notes. So we had a call on Monday, and it went very well. This is actually an editable document, so even if I close it here, if I go to the original document file within Google Drive, you can see that everything I changed, everything I added is live.

I never had to actually leave my Trello account. Let me show you one more time. If I just hover over it, I'll be given this little popup window. I'm going to say Open Preview, which was I think meant to be a preview, but this is all editable.

Let's do one more.

Attaching an Existing Drive File

I'm going to come over here to Google Drive, and this time we're just going to attach a file. I'm not going to start with a new file. I’m going to select Attach a File, and maybe I'm going to come over here, click on my sample files, and I've got a simple sheet.

So once again, it's going to add it as a link. It's called Inventory C. I may be happy with that, but you can come over here and select Edit. I'm going to say these are Inventory Sales Numbers. Maybe that's what this is, so I'm going to give that a more relevant title.

It's not going to change the title of the file within Google Drive; this is just for your reference here within Trello. But once again, if I hover over and say Open Preview, this time it is a spreadsheet. I'm going to come over here and say, you know what? That is not the price anymore; it is now $1.95.

And we also sold a lot more pencils. We sold 203 pencils this week. So I've updated this spreadsheet, I’ve got the relevant numbers, and I'm still here within Trello.

Attaching a Drive Folder

Now the last thing we want to look at here is the third option: Attach a Folder. You might think that the name of the folder is just going to appear like we see here with the links, but it actually gets much better than that.

So I'm going to select this option, and I've got a folder here called Color Folders that I want to include with this Trello card. I’m going to select it. Here, you can see it has brought over the folder name, Color Folders, along with the five folders within it.

Now, I am just one click away from any of these folders. For example, if I want to access my Sales folder, I can click on it, and immediately I'm brought to the details of that sales folder. Maybe I want to jump into my Marketing folder. Perfect! I don’t happen to have anything in this sample Marketing folder, but I'm one click away from accessing the contents of this folder.

Removing Files or Folders

Now, if you want to remove any of these items here, you can see in the top right-hand corner that if I want to remove this attached folder, I can select that option. Now we are back to just the files that we attached earlier. The same thing applies here; if we come over to the three dots, we can select Delete if we want to remove any of these items as well.

As always, I would love to hear from you! Do you have any further questions about how to use Google Drive with Trello? If so, be sure to let me know in the comments 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.