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Are you needing a better way to manage all of your tasks?

Are you needing a to-do list solution that really works for you?

Well, in today's video I'm gonna show you five different ways to create a custom to-do list right here within Trello.

And we're gonna start simple and we're gonna work our way up to something that I call the Ultimate To-Do List for Trello.

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

And we're gonna start with the default here.

Default

When you open up or start a brand new board in Trello, most likely you'll have these three lists waiting for you: To Do, Doing and Done.

And that gives us a great way to work through sort of a Kanban style method of dragging things through the process until they are complete.

Now you can add due dates if you want to keep yourself on task but, you know, a pretty simple way to get started here with managing your tasks within Trello.

Why don't we turn it up a notch and go to level two.

Grouping

Those of you who may be familiar with the book Getting Things Done, also known as GTD, know that it can be helpful to group certain tasks together.

So, for example, if I've got something here like Review customer feedback survey.

Let's say that's something that I'm gonna do at my computer. I'm gonna add a label. I'm gonna add a label called Computer.

And you can see here that I've already pre-created a number of labels. I've got about five here: Email, Phone, Errand, Meeting, and Computer because what I wanna be able to do is quickly identify things that are, for example, all of my phone calls, so I can get them all done in roughly the same time within the same batch of time and then move on to something else.

Search Cards

So let's group a few of these here.

Workout at the gym, well, that's certainly an errand. I'm not doing that at the office.

Hire new staff, that's gonna be a phone interview, so I'm going to say two there.

Decide on a website budget, that's a computer related.

Redesign website.

Call long-lost friend. Yeah, that's definitely a phone call so I'm gonna put that as a phone call there.

So the nice thing here is that as I go up to show Menu, I can choose the Search Cards option.

And let's say I just want to work on the things that are at my Computer. I can select that label and now everything else is hidden.

So for the next half hour or next hour, whatever that bulk of time happens to be, I can just focus on these three areas.

If I'm done with that, I can go back here and let's say, hey, I've got a few minutes to make a few phone calls. Let's go to the Phone and now I can focus on just these tasks.

So the combination of adding different labels and then using the Search Cards option to filter things out can be a great way to up your productivity.

Subtasks

Now I'm just gonna reduce these labels. I'm gonna minimize these labels, if I click on them, just so we can focus more on the tasks.

Why don't we step it up a notch once again and something that you may need within your To-Do List system is the ability to add sub-tasks, right?

So, for example, Review customer feedback survey. Maybe there's a few different things that I need to get done here.

Well, if I open up this card, a great way to add sub-tasks is to add a checklist.

So if I add a checklist in here and I'm just gonna call this one Sub-Tasks for our example. I'm going to say Add.

Now what I can do is I can add a bunch of smaller tasks within this. I'm just gonna use a few examples, just so that we have a few to look at here.

So let's say that there are three sub-tasks that I need to complete for this particular task. I can come in here, I can list them and I can start checking them off.

And the great thing is is that on the front of the card, you get a nice little icon that shows me, hey, I'm 2/3 of the way done.

When I'm, you know, all three done here, I can then move this over to the Done list but I'm still not quite finished here.

If I go back in here and I finished task number three. Hey, that's great! I get that little green label and now I can move it over here to Done.

But let me show you one other thing that you want to keep in mind with using the task or the checklist function.

Let's say as I'm working out these tasks I realize that task number three is actually a bit bigger than I thought. This might have some of its own sub-tasks as well.

Well, don't forget that you can break out anything within a checklist. So if I come over here and select the three dots, I can say Convert to Card.

And so now when I go outside of this card, here you can see task number three is now its own task, its own card within this list.

So some things that can start within a checklist if it's a sub-task, for example, you can break it out to its own task if necessary.

Projects

All right well so far we've only been working with three different lists here but why don't we add something else, which I think is very valuable, and that is a Projects list.

So I'm gonna add a new list and I'm going to bring it all the way over here to the left-hand side.

And something that is often missing is that as we go about planning our day, we start to analyze and prioritize all the things that we would like to get done here.

However, often what we get done or where we focus our attention is not necessarily in line with the projects, the big goals that we should be accomplishing.

So let me just add a few here. I'm going to say Project 1 and Project 2, just for example here.

So not only am I gonna have them listed here in my Projects list, and, yes, you will definitely have more than two projects on the go at any given time.

Not only can I just reference it and look at it. So when I'm looking at the things that I wanna be doing today or that I should be doing this week, not only can I look over here but we wanna go one step further and actually connect some of these tasks to these projects.

So I'm going to open up Project 1.

And let's say that some of the things that are already in my to-do list are related to Project 1.

What I can do is go over here and select Attachment.

I'm gonna select Trello.

And you can see that it actually has some of the most recent cards that I have selected or viewed.

So let's say Review customer feedback survey is one of those tasks. Hey, now it appears here within this project.

Let's do it one more time because there's probably more than one thing that is related to this project.

Now I'm gonna go over here and I'm going to say, "Well that new book is also related to project number one."

So now I have both of those tasks listed here. You can see on the front of that card, on the front of my project card, you can see that there's two things.

I can see that there are two tasks assigned or related here, and when I open it up, not only do I see a nice preview of these two but if I click on them, it takes me directly to that card, directly to that task.

So it's a great way to create those relationships between your daily tasks or your actionable tasks and the overarching project.

And keeping track which one of those are related to this given project. All right so we added one more list here.

Notes Ideas

but I'm gonna actually convert this one last time.

We're gonna add two more lists, and we're gonna see if that's gonna help us be that much more efficient.

So the first one that I'm gonna add is called Notes. Sometimes I call it Notes/Ideas.

And I gotta add one more here and it's called Waiting For.

Okay, I'm gonna put them in a few different places here. The Notes, I'm gonna bring all the way over to the left, just to the left of Projects.

And my Waiting For, I'm gonna put here between Doing and Done.

So let's start with the Notes/Ideas. Often we don't think of Trello as a good note-taking tool but remember all of these cards.

Let's just put in a test card here, for example.

All of these cards give you the ability to attach documents, to attach images, to have full comments, and if there's other people involved, such as a meeting agenda, you can include that here as well, whether it's checklists and due dates, it's a great place to add all of those notes, especially here in the Description area.

And remember many of the notes that you take will never become a task or become a project but if they do, how easy is it to just drag it over into the Projects list.

Or if it's a task to just drag it over into your to-do list. You've already got all of that information, you've got everything that you need within that given card.

And remember you can also forward your emails directly to this list.

So if you come across other ideas or valuable pieces of information, you can forward that directly here into your Trello board.

So I think having a Notes or an Ideas list is a great idea.

Now moving over to our Waiting For list, I'd like to have a Waiting For or a Pending list, it could be called Pending if you like, somewhere between the Doing and Done list, because, let's be honest, sometimes you're working on something and it's simply out of your hands for a period of time.

So let's say Hire new staff.

Let's say you're still waiting for more applications to come in. There's really nothing you can do at this given point. There's nothing you can actually do except for maybe just wait 'til the end of the week or whatever that timeframe is for those applications to come in.

So I think it's nice to have that separation between things that you can actionably do here and things that you can review maybe at the end of the day or from time to time, see if you need to give someone a nudge, maybe you're waiting to hear back from someone, that's a great thing to put in a Waiting For list.

And either it may return back to the Doing list or when it's finished you can move it over to Done.

So I think the Waiting For list is a great one as well.

The List

The list or I should say the board that you see here is something that I refer to as the Ultimate To-Do List for Trello.

And if you don't want to waste your time building out this list yourselves, you can make a copy of it.

Please see the link in the description below, so that you can create your very own copy of this Trello board, and then you can do whatever you want with it.

You can add other lists, you can change the labels, you can do whatever you want to help you stay more productive.

Well, thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope that you leave me a comment and if you have any further questions, let me know down below.

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

Are you ever frustrated trying to find the file or folder that you are looking for within your system?

Have you ever gone down a long tree branch of files and subfolders to find out that no, it wasn't there either?

Well, in today's video, I wanna show you a very simple, but most effective way of managing all of your personal files and folders.

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

And, you know what? I used to be frustrated too, until I came across the ABC Method, so I'm going to show you everything you need to know about this method so you can spend less time searching for your files, and more time getting your work done.

Now, number 1, just a few caveats to get things going, this system is designed for things that you manage.

The ABC Method is not designed for a shared folder, or some shared resource where you have multiple team members or colleagues accessing and renaming folders and that type of thing.

This is for the things that you control, where you are labeling both your files and your folders.

You can obviously share individual files and folders, but this is for a space that you manage and control.

Number 2, the ABC Method can be used absolutely anywhere.

It doesn't matter if you use Windows, a Mac, if you're using Drive, like the example I'm sharing with you today, or some other resource, you can even set up this system for your physical files, your actual paper documents as well.

And third, last but not least, if you deal with a large quantity of media such as photos, videos, or audio, this system is probably not designed for you either.

Hopefully you have your own resources or maybe your own Drive folder or some other shared folder where you can manage that, or something that's dedicated for large quantities of media.

But for everything else, the ABC Method is going to work for you.

So to get things started, you will see that my top-level file folder structure here on the left-hand side is nothing more than an alphabeticalized list.

I've got one folder for each and every letter of the alphabet, and that's by design because I want to be able to easily and quickly get to the information that I'm looking for.

If I'm looking for something that starts with S such as my Sales Numbers or Sample files or this is some SheetGo examples, I want to get there in one click.

I don't want to have to scroll through a massively long list of files and folders.

You're probably saying to yourself, "Scott, well, isn't it going to list it in alphabetical order anyhow?"

And you would be correct, but do you really want to be scrolling through hundreds, if not thousands of folders to find the file that you're looking for?

So by starting with this top-level design, A, B, C, D, all the way down to Z, you're going to be able to quickly open up something with an F, boom, I'm one click away and I'm immediately at that file level.

Now, you'll notice, of course, every folder within that respective alphabet file folder is going to be with the same name.

I've got File Naming Examples, I've got Financial Statements under F here.

But here's the next rule: it's that we're only going to have folders at this next level.

If I click on this F folder just to open it up here, you can see I have no other files here.

Let's go back to that S example as well, if I open up S, there are no other individual files, the next level down is only for folders.

And then that leads us to the third rule here: if I open up one of these folders, I only have files.

We are not going to branch off beyond that next level.

We've got the alphabet folder, we've got the folder that starts with that letter.

And again, you may have a large number in some of these letters, you might only have a handful or, maybe if it's X, you might have absolutely zero in that folder or some of the other letters.

But the very next level down is going to be the files themselves.

And why that's important, why that can help you with your productivity and being more efficient in finding and also saving the files that you're creating is that you're never more than two clicks away from the area you want to be in.

If I go up here to C, for example, I click once on the C drive, and there is my Client Resources Example folder.

That's it, two clicks away, and I'm into those files, or I can save additional files.

I'm never more than two clicks away from finding the information that I'm looking at.

Now, a few things that have come up over the years.

Number 1: some people will say, "Well, Scott, can't I just search for these files and folders?"

Absolutely, and if you're confident with your searching capabilities, by all means, use search.

But chances are you have a number of things that are similarly-labeled or may not be labeled very well in the first place.

Sometimes I find it's just so much easier to be able to click down here, click on the resources that I'm looking for.

So what are your thoughts on the ABC Folder Method?

Be sure to let me know in the comments down below, and if you'd like to learn even more ways to be productive and efficient, be sure to click on the videos here.

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

In fact, it's very simple.

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Website blockers can be so effective in helping you reduce distractions and interruptions throughout your day, but one of the drawbacks of many website blockers is that they only work on one device.

For example, if I'm browsing here on Amazon and spending too much time looking and shopping, I could block myself here, but what do I do when I go to my phone?

And let's be honest, our smartphones are often the source of most of our distractions.

Well, today, I wanna introduce you to BlockSite, which is available and syncs between your desktop computer and your mobile device, so you can block out and prevent certain distractions no matter where you are.

Mobile App

So, let's jump into the mobile version here and give you a quick look at what's going on.

Here, you can see I've got the BlockSite app installed. It's a very simple, very clean interface.

So, here are some of the sites that I've already added, including social media and a few other websites that I might spend too much time on during the day.

But the other great thing that you'll see here is that you can block particular apps. It's beyond just websites because, of course, on your phone, it's probably certain apps that are distracting you as well.

So, I've added YouTube in this case. Let's say I'm in the middle of my workday, and I want to watch some videos. I click on YouTube—forget about it. This app is blocked by BlockSite, so I can't access it right now because I've added it to my block list.

If I go back into the app, you'll see that my BlockSites are on. All of these websites and apps will be blocked if I try to access them.

Now, it's very easy to add websites or apps. You can hit the plus button, add a web address, and even choose to always block the site and ignore the schedule.

If I select the app tab, I can also scroll through or search any of the apps on my phone and add them to my list as well.

Another great feature is the recurring schedule option. You can set specific times when certain apps and websites are blocked.

For example, I set a schedule here so that between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., Monday through Friday, all those websites and apps will be blocked.

You don't have to set this manually each day. It's automatically done for you.

However, we all work a little differently, so BlockSite also offers a Work Mode.

You can have a different BlockList for specific times of the day or week versus when you're actually working.

It can be the same list or completely different. For example, I have a different mix of websites and apps here.

You also have a timer option, similar to the Pomodoro Technique. You can set a custom interval, say 25 minutes, where you're focused on work.

During this time, you won't be able to access the blocked apps.

For instance, if I try to access the Play Store, it won't let me because I'm supposed to be working.

The timer will keep counting down, and when it's up, I'll be able to access those sites again.

Depending on your preference and what you find most effective, you can customize BlockSite to work best for you.

Another option on the mobile site is the Adult Block option, which ensures you're blocking mature content intended for 18-plus.

One of the great things about BlockSite is that it syncs between both desktop and mobile versions.

So, let's jump back over to the desktop. All right, so here we are back on my desktop...

Desktop App

And let's say I have a tendency to browse and perhaps do too much shopping throughout my workday.

With the BlockSite browser extension installed, all I have to do is come up here and immediately block this site.

I don't have to type anything in; if I find myself visiting a website too frequently, I can just click "block this site" and add it to my block list.

You can see that this browser interface is very similar to the mobile version. We've got our BlockSites, our Work Mode to start that timer, and the Adult Block.

But let's dive into the settings because there are a few additional options we can do here.

We can, of course, type and add new web addresses directly, but what's nice on the desktop version is that you can both export and, more importantly, import a list of websites you'd like to block.

Maybe you already have such a list, or you can find great pre-existing lists on the web. For example, you might find a list of the 100 most distracting websites, which could include a mix of social media, news sites, and funny websites.

You can import it directly into your list here.

You can also create a redirect. So, if there's a particular web address you'd like to be redirected to when you attempt to visit one of your BlockSites, maybe it's your own website or your Gmail account, you can do that as well.

And we already looked at the schedule, but what's nice about the desktop view is that you can add multiple intervals.

For instance, you can block websites from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., allow access during lunch from 12 to 1 p.m., and then block them again from 1 to 2 p.m. You can set up a more complex schedule here on the desktop version of BlockSite.

We still have Work Mode, and you can password protect your settings. You can even block websites by certain words, which is an interesting feature if you find yourself visiting specific URLs based on certain keywords.

Everything here is perfectly synced with the mobile version. You're not going to see the apps here because, of course, your desktop apps are different from those on your mobile device, but all the websites we blocked on mobile are synced here as well.

If we jump back into the mobile version, we'll see that Amazon.com is blocked there too.

So, if you find yourself being distracted or tempted to visit certain websites or apps during your workday, I recommend checking out BlockSite.

BlockSite is available for both Android and iOS devices.

If you have further questions or comments about site blocking, I'd love to hear from you, so be sure to leave a question 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.

Google Calendar, Gmail and Google Keep are three Google apps that are core to my personal productivity system.

But you know, what helps out even more is the relationships between these three.

So in today's video, I wanna show you how you can get so much more out of these three and by connecting and linking them together.

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

How to Link Gmail to Keep Notes

So let's get started.

And we're gonna start with my inbox.

And often I'm dealing with an email here.

And you know, I'd like to take some notes, maybe there's some helpful information here, maybe I've got an existing note that I would like to grab some of this information from.

Well, something that really helps me out is this side panel here on the right, and you can see that we've got some icons here for things like Google Calendar and Google Keep.

Now first things first, if you don't see this sidebar, most likely, it's because you have not hit this little arrow in the bottom right hand corner.

Maybe your website looks or your browser looks a little bit like this.

Come all the way down here to the bottom right hand corner and say show side panel and that will be revealed unto you there.

So if I click on the Keep icon, I've got all of my Keep notes here.

So I can take a look at the relevant note and input the information that I want.

But it gets even better.

Let's say that this is a brand new piece of information but I'd like to have a note linked to this information.

Well, all I need to do here is say, take a note and just before I even begin writing anything, you'll notice that there's an actual link between this spring conference ideas and the email that I'm writing here.

So I'm just gonna say, new note here as an example, I'm gonna hit Done.

The great thing is that no matter where I am, let's go into Keep itself.

Here's that new note.

I've got that link, I can just click on that link and now in a new tab, I'm gonna go directly to this email.

I've got a connection between that note and going back to this email.

So no matter what I do with this email, if I archive it, if I send it to a different label or a different folder, I've got a link.

So as I'm fleshing out these notes, maybe I'm adding a bunch of notes related to that email, I can always go back and revisit it here.

If I wanna kill that link, well, I can just hit the X.

If I never wanna have that link, go back, I can do so there.

But let's look at another way

How to Link Gmail to Google Calendar

In which we can connect information from a Gmail into this time Google Calendar.

So in this case, let's say this is something that I wanna create a meeting about in this email example, someone would like to set up a meeting with me and we've already got part of the agenda listed here.

So why do I wanna copy and paste this or write it all out again, why don't I just create an event from this?

Well, if we go up here to these three dots, we've got a number of other options available to us and one of them is create event.

So if I select Create event within any email that is open, what it's gonna do is open up a new tab within Google Calendar, it's gonna input the subject of that email up top here, and the contents of that email automatically in the description.

And in fact, it's even added that individual over here.

I can actually just hit save and create this meeting, I should really take a look at the date and the time first, but I can hit save and create that meeting almost immediately.

Now, of course, I can change the title, I can add some more information down here as well, but in just a few clicks, one click to be exact, I can be in here and be ready to set up that particular meeting.

So those are a couple of ways that you can get information out of Gmail into both Keep and Google Calendar.

How to Link Google Calendar to Keep Notes

Now let's stick with Google Calendar for a second.

I'm gonna discard this particular meeting.

I'm gonna go back to this one here.

So I'm here within Google Calendar, and perhaps I wanna link some of the information here with my notes.

So for example, let's say I'm interviewing someone later today and I wanna write out some of the job interview questions.

Well, if I open up this invitation here, I obviously don't wanna add it to the description, because perhaps the person I'm interviewing is a part of this invitation.

I don't wanna give away the questions or my personal notes in advance, but with this event already open, I'm gonna come back over here to this side panel and hit Keep.

And very similar to what we saw in Gmail, if I say take a note, I've got that link again.

So here, maybe I've got, question one, question two, question three, I've got a bunch of questions.

I'm gonna label this job interview questions here, perfect.

So I've got some of my job interview questions and perhaps I'm gonna keep adding to this.

I don't wanna be in here all of the time within the calendar, I'm gonna go about the rest of my day maybe throughout the week, I'm gonna come back here and add to these job interview questions or revise these job interview questions.

But if I wanna go back to that particular calendar invite maybe I've forgotten who these interview questions are for, I can select that and it's gonna bring me directly back to this particular invite.

So some cool new ways as to making a relationship between Keep in Gmail, and also Keep and Google Calendar.

How to View Keep Reminders in Google Calendar

But it gets even better.

And we're gonna look at another relationship between Google Calendar and Keep.

So let me close this out here for a second.

Within Google Calendar, this is where I spend most of my day, this is where I have all of my appointments, all of my events, I even manage the majority of my to dos here within my calendar.

But let's go back to this interview example here again.

What if I wanna review those questions in advance?

What if I wanna review these job interview questions, just to refresh my memory or to revise them one last time?

Well, within Google Keep what we can do, of course, is add a reminder.

So if I go in here and add a reminder, let's say I wanna pick a particular time.

If the interview is at 10:30am, I wanna be reminded of these notes at 10:00am.

I'm gonna hit save.

So now I've got my reminder here.

If they have desktop notifications turned on, I'm gonna get a reminder here within the browser, I may also get a reminder on my mobile phone.

But it gets even better if I go back to Google Calendar as long as you have reminders enabled, as long as you're viewing the reminders calendar here.

And I'm just gonna refresh this page so that we can see it here.

What's gonna happen is, there we go. There are my job interview questions showing up as a reminder here within Google Calendar.

So if I click on this, it's gonna remind me first of all, but if I click on this, I'm gonna have those job interview questions waiting for me.

Don't forget reminders that you set here with Google Keep automatically link with your Google Calendar account.

As long as you have your reminders calendar enabled, you can hide them if you want.

See those little purple reminders that I had, I'm gonna enable them again, you can see them here, I've got another one here that may be related to this team meeting here, this particular note as well.

How to View Keep Notes in Google Calendar or Gmail

So that can be very helpful too.

But let's go one step further here, because I want you to show that it actually keeps the link between some of the notes that we've created over here, and the things that we've done on the calendar itself.

So you'll remember that when I created that note, let's open up a new one here.

I'm gonna open this up.

And if I say take a new note, and let's just say this is a new visit client note just so we can see it there.

I'm gonna say done.

I've got that link, it's creating that link because I'm creating it here while it's open.

New clients note how about that?

Let's make sure we get the title correct here.

But what I wanted to show you here is that when I'm back on the calendar, here I've got my notes here, I don't see anything too special, it's just ordering it in the way that I've entered it here.

But if I open up this calendar event, what you're gonna see is looking at that, related.

That's actually gonna jump to the top.

So even if I took this note, and then I took hundreds of other notes, whenever I open up this event within Google Calendar, if there's a link, this is gonna jump to the top, I'm gonna be able to find it later on that much easier as long as I have this side panel open.

Let's go back and look at that example with the interview one.

If I open this one up, again, related, there's my job interview questions.

It wasn't the last one I created, this was the last note I created, but it knows that it's related so that is gonna pop up in the side panel as well.

Now the last thing that I wanted to share

How to Add Keep Notes to Anything

With you today here is how you can actually add a Google Keep link to absolutely anywhere, not just Gmail or Google Calendar you can add it absolutely anywhere.

So here, if I open up, let's say I wanna link back to this particular note here.

Whenever you have a note open within Google Keep, what you can do is come up here and copy, you can copy the information in that link.

Now what I can do is I can go back to absolutely, I've already got one here in that particular note, let's open up this one here.

I can go to anywhere and paste that link.

Now it doesn't have to be within a Google app like I'm showing you here, I gotta save this one, but I'm just gonna use this as an example.

If I come back here, here, I've got that link.

If I click on it, what it's gonna do is in a new tab, it's gonna open up that particular note.

So isn't that fantastic?

No matter where I am, I mean, I could be pasting this into a Google Drive document or a PDF or something like that, it's gonna bring it back to this particular note.

So it may leave you with a bit of an ugly URL.

This is a bit of a workaround, you could say it's not the most prettiest link, but of course, you can do that here by pasting that where you like it.

I'd love to hear from you next.

Number one, what was your favorite tip from today's video?

And number two, did I miss anything?

Is there another way that you can create a connection between these or other Google Apps?

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

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

PDF documents are a crucial file type for your business or your everyday use.

Whether you're using it for contracts and agreements, maybe for marketing materials or newsletters.

I'm sure that you are using PDF documents on a daily basis.

So in today's video, I wanna give you five great reasons for using a PDF editor.

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

And in today's video, I'm using PDFelement by Wondershare.

If you would like to learn more and try PDFelement for yourself, you can see the link in the description below.

So let's get started with reason number one.

PDF Editor

And you know what? It's right in the name, you can edit any PDF document.

So let's take this one as an example.

Let's say I've got a newsletter here and you know, the only thing I have is the copy from a few years back and I don't have the original file type, I don't have the Word document, all I have is the old PDF.

So what am I gonna do?

Well, I'm gonna open it up in my PDF editor and here I can come in here, I can change the date.

Let's say for example, I wanna make that 2020, in this case.

Maybe I come down here and I say, oh, we're only gonna have 32 meetings this year.

So let's delete that and put 32, you can see that it keeps the same formatting, the same coloring and everything.

And maybe I wanna get rid of this image because that image is dated as well.

Let's go and replace that image really quickly here.

I'm gonna go up to (mumbles) images, oh, here we go.

Let's replace it with this clock.

And boom, it's seamless.

There it is, it fits in with my PDF documents.

So even if you don't have the original file, or you can't get the original file from someone else, it is so easy to edit any PDF document.

Reason number two, why you should consider a PDF editor is that you can convert any PDF to an editable file.

So I'm gonna look at this one here, as an example here.

This one is mostly text based.

But let's say that I need to share this with someone else, who's actually gonna do most of the editing on their end.

They're the ones who wants to revise this press release.

And I don't know, if they have a PDF editor, or if they have any experience, they would like this in a Word file.

Well, if I come over here to convert, you can see I can convert this PDF to a variety of popular file types.

I can also convert it just to text or to an image itself.

But let's go to Word and let's convert this particular one to Word.

Let's say no, I don't care about saving this one in particular, we just wanna convert this one to Word.

So I'm just gonna say underscore Word copy, just so we know that we can find it.

I'm gonna hit Save and pretty quick.

I mean, this is a pretty short document, so it didn't take very long for it to convert it there.

Let's pop over to Word and let's open it up.

Let's see how we did, it looks pretty good.

Looks pretty good.

You may notice a few minor formatting adjustments.

The spacing may be slightly different than what you're, than what you just saw in the PDF document.

But for the most part, the formatting, the layout, et cetera, is all the same.

So now I can send this file to my colleague or to the person I'm working with.

And they can go ahead and edit it with a program that they are more comfortable with, in this case, Word.

Alright, the third reason why you should consider using a PDF editor is from a collaboration standpoint by the ability to both comment and add notes to a document.

Collaboration

So let's say for example, here I am, and as I'm reviewing this, I wanna add some notes for someone that I'm working with and I say, you know, this picture has got to go.

I'm gonna click on this little sticky note here.

I'm gonna click on it here and I'm gonna say, can we use something else here?

I'm gonna leave a little question mark here.

Now anyone can come in here that I give access to and they can just hover over it and they can see my note.

They can change it themselves, or they can provide me with some feedback.

I can use this highlighting notion here and I can just highlight maybe a section over top of it.

I'm gonna double-click on that and say, let's get the yes from the client, first, maybe I wanna make sure that we get permission to use a particular name here.

So again, anyone can come in here, double-click, see my comment, you can collaborate and add comments as you're working with other members of your team.

Alright now, number four, I think is really crucial for working with a PDF editor.

And actually, it's a big reason why I wish I had started using a PDF editor many, many years ago much earlier than I ended up doing so.

And that is adding customizable and fillable fields.

So this time, I'm gonna go up to Form and here you can see that we can add things such as a textbox, a checkbox, radio button, drop-down fields.

All these types of fields that are fillable, think of how many times you've been sent a PDF form and how convenient it was that you can actually fill it in, you didn't have to print it off and fill it in by hand, you could just fill it in directly.

So in this case, I'm gonna use this set, text field one, for example.

And let's say I want them to, you know, add their full name at the bottom of this PDF.

I'm actually going to come over here to edit and just add the textbox itself here at the beginning.

So maybe I want them to add their full name.

So I'm gonna add it there, I can now adjust it, I can drag it up here.

There we go.

Click and drag, actually like this little crosshairs that they include, so I can line it up exactly.

So now when this person goes to use this particular document, this is going to be a fillable field, right?

And you've seen that before.

I can just come in here and oh, yeah, my name is Joe Smith.

Perfect, I can keep filling out that form.

So think of how many things that you use as part of your day to day, or a part of your business where you're needing someone to fill something in.

How convenient it is if they can do so directly within the PDF, something that is essential in any good PDF editor.

Now the fifth and final reason why I think you should consider using a PDF editor, has to do with protection.

So I'm gonna kind of get to come up here and select the Protect tab.

Now in this case, I could add a password if I wanted to, if I wanted to require a password to open up this particular PDF document.

I could also set some other permissions such as allowing them to print or allowing them to make changes.

But in this case, I wanna show you something in addition to that, and that is actually blocking out or hiding specific pieces of sensitive information.

So let's say for example, in this particular document, let's say that this BCTFD is the name of a client and I wanna share everything else in this document but I don't wanna share the specifics of the client, maybe I'm, you know, showing some work to a potential client or something along those lines.

So I just wanna block out this BCTFD.

What I can do is I can come up here, select redaction, and then start highlighting things that I wanna redact.

But you know what many PDF documents are pages and pages in length.

I mean, what if this is 50 pages in length?

Well, that's just not gonna do.

So let me delete this redaction here, I'm gonna show you a much easier way to do so.

In this case, I'm actually gonna search for the words that I wanna block out.

So let me type in BCTFD, I gotta hit Search.

And it's gonna find occurrences of that everywhere in the document and remember, if this document was 50 pages long, there might be hundreds of references to this client everywhere.

I can either choose them individually here if I want.

I'm gonna select this first one which is gonna select them all.

You can see that they're now all highlighted.

They've all got this little red around them.

The last step in this case is I'm gonna say confirm or apply this redaction, it's gonna give me a warning just to make sure that I wanna go and proceed with this.

I'm gonna hit OK.

And now you can see I have blacked out references to this particular customer, this particular string of words, I can now save this PDF, I can send it to that client or to other people, and be sure that they won't see the client name or maybe I wanna hide some financial information, whatever the case may be, you can do that with a PDF editor.

So I hope I've given you some good reasons to consider using a PDF editor as a part of your day to day.

Again, if you would like to use the exact features that I've shared with you today, here, you can try them for yourself by using PDFelement.

You can find a link to their website in the description 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.

Are you tired of writing the exact same response to the questions you receive on a regular basis, in email?

Wouldn't it be great if you could have a template so that you could send all of the information that you need to, without writing it out every single time?

Well in today's video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know about Gmail Templates.

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

And to get started, we're gonna need to go up to settings, and hit settings again.

Now until recently, Gmail Templates used to be called Canned Responses, but much of the functionality has remained the same.

Here within settings, we wanna go all the way over to the right-hand side and select the Advanced tab.

Now templates are already at the very top of my screen because I've already enabled it, but by default, all of the options within the Advanced tab are disabled.

So you might actually wanna take a few minutes and review some of the other great features that are available here within Gmail.

So be sure to enable templates, and before you leave make sure to come down here and hit Save Changes, so that they are applied.

So now that templates are applied, when we are either replying to a message, forwarding a message, or composing a brand-new message, we have a special feature available to us.

So let's take a look at this example email.

Let's say I'm receiving a question from someone here but I wanna give a polite response that I'm not interested at this time, and I don't wanna waste the time writing it out myself.

So I'm gonna select the reply button here, and then in the bottom right-hand corner, under these three dots, under more options, I'm gonna click that.

And you can see at the top, I've got an option called Templates.

So I've got a few different things I can do here.

I've already created a few templates already.

Insert a template, I'm gonna show you that in a second, but we can also save a new draft or delete an existing template.

Well let's start with the template that I've already created.

This one called Sorry, Not Interested.

I'm gonna click that, and immediately I've got my pre-packaged response.

Here's the three sentences that I'd like to send.

I can hit Send and get on with my next email or get on with the rest of my day.

So you're probably thinking at this point, well how do I create my own template, Scott?

I wanna create something from scratch.

Well it's pretty simple.

Whether you're replying or whether you're composing a new message, just start with a blank message.

Now let's create something super quick and simple.

I'm gonna say thank you for reaching out, but I'm not interested at this time.

Take care.

So here I've got my message, but just before I hit send, if I wanna save this as a template, I need to come back down to more options, come down to templates, and I'm gonna say save draft as template.

Now you're still gonna see my existing templates here, because the first one is to overwrite an existing template.

Maybe I want to update an existing template.

Well then I would select which one I would like to save over.

But in this case, I wanna save a brand-new one.

So I'm gonna say save as new template, and here by default, it's gonna input the subject line.

Now that's important, because if you're composing a message from scratch, the template name will be the subject line in that case, but in this example I'm just gonna say not interested.

That's gonna be the name of this particular template.

I'm gonna hit save.

And now I can use this again and again.

If you just wanna test it out, you can come back here to more options, select templates, and there it is.

Not interested, I can boom.

I can use it here, I can use it absolutely anywhere.

But remember, this can go beyond just simple text responses, or simple text-based emails.

If I come down here, I'm gonna select one of the templates I already created earlier, called Learn More About Simpletivity.

I'm gonna select this one.

And here you can see, you can add formatting, I've got a few links here, I've even got an image.

I've got a picture that I've included in this particular template.

So think of the examples in your life where people are asking for information or asking questions, and maybe you wanna send them a pricing list.

Maybe you wanna send them a few samples of your work, or sample images.

Maybe you've got links to videos that you regularly send out.

You can compose a very lengthy email, complete with formatting, complete with all of this information, and just have it ready to go as a template.

Now, the last thing that you should know is that if you want to delete a template.

We're gonna go back up here, and come down to the bottom option.

If you wanna delete a template, you can go ahead and do so, and select which one that you would like to.

Now before you do so, once you've selected it, it will give you one last chance, and no, no, no, no, I don't wanna delete it just yet.

So I'm gonna say cancel.

The last example I wanna show you here is that when we are composing a new message, so let's say I'm composing a message from scratch.

Again, we're gonna have our templates available to us as well, but I just wanna show you that if I use this Learn More About Simpletivity template again, you can see how the name of that template will show up as the subject line.

So keep that in mind if you're not just going to be using templates for replies, or for forwarding emails, that that default name will show up as the subject line.

Of course you can always come in here and edit it if you like, but that can be handy if you wanna save some, even more time, when sending out these types of messages.

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's video and I hope you start saving a lot of time by using Gmail Templates, formerly known as Canned Responses.

I would love to know how you plan to use such templates in your business, in your day-to-day, or maybe in your personal life.

Be sure to leave your comments in the section down below.

Thank you again for watching and remember being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

If you use Evernote, you're probably sick of managing hundreds, if not thousands of notes and all of your notebooks.

Well, in today's video, I wanna show you five tips to help you be more efficient and effective with managing all of that reference material, meeting agendas, thoughts, whatever you capture here in Evernote, I want you to do it faster.

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

Tip 1 Create Note Links

So let's get started with tip number one and first off, we are gonna take a look at creating note links and what that is is creating links between one or more notes here within your Evernote notebook.

So in this example, I've got a link here that says review new artwork for Google ad. And if I click on that, it's gonna take me directly to another note that I have here within Evernote.

This can be really handy if you want a high-level note in one area of your notebook and maybe you wanna drill down to some more details with other notes within Evernote.

So how do we create this?

Well, first of all, let me delete this for an example and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start with the note that I want to reference.

If I right click on any note, I'll get this menu and I want to choose Copy Internal Link.

By selecting that, I've copied that link to the clipboard and now I can go up to whatever note I want.

Let's go back to this one as an example and I'm just gonna hit paste.

Now, you'll notice that I don't get a lot of gobbledygook like you see up here like you would typically see if you were just pasting a web URL.

But no, this link is clean. In fact, this link is the title of that particular note.

So now I can just click on it and go directly to that note elsewhere within my Evernote account.

It can be really, really helpful.

Tip 2 Create Table of Contents

Let's stay with making these connections and next up what I wanna do is show you how to create a table of contents because maybe you'd like to see a summary of a number of notes within a single note.

Now, you're probably used to managing your notes within a notebook and you probably have a lot more than what I have listed here in my sample account, but maybe you don't wanna manage all of those notes within tags or within their own dedicated notebooks.

Maybe you just wanna reference let's say three or four different notes. So in this case, what we're gonna wanna do is multi-select.

So on the left-hand side here, I'm gonna select these three notes here. I'm just gonna hold down Control on my keyboard and you can see I get a bit of a snapshot of what those notes contain here, but down below the great thing is is that I've got a number of additional options available to me.

And in this case, what I'm gonna select is create table of contents note.

Now, just before I do this, I wanna make sure that you're aware this is not going to delete or remove or change the location of these three existing notes, but it's actually gonna create a new note.

So if I select this, what's gonna happen, I'm gonna scroll up to the top and here you see I have a new note which is called table of contents. But when I click on it, now I've got note links directly to those three notes. It's even added numbered bullet points here to the left. So I can click on any one of them and go directly to that given note.

Now, you probably wanna change the title of this from table of contents to something more relevant, but this can be especially helpful when you are creating for example a meeting agenda and maybe you've got five or six or seven items that you wanna talk about, but you don't wanna list them all within the agenda here. Maybe you just want the bullet point name and then you or members that you're working with can drill down and select that link and then go to the desired note.

So there's one another thing I wanna show you here when it comes to multi-selecting notes here. And we're not talking about just applying tags to different notes. If let's say I take notes one, two, and three, again I'm gonna click on one and then I'm gonna hold down Control to multi-select. I'm gonna add three in this case, but you can actually merge your notes as well.

Maybe for example I've been taking notes about the same idea or the same thought or topic at different times, but after review I've realized you know what, these shouldn't be in three separate notes. These should actually be in the same note. So now that I've got the three selected here, I'm gonna select the merge button and what this is gonna do

Tip 3 Merge Notes

It's gonna take those three notes and put them into a single note.

Now, you can see that there's a header here that is gonna give us the name of the note up here. It's gonna also say the author, who created this note in the first place.

So you can see what is going on and the separation between these three notes. So now I've got them all contained in one note. I don't just have to lump them in within the same notebook. I can see them all right here.

Now, there's one word of warning with merging. There is no capability of undoing this action. So for example, I can't just click on this and say, well, let's go back or actually no, I didn't mean to do that. Can we hit undo?

If I go up here to Edit and say Undo, it's not going to undo it. So before you select that merge button, make absolutely sure that you wanna combine those notes together. But when you do, you're gonna have them more conveniently displayed to you in a single note.

Tip 4 Shortcut Keys

All right, let's move on to tip number four and this is gonna save you an awful lot of time and that has to do with shortcuts and hotkeys.

So if we go up here to the top of our menu and if we select Tools, we wanna then select Options. And when the Options dialogue opens up, we wanna go about halfway down and select shortcut keys.

Now, first off, you're gonna wanna review this and see the number of actions you can perform just by using these shortcut keys. I think probably the most obvious one or the most helpful one will be the first one, create a new note.

But if you don't like this particular key combination, you can just delete it and create your own combination you can use. Maybe there's something a little more convenient to you.

But the other bonus of using global shortcut keys is that you can use these as long as the desktop version of Evernote is open. So you don't have to be viewing this. As long as it's open in your taskbar in your system tray as it states here, you can use these shortcut keys and they will be applied.

Let me show you just a quick example of this one in particular Control + Alt + N. So if I come out of here and just say Control + Alt + N, boom, exactly, I'm gonna have a fresh new note that I can start editing right away. So much easier than always having to come up here and select new note depending on where my mouse is and depending on how many monitors you may be using at any given time.

Tip 5 Advanced Syntax

Now, my fifth and final tip today also has to do with saving time and this one in particular has to do with searching notes, but using some advanced syntax so you can narrow down your search and get to the note that you are looking for.

You're probably already familiar knowing that by typing in a keyword here, you can quickly find something. If I say, I don't know, let's say the word review for example, I'm gonna find every single note that has the word review in it somewhere. Not just the title, but within the note itself.

But what if the note that I'm searching for I know it has review in the title and that's the only one I want. Well, we can use some special features here. In this case, we can use the term intitle. So if I use the term intitle and now I enter in the word, I'm gonna say review, I only get one search result because this is the only one right now that has review in the title. I can narrow it down that much more.

Let me show you two more that I find very, very helpful. You might be using a checklist for some of your Evernote processes and some of the things that you're doing on a day-to-day basis. Here's my office supplies list. If you wanna look for things that have a to-do list or a checklist, what you can do is use the syntax todo and then you can choose either true or false. So if I type in the word true, what it's gonna bring back is any of my notes that has at least one of the checkboxes checked off. Here I've got three in this particular case. So this is the only note that's coming back to me.

If I back up and say todo false, what's gonna happen is I'm gonna get a few different notes come back. I'm still gonna get this one because in this case, it's gonna show me every note that has a checkbox, at least one checkbox that is unchecked and that's the case here. I've got a few other documents here that have things that are unchecked. So I can search just by the status of the checkbox.

The last one that I wanna show for you here is created or updated. So if you're looking for something and you say, I know I created it within this timeframe, you can type in the word created, then start with day. Now, if you say day, it's gonna bring back everything that is today and I like how Evernote always shows you in sort of an easy-to-read manner as to what you're actually searching for.

But don't stop just there. If I say day minus three for example, it's gonna bring back everything that's been created since three days ago which in this case was November 26. So you can get really granular here. You can use created. You can also use updated because those are two different things of course what you're searching on here to be more granular and get specific with what it is you are searching for.

Well, I hope you enjoyed those five tips to get more out of Evernote and especially to help you save time. Now, I'd love to learn from you next what are some of your time saving tricks or techniques for getting the most out of Evernote. Be sure to let me know in the comments down below. Thanks again for watching and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

You probably have a number of goals that you want to reach in the coming year, whether that's getting more exercise, reading more books or perhaps just spending more time with friends.

Well, Google Calendar has an excellent way to help you reach all of your goals, and so today I want to show you everything you need to know about setting and tracking your goals within Google Calendar.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's start off with our mobile app because that's the only place you can go to start or create a goal.

But as I'm gonna show you, you can see and edit and even change your goals within the desktop app. So I'm gonna be switching back and forth as a part of today's video.

So to get started, all you need to do is hit the plus button in the bottom right-hand corner. Now, you're probably used to this, to creating a new event or maybe adding a reminder, but we want to select that little flag to create a new goal.

And right off the bat, Google has given us a number of suggestions including exercise, building a skill, spending time with family and friends, maybe just me time, or organizing your life.

Now, if none of these apply directly to you that's okay, you can choose a custom goal. But Google does a good thing to get us started at least in the right direction.

So I'm gonna start with exercise and you can see it's gonna ask me which exercise I'd like to set as my goal but I could select Custom down below. So you can choose absolutely anything that you want.

So in this example I'm gonna choose walking. I want to get out and enjoy a walk more often. So I'm gonna select Walk. The next option it gives me is how often, and again you can be very customized with this. You can choose more options here but it's giving me a number of things to consider.

I think five times a week would be great. So I'm going to select that option. Lastly, how long, how long of a walk would I like to go on. In this case let's say I'd like to aim for 30 minutes as a part of my walk.

Last question actually is the best time. Morning, afternoon, evening, or should I just try and fit it in whenever I can. Well, I'd like to do it in the afternoon so I'm gonna tell Google Afternoon.

So now I see a summary of my selections, five sessions a week of 30 minutes in the afternoons. Now, I could select more options at this point and if I do, you can see that I have a few more things I can change here.

By default, it's gonna give me a reminder 30 minutes before. I can delete that if I want to. I can also toggle on or off smart notifications so that's before and after my sessions to help me prepare but also track because of course tracking your progress is so important in reaching your goals.

And I can also change my default color. And I'm gonna do it right now. I'm gonna select Tomato, I'm gonna select that red just so it stands out more on my calendar. I'm gonna hit Save.

I'm returned to this screen here, and the very last thing that we need to do is hit that check mark here. When I hit that check mark it's gonna take a few seconds to find the best time for my goal and actually schedule those goals into my calendar.

So now it takes us back to our calendar and you can see it's already included a walk later today. At the bottom it tells me that the first time is today at 2 p.m. Does this time work for you?

Now, I could select Adjust time if I wanted to, and you can adjust any of the times. Not just the first time or the first schedule. But in this case that looks fine to me. So I'm gonna say Looks fine.

And if I scroll over here to the right, you can see that it's included a walk in the next few days so that I can achieve that five walks per week. But what I love about this is if I scroll here to Wednesday, you can see it's not 2 p.m.

It's actually worked around my existing schedule. Let's jump over to the desktop version so we can take a look at this a bit closer.

So here, in the desktop version, of course we're gonna see exactly what we saw in the mobile version. If I scroll over to the next week you can see I've got my walk scheduled in there as well.

But this is what I was talking about is that it's actually learning what I have booked already and it's going to schedule around that. So it could see that tomorrow I can't go for my walk at 2 p.m. so it's gonna have to adjust itself here.

But it gets better than that. Because let's say that something is scheduled for me. Let's say someone invites me to a meeting or maybe I need to take a meeting at a time where one of my goals is already scheduled.

So let's take a look at this Thursday, for example. And I'm gonna input a sample meeting. I'm just gonna say Sample meeting here and I'm gonna make it an hour, I'm gonna say from two to three.

So you can see before I hit Save it's gonna be in conflict with this goal. So let's find out what happens. I'm gonna hit Save here. And in just a moment, look at that! It automatically adjusted my goal.

It took that existing goal of walking at 2 p.m. and it bumped it up to 1 p.m. because it knew that there was a conflict now. Maybe there is something else I would like to do here.

Now, again, at any time I could say you know what, that's still not gonna work. I'd rather not walk immediately after my lunch here with Mike, I'd like to have it a little bit later in the day.

So I'm gonna click and drag it to 4 p.m. So you can edit your individual goals as well, right? And if I need to delete something, you know what, this one isn't going to work here, I can click on it and say, you know what, let's just get rid of that one.

I can't make it that day. I'm gonna delete it. So you can edit and change your goals here within the desktop version. You just can't add or start a new goal from the desktop version. You do need to do that from the mobile site.

One thing I want to show you here as well is that if you click on the goal, let's say for today, and let's say I've done it already, you're gonna see this little Did It option here.

So I'm gonna say yeah, I did this walk today, I wanna cross it off. So I'm gonna select Did it, it's gonna cross it off letting me know that I've accomplished that goal, and then I can keep on with my day.

So now back in the mobile view you can see that can still have that one crossed off. If I click on it, you can see that I can change it back. At the bottom I could say Mark as not done if I hit it by mistake.

But what I really wanna point out here is how goals within Google Calendar also tracks your progress. So here you can see that it says that I've done one out of five this week. And I've got this little circular graph that's going to let me know.

Now, if I scroll to the left something that is a little funny is that it's always gonna show you the last four weeks. And so even though I started this goal today, it's actually going all the way back to November 10th, which is a little odd since I didn't begin my goal back there, but I think just by default what it's going to do is always show you the goals of the last four weeks.

So you can track your progress here as well. But if I need to make adjustments to my goals, I can do that too. If I go up to the top and hit the Edit icon, I'm back into sort of a similar view here but this time I can actually click on five sessions a week.

I can say you know what, that was maybe a little too much, I'd like to change it to three sessions a week but I'd also like to change it to maybe one hour in length. So you don't have to start fresh every single time.

You don't have to delete something from the beginning. You can go in and make those adjustments along the way.

I'd love to hear from you next. Have you used Google Calendar goals? If so, what types of things have you used it for? And if not, I would encourage you to test it out.

No matter what your goals are, see how Google Calendar can help you reach them. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Wouldn't it be great if you could do one action within Trello, and then a multiple number of actions could be applied? For example, what if I could take this task, right here, and drag it over into this new list, and then have it automatically apply a due date, a checklist, and myself, just like it did right there?

Well, in today's video, I'm gonna show you how to do exactly that. I wanna show you everything you need to know about Butler automation.

Now, earlier this year, Trello gave Butler to absolutely everyone, including free users, or those just using the basic version of Trello. The great thing about this is that it actually doesn't count as one of your Power-Ups, so you can use Butler in conjunction with a number of other Power-Ups, including Custom Fields.

So let's jump right in and get comfortable with the Butler interface.

Automation Tips

In order to do so, you just need to select the Butler button, which appears in the top right-hand corner of all of your Trello boards.

Now the very first screen that you're gonna see is called Automation Tips, and Butler is going to try and give a few suggestions, based on your behavior as to the types of things that you might want to include.

But I'm gonna go directly to Rules, because Rules is gonna be the most important area, and probably the area that you most frequent when creating automated actions here within Trello.

Now, a little later on, I'm gonna show you the differences between the five different automation categories here within Butler, but Rules is at the top for a reason, because Rules are gonna be things that are applied based on other actions.

Creating a New Rule

So here you see a rule that I just performed. It says, "When a card is added to the list 'In Progress' by anyone, set the due date to 48 hours, add the 'Follow Up' checklist to the card, and join the card." And you saw that happen in real time.

But let me walk you through creating a new rule from scratch. I want you to be comfortable with this interface, and not be intimidated by all of the many options that are available to you.

So first things first, we need to start with a trigger. This is gonna be the cue that other actions, or other things should be applied.

So we're gonna select Add Trigger, and here we are given a number of different options. Now they're categorized in a few different groups. Movement, as in card movement, or adding a card to a board or list. Card Changes, this would include things like adding or removing labels, attachments, members, et cetera. Date-based, whether that's a due date, or entering in information on a card that already has a due date. Maybe if a checklist is added, or if a checklist is completed. Card Content would include things like adding a comment within a particular card. And Fields is all about Custom Fields. Remember I mentioned, you can use this with your own Custom Fields, which makes it that much more powerful.

But in this case, let's start with Card Movement. And just to give you a bit of an idea of how this interface works, you can see they have tried to list it in such a way that you can just sort of read it out.

So, "when a card is added to the board by me," that could be the trigger, and then we would hit the green plus button over here. But we have so many more options than that. If you hover over almost any one of these fields, you can see I can change "added to" to "created in," "emailed into," "moved into," "moved out of." And instead of me, it could be "by anyone," or "by anyone except me." In some cases, you may need to even click on some of these fields just to show you the other options available to you, but I don't want you to be intimidated by this. There's a lot of options, but that gives you that much more power as to what you want it to do.

So let's create a simple one here together. Let's recreate something similar to what I showed you at the beginning. So, "when a card is added to," and added does mean created, copied, emailed, or moved into. If you wanna be more specific, I can choose one of those other options. But I'm gonna leave it at added.

So I'm gonna say when a card is added to a particular list, in this case I'm gonna choose "Ideas," and I really don't care if it's added by me. Actually, you know what, I'm gonna stick this one with me, 'cause I wanna make sure that I get added to this card. So I'm gonna say added by me. Now, I have to go over to the right and hit the green plus button. That's actually gonna add the trigger.

If I scroll up to the top, you can see the Trigger, there is the trigger that we just created. Now step two is to perform an action. Now one or more, and the great thing about Butler is that you can layer action upon action upon action.

So let's add three actions in this case. First things first, I wanna add a due date, so I'm gonna select the Dates option here, and you sometimes may have to read through a number of the options to find exactly what you are looking for. But I'm gonna choose this second one, I wanna set the due date.

I don't want it to set to now, so I'm gonna click on this, and wow, I've got a lot of options available to me here. But it looks like this second one is what I'm looking for. I wanna set it to 48 hours from right now. If I click on this clock, I could be really specific and actually say what time of day. But I'm gonna click off that, I'm gonna leave it at 48 hours from when that card is moved, and I'm gonna select the plus button.

Now it should be noted, we actually have not added that action yet, we've just specified the time. Set due date to 48 hours. I still need to come over here and hit the green plus button.

If we scroll up, you can see that action has now been applied, but let's don't stop there. Remember, we can add as many actions as we like. Next up, I'm gonna go to Members, because I want to join this card. I don't wanna waste my time going into the card, and adding myself, and having to remember every time.

So I'm gonna choose this first one, join the card. I'm gonna go all the way over here to the right, hit the plus button, and now you can see, that's another action which has been added.

And maybe the last thing that I'm gonna do in this particular case, is I'm gonna click on Content. So I wanna let my team know that I've got this, or I'm gonna look into this.

So I'm gonna scroll down to this option, which says post comment, and I'm gonna say, "I will look into this." All right, so that is the comment that's gonna be added each time as a part of this rule. Again, I need to hit that plus green button.

And you can see that that has been added as an action.

Testing the New Rule

Now what's really important, don't forget to hit Save at this point, because if I was to hit X, all of this is going to go away. Don't hit Cancel, unless you don't want this rule anymore, but make sure you remember to hit Save.

So after hitting Save, you can see that we have this new rule. It tries to spell it out for us, so we can come back and review it, and edit it if we need to. But this is the rule that we've just created.

Let's close this and see if it actually works. So here I am in the Ideas list, that's where we set up the rule. I'm gonna say add another card, and I'm gonna say, "Create a new product." All right, so I'm gonna hit Enter on my keyboard, and what's gonna happen? There we go! We've got the new due date, that's 48 hours from today. We've got the comment, we'll go look at that in a second. And, it has attached myself to the card. I haven't done anything else. I haven't even clicked within the card yet, and it's automatically applied those three actions. If I open up the card and I scroll down, there's that comment we specified. "I will look into this." So we've added three actions just by adding a card to this particular list.

There are so many possibilities here within Butler. That was just a quick example to get you comfortable with the interface. Now, choosing the different options is going to be very similar for the other four ways in which you can apply Butler to your Trello boards.

So let's just go through how you might use some of these different options.

Under Card Buttons, Butler gives you the opportunity to actually add a custom button within the card that can perform, well, almost any action or multiple actions that you want. So in this case, I've added a card button that's called Move Up, and it will move the card to the top of this list, the To Do list.

So let's see if it works, and where you will find it. So here's my To Do list, I'm gonna click on the bottom card here, the one that is last in this list, and you will see under the Power-Ups menu, here is my custom Butler button. If I select Move Up, you're probably not gonna notice much of anything here, because we're already within the card, but if I close it, you can see it automatically moved that card to the very top of the list. Great stuff!

Now one thing you should know is that when it comes to Card Buttons, you cannot specify them to a particular list. A Card Button, if I go anywhere, you're gonna see this Move Up button. So if I was to click this right now, it's gonna also move it, it's not just gonna bring it up to the top of this list, because we said move it to the top of the To Do list. So that's how Card Buttons work.

Now the Board Button is somewhat similar, but you will see that the Board Button applies to everything on the board. Here right beside the Butler button is a board button, which I have previously created. It's called Move Approved. And here's how this button works, or how I've created this particular button. "Move each card with the green 'New project' label in the list 'Ideas' to the list 'Projects'."

So you might wanna use a board button when it's something you want to initiate at a given time. I'll show you in a minute how you can initiate things based on a calendar date. But let's say over here, I'm gonna add a label to just a couple of these. Let's add a label to the first and last one here. So maybe, this is where the ideas start, and after a while, anything that gets this green new project label, I wanna move it up over here.

But what if I have a long list of these? I don't wanna do it one at a time. That's why I've got my Move Approved button. So let me click that button here. You'll see it down below. Sometimes it'll be a quick screen, Butler telling you what's happening. (gasps) Oh, they're gone. Those cards have been moved from the Ideas list, and here they are at the bottom of my Projects list. Exactly what I wanted it to happen by using that board button.

Let's go back into Butler and look at the last two options here. Now it's hard to give them an example because they're both date-related.

The first one is a Calendar Command, and what this has to do with is when you want something to perform on a particular day of the week, or day of the month, something that's gonna happen on a regular basis. So in this example, I've created a calendar event that says, "Every month on the 1st, archive all the cards in the list 'Complete'." And this is probably a pretty good example, because for many of us, often we will have a complete, or a finished, or a done list, and this just accumulates a large number of cards. So maybe once in a while, you want Butler to automatically archive those cards. Well, on the first of the month, that's exactly what's gonna happen here. Everything in this list is going to be archived. And of course, you choose the timeframe, you create the buttons, you create how you want to customize that rule.

Last but not least, we have Due Date. And this is different than Calendar because it's basing everything on the due date of the card. So in this example rule, I've created something that says, "On the Sunday before a card is due, add the red 'Urgent' label to the card." So that means every weekend, before a card is due, it's gonna add this red Urgent label, only to those cards that have a due date in that coming week.

I'd love to hear from you next. What types of automation will you be creating, and how much time is this gonna be saving you? Because ever since I've started using Butler, I have saved so much time working with others and working within my Trello boards. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

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Are you frustrated with the ability to organize all of your notes within Google Keep? Or perhaps you're relatively new to Keep Notes and you don't fully understand the power of labels, reminders, and notes.

Well, in today's video, I want to show you how to get so much more out of Google Keep, and it all starts with archive. One of the most frustrating things with Google Keep is that every new note you create ends up here on the note home screen or the note home page. Even if you add labels, you can see that all of my notes here—I've got things like work, family, volunteer, personal—they're all labeled, but they all remain here on the home screen. Yes, I can go over here to the left and click on family, and there's my family note, but I don't necessarily want it in two places. I don't want it amongst dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of notes here on the Google Keep home screen.

Well, in order to clean this area up and make it more manageable, what we're going to do is start archiving some of our notes. Now here's a quick keyboard shortcut for you. If you'd like to archive your notes quickly and easily, all you need to do is select the E key on your keyboard.

So for this first one here, I'm gonna hit the E key, I'm gonna hover over it, and I'm going to hit E on my keyboard, and there it goes into archive. I'm going to take this next one, hover over E, I'm gonna hit this one, hit E. It's immediately gonna go into archive.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "Scott, I still want to search for these notes. I still want to interact with these notes." No worries. They haven't been deleted. They haven't gone away. Yes, you can click on the archive folder and see where they are, but if we look at this new office design, for example, it's labeled work. I can go to my work label and it's still there. It tells me it's in the archive, but it's still there.

Let's go back to that notes home screen for an example. I'm gonna hit E here, here, and here. Now my note screen is completely free for new notes. I can use this for processing new information. Maybe I only want to use this area for things that are due or things that I'm working on, but I can now go to my labels and all of my notes are still there. They're labeled under archive, but it has kept my notes area nice and clean.

Now we want to combine this with using reminders. Something that often a lot of people don't get as much out of when they're first using, or even if they've been using Keep for some time. So I want to take a look at an example that I set up earlier today. So this is a note. It's called review customer contract. I gave it the label work. Remember, you can use a hashtag if you want to add that label quicker than just selecting the drop-down menu here as well.

Now I'm actually gonna unarchive this because this is gonna give you an example of how this really works. You can see that at the reminder here—I set a reminder for earlier today. So this one is actually already been triggered. It's already been fired, and as a result, although it was still in archive because it had a reminder, it graduated here into my notes workspace.

Let me give you a closer example of how this works. If I go into reminders, you can see that that's not the only one that has a reminder. It's the only one that's been fired. It's the only one that's been triggered, but I've got a couple of other notes here that are due soon.

So this red one, for example. I've got a reminder for later today at 8 p.m. So if I go to my notes home screen, you can see that I've just got the one note here at the moment, but this is what's going to happen. As soon as 8 p.m. comes along, not only is this one going to move up here to the fired section within reminders, but this note is also going to appear here on my notes home screen. It's gonna appear here in due date order, right up at the front. So I can deal with it, I can review it, I can check it off. Whatever that note represents, it won't get lost. I won't have to click on reminders. I won't have to go and find it under my family label. It's going to automatically come here into the notes section, just like this work note did earlier at 10:15 a.m.

And remember, if you have desktop notifications enabled, you'll also receive a notification here on the desktop version. If you have your notifications set up on mobile, you'll also receive a notification there as well.

So let's go back to our labels 'cause I want to show you something else that may be helpful to you. You'll notice that these labels are always listed in alphabetical order. And if you have a small number of labels, like you see here, that might be okay. It's pretty easy for me to find these different labels. But what if you have many, many more? What if you have 10+? You obviously work with some labels more often than others, so here's a very quick but simple trick to help you reorder your labels.

Under edit labels what we can do is that we can put a number in front of the labels that we would like to order in a particular way. So let's say I use work more often than anything else. I'm gonna put a one in front of that. And let's say I would like my personal label to be next. So I'm gonna put a number two beside that. You don't necessarily have to number every one of your labels, but maybe there's just a few that you'd like to keep at the top of the list. I'm gonna hit done, and now you can see those labels will always appear at the beginning of this list.

So if you want to clean up your notes home screen, I would encourage you to start using the archive function. Yes, that means archiving almost every single note. Once you've decided what to do with it, set a reminder as to when you would like it to reappear. You can keep your note screen nice and clean. And remember, when that reminder is triggered, when that time comes across, it's going to graduate, not only here to the fired area, but it's also going to appear here in your notes area.

I hope you enjoyed today's video. If you have further questions or suggestions for future videos about Google Keep or other productivity tools, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. As always, I want you to remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.