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This video is designed to help you create an effective and actionable to-do list in less than five minutes. Before you begin, it's recommended that you find a quiet location to perform this exercise.

First, take out a blank piece of paper or create a new note in your favorite application. Without referencing any other list or document, write down at least three tasks that you want to complete in the next 24 hours. Ready? Go.

Next, open up your calendar and review your upcoming commitments. Look at all the events and meetings you have in the next two to three days.

Write down any additional tasks that come to mind while reviewing your schedule. Ready? Begin.

Next, open up any existing tools or reference documents you use to manage your projects. It could be an existing to-do list or a project management app.

Write down any additional tasks that come to mind while reviewing this information. Ready? Go.

Now, take a good look at everything you've written on your list. Select which item is most important to the people you serve.

For example, which task will be most beneficial to your customers, your co-workers, or your manager? Once you've identified this task, underline or highlight it in some way.

Next, select which item is most important to you. For example, which task will benefit you and your life the most?

Once you've identified this task, underline or highlight it in some other way. You've now identified the two most important tasks on your to-do list.

I encourage you to do everything in your power to complete these two tasks before you move on to anything else on your list. I hope you've enjoyed using the 5-minute to-do list.

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

Apps, apps, and even more apps. There are so many different productivity apps for you and I to choose from.

So today I wanted to take a moment and share with you some of my essential apps, some of the apps that I use every single day. And maybe if I don't use them daily, I use them at the very least four or five times a week.

Google Keep

So let's get things started with my note app of choice, and that is Google Keep. This is where most of my new ideas start out.

This is where I take my notes when I'm in a meeting or if I'm on a phone call. This is usually where things begin their lives, whether it's a checklist that I'm creating, whether I want to annotate an image or something of the like, this is usually where my great ideas and a lot of my poor ideas begin as well, right here in Google Keep.

Trello

But when it comes to actually accomplishing my tasks and managing my personal projects, I'm typically in Trello. I love the visual layout of Trello, that I can drag things easily left, right, and reorder everything in my list.

Of course, I do a lot of collaboration when it comes to using Trello as well, but if I'm not using Trello with others, I'm often using Asana. Asana, a very powerful project management tool.

Asana

Great for collaborating with other team members or people that you're working on a project with. And I get a lot of questions about which is better, Scott? Is Trello better than Asana or do you prefer Asana over Trello?

And my answer is that it really comes down to what you are working on. The type of project that you're working on, along with the type of people that you may be working with.

Whether it's Trello or whether it's Asana, usually on a daily basis I'm in one of these two apps. Now next up I wanna touch on some of my add-ons or some of the extensions that I use on a daily basis.

Boomerang

The first one I wanna talk about is called Boomerang. Now Boomerang is available for both Gmail and Outlook users, and what Boomerang does is it gives your email some super powers.

As we can see in this example here, Boomerang actually gives you some additional buttons and some additional functionality. So for example, you can send your email in the future.

You can also have an email returned to you if the person that you sent it to has not yet replied within a specific timeframe. Boomerang has actually added a lot of additional functionality as well.

Here you can see their respondable feature here, which shows the likelihood that someone is going to actually reply to your email. But at its very basic functionality, I love the ability of following a reply or making sure that someone replies to my email within a specific amount of time.

Assistant

Now the next one on my list is also email related and it is called Assistant.to. And this has become absolutely essential as I'm scheduling meetings with others and trying to find the ideal meeting time.

I absolutely hate having to go back and forth and back and forth, trying to find the best time to meet. You know what I'm talking about.

You wanna set up a meeting with someone so you say, well how about Tuesday and they say no, I can't do Tuesday. Well how about the Wednesday after that? No, I've got a commitment.

Back and forth and back and forth. What Assistant.to does is it allows you to give that other individual available times in your schedule, and then all they have to do is pick which time works for them.

And then a meeting is automatically created. You don't even have to go and create or set up that meeting in an additional email or an additional invitation.

Assistant.to does it all for you. So this has become incredibly powerful for my business.

I love using this application to set up meetings with other individuals. Now the next extension is something that you've probably heard of before and that is called Grammarly.

Grammarly

Now there was a period of time where I was receiving an awful lot of Grammarly advertisements. Especially here on YouTube and I was wondering if my cookies or if my web browsing activity was showing that I was using poor grammar.

So I thought I'd give Grammarly a try and I'm sure glad that I did. Grammarly is an extension for your web browser and what it does is it tracks and takes a look at all the text that you write while you're online.

And if it sees something out of place, and we're talking more than just spelling. Yes, Grammarly does look at spelling, but it specifically looks at grammar to see are you using words in the proper tense, should you have added an apostrophe there or not, and it's been fantastic.

You might be surprised at how good or how poor your grammar is when you are writing online. So it doesn't matter if you're using email, if you're filling out a form, if you're writing in a document online, Grammarly comes into play in all of those areas.

And I've come to rely on it. It's just a great friend to help me write better as I'm doing my work online.

Take a Break

Now next up are two applications that are related to time. The first one is the Scirocco Take a Break timer.

Now this is a desktop timer. This one in particular is only for PC users.

Now I know there's an awful lot of timers available out there if you're looking for something to track your time or just to be a countdown clock for your computer, but to tell you the truth I haven't done a lot of reviews or further research because I've been using take a break for so long, and it just works. It just does exactly what I want it to do.

I can set it for any time length that I want and then I minimize the window. It goes away.

It's not visible in any way. I can focus exclusively on the project or the task that I want to, and when that time is up, this little dialogue box will appear on my screen.

You can add a chime or other visual indicators if you like but just the basic functionality I find is fantastic. So this is a part of my daily routine is making use of the Take a Break timer.

Timer

You can of course do further research and find a timer that works for you or works for your particular system. But this list would not be complete if I didn't mention one other timer, and that's the timer that sits on my phone.

And I don't use anything special. I'm an Android user currently and I'm just using the basic clock app.

I'm just using the timer built in to this app. This isn't even something that you need to go looking for or install something new.

We all have a clock app pre-installed on our phones. It all has a timer function.

And this can be a great way, again, to achieve greater focus. I will often just set the timer for a certain amount of time, put my phone back into my pocket, and then I can focus exclusively on that task or on that conversation, whatever it is I'm doing.

And when my timer goes off I can reevaluate. Should I continue to do this or should I move on to something new?

CardStar

Now, two more apps left in my list. The next one also has to do when I am out and often doing errands, whether I'm shopping or even if I'm checking in at my local library.

This app is called CardStar, and what CardStar does is it stores all of your loyalty cards within your phone. But it does more than just loyalty cards.

Basically any type of card that has a barcode it can capture. So I use this for my parks and recreation card, if I wanna go swimming or use the gym I can use the app and it just scans my barcode.

When I'm at the library I don't only have my own library card, I actually have my entire family's library cards on here. So if I need to check out a book that my wife has placed on hold, she doesn't need to be there physically.

I can just use her library card and check out that book on her behalf. So I love this app because I hate carrying around with me other loyalty cards.

I hate carrying around additional cards that I don't really need to be on me at all times. So CardStar allows me to store that digitally on my phone, and then I can use it whenever I need it.

And the very last app on my list today, some of you may say is not really a productivity app because it's actually an exercise app. But I would disagree that it's not a productivity app.

I think I am much more productive, in fact I know that I am much more productive when I start my day with exercise. And although my exercise of choice is running, if it happens to be pouring rain outside or maybe I'm traveling and I didn't bring my running shoes with me, I'm going to the 7 Minute Workout app.

Now there's actually many different 7 Minute Workout apps available to you, so if you do a search you'll probably find a list of a dozen or so. But yes, it's a very efficient workout because you're taking only seven minutes.

But you actually don't need any other equipment as well. You don't need any dumbbells, you don't need anything special to accomplish these tasks, and yet you will still work up a mild sweat.

No it's not a very intense workout, but you are doing interval training. You're doing your best or you're working your hardest on particular exercises for 30 seconds.

So a great way to start your day, I think it directly impacts the productivity of my day. So there is my list of my 10 essential apps.

I wanna hear from you now. What would you put on your list of essential productivity apps?

What are some apps that you absolutely can't live without? I'd love for you to share that with me and to share it with others in the comments below.

Thank you so much for watching today. If you haven't already subscribed to the Simpletivity channel, I would encourage

you to do so.

Be sure to give it a like and yes, share with me down below your favorite productivity apps. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

when working with Trello have you ever wished that you could make a connection

between one or more cards have you ever said to yourself I wish I could connect

this card with that card over there and show some type of relationship or maybe

even a card which exists on a different board well today I want to show you three different ways on how you can make that connection between different cards including a recent new feature in Trello which makes this so much easier and also

very visually appealing so let's start

Traditional Method

with the traditional method I'm going to open up this card and at the bottom of

every trouble card you will see that there is a share and more area every single Trello card comes with a unique URL so here you see I have a link to this card area and if I copy this if I just copy this URL to my clipboard I'm gonna close this card I can go over here

Alternative Method

To a different card, I'm going to open up this one and I'm going to paste it into the description.

Now at this point, it looks like just the nasty sort of complicated URL here, but once I hit save, Trello recognizes that it is a Trello card. It gives it the Trello icon and now we can see it in its natural state.

We can see the actual title of that Trello card so it sort of stands out from everything else on this screen. When I click it, it'll take me directly to that Trello card.

That's great. However, you will notice that we actually haven't made a link between the two. All I've done at this stage is I've added a link to this card over here so I can access this card over here.

So I've got sort of a one-way link between the cards. Let's take a look at another way in which we can make a connection.

In the comments section of a Trello card, you can see that we have four different icons. We have the ability to add an attachment. We can mention different members on this board. We can add emojis, and the last one allows us to add cards.

If I select this option, we get a new dialog that comes up, and we can either search for a card or a board by name, or Trello will also show us the most recent cards and the most recent boards that we have looked at.

So this can be very convenient. In this case, let's find the one that we were just in. This is that "create a new product for small business customers" where we've created that link to this card.

So in this case, I'm going to select that one. It's gonna bring it into the comment section and of course I can add further comments if I like, but in this example, I'm just gonna hit save.

Once again, Trello converts it so we have the Trello icon and we have the title of the card. So now I can click on this and go directly to that card and here's that previous link that we created. I can now click on it and go back.

So now we've created a bit more of a relationship. Right now we can go back and forth directly between these two cards. But there's an even better and even easier way in doing this.

If we click on the attachment button, Trello has recently added a new feature. Now you're familiar with adding attachments from your computer or other file sharing services, but now you see we have a Trello option.

So if we click on Trello, we get the same dialog that we saw before. We can either search for a card or a different board, or we can select some of our recent ones. In this case, I'm going to select this "look into buying more storage" card here.

I'm going to select this one and look at what happens this time. This time under the attachments area, I actually get a snapshot of that card. I get the title, I get the due date, and any other icons that would appear on the front of that card will also show here.

It also shows me which board it is in and what list it is in, all directly here from within my card. So if I click on this, I'm going to go directly to that card.

Now we've yet to make an actual linkage between the two. So I'm just going to hit the back button here for a second. Let's go back to this card where we've attached that card.

This is where this "connect cards" link comes into play. So if we want to create an actual link between the cards, I'm going to select this option and it's asking me do you want to relate both cards?

Would you like to also attach "reorganize social media images" to this other card? I'm going to say yes. I'm going to click the "relate both cards" button and now I've got this type of attachment.

I've got a true linkage between the two cards. If I select this, it's going to take me to this card and here you can see this is where we've just come from. I can actually toggle back and forth between these two cards.

You will also notice on the front of the card there is a new icon. These are Trello attachments and these differ from traditional attachments which are identified by the paperclip.

Now this number one just references the number of attachments. It doesn't mean that these are necessarily the two that are related because we could attach or we could create a link with cards outside of this board.

We don't have to just create these connections within the board we're working with. So let's go back to this one. I'm going to show you another example where I can actually attach a board itself.

This time I'm going to come down here and select this board and now you can see I get a new image, this time representing a board. So if I click on that, I can go directly to that Trello board.

If I come to the front of the card now, we see that that number has increased to two because I do now have two Trello attachments.

So if you have not yet experimented with Trello attachments, I would encourage you to take them out for a test and see how they can help you to be more efficient and productive while using Trello.

I want to thank you so much for watching today's video. If you enjoyed today's tutorial, be sure to give this video a like, leave me a comment, and subscribe right here to some.

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

If you're an Asana user, you're probably familiar with the board's view or at the very least you've tried out the board's view within Asana.

Now, this look and feel of Asana has been available for a little while now, and when it was first released, it was really a direct response to Trello and the popularity of the Kanban style of moving things through a list or moving things through a variety of vertical columns.

But one of the most requested features to Asana is the ability to convert a board into a list or vice versa, a typical Asana project into a board. However, that is not yet possible, and when you go to create a new project in Asana, you have to make that distinction.

Is it going to be a traditional list, or are you going to use a board?

Well, today I want to show you two ways in which you can use your boards with your lists. One, which I think is the ideal way to get the most out of boards here in Asana, and then number two, I want to show you a workaround, so if you'd like to view your tasks in both a board view and a list view, I'm going to show you how to do that as well.

Now, I think the real strength of the real power in boards is getting that high-level view, and you can see in the example board that I have here, I'm actually using the columns as months of the year.

So, in this case, I'm wanting to plan things out for the first part of next year. So, you know, I've added some images just to make it a little more visually appealing for myself and my team, and you know I like getting this high-level view when I'm looking at my projects or my big goals.

You know, maybe that new office manager I need that person sooner than I think, so I'm going to drag that over here. But how does this incorporate with my other projects, with my other lists?

Well, what I like to do is that often I will take a task in here, and here's my big project: "Develop new online course," and I may have attachments, I may have some detailed notes, and so forth.

But one other thing that I've done here is that I've copied the link to this actual Asana project and I've put it right here in the description field. So when I click this link, I'm actually going directly to my Asana project, which is titled "Online Course."

So none of these tasks are actually connected to that board in any way, but as I'm browsing, as I'm looking at this board view, I can quickly go because many of us, of course, have a lot more projects than maybe just the ten or so that you see here.

Instead of trying to sift through or using the search feature, I can quickly go to that project. Let's say if I'm in the conference proposal, I can select that link and just go directly to that project.

So how do you find that URL if you are wanting to do the same thing? Well, go to any of your Asana list projects, click on the drop-down arrow in the title, and you can say "Copy project URL," and then when you create a task here in the board's view, you can simply just paste that into the description field.

Now you've got a link right back to that project. Again, I think a lot of applications like Trello or anything Kanban-based like the board's view here in Asana are very helpful for high-level planning, but perhaps when you come into the actual details of your list or your project, you may still want to prefer the traditional list view here in Asana.

So secondly, what I want to take a look at is how can we replicate this project or replicate all of these tasks in a board view? What if I want a board view here?

So here I've got my traditional list. I've titled it "Online Course," and I've actually added a second one down below here. And what you may notice is that I actually have the exact same items here as I do on this project here.

So how did I do that? How can I have both a board view, where I have this to-do, in-progress, complete, and how do I have this traditional view here as well?

Well, of course, in Asana, your tasks can be assigned to more than just one project. That's one of the great features of Asana is that not only can this be assigned to the online course, it can be assigned to multiple areas as well.

So if I click on this, you will notice that it is actually assigned to everything here as well. So if you want to do that, you can do this with any project that you like.

Create a board, and in this case, I've just given it the exact same name, but in parentheses, I've labeled it as the board view so I know the difference between the two.

And then, when it comes to all of your tasks in your list, simply select the first task, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, and select the last one. And in that case, you are able to assign all of those tasks to the same board.

Now, I've already done so in this particular example, but what I do want to show is that the different columns that we see here in the board view are still available to us in the list view.

So, for example, let's say I've got this "Review customer feedback survey." It's in the to-do list, but maybe it's in progress now. So I'm going to drag it over here to in progress.

Now, if I go back to the list view, maybe this is my more preferred view, let's take a look at that particular task. You will see that it's actually telling me where it is; it's in the in-progress state.

And if I want to change that, I can do that from this view as well. Maybe I'm working away and I've completed this particular task, I can say "complete," and now when I go back to my board view, it's exactly where I want it to be; it's in the complete list.

So here you can see I've got this linkage between the two. Yes, they are technically two separate projects, but everything within them is exactly the same. These are not copies of those tasks; this is not just a duplicate. This is the actual same task that we see here in the list view.

Now, the one caveat of this method is that, yes, I don't have the section headers in this list view. You will see that I don't have things like "to-do" or "in progress" or "complete." I don't have that in this view here. I could add those section headers if I want, but they will not relate to that board view at all.

But if I am working with this task, "Call support team," you know what, maybe that wasn't actually completed. Maybe we need to go back and select "in progress," and now when I go to my board view, there it is; it's made that change.

It is equated to the exact same list.

So if you are wanting to get the best of both worlds, both the list view in Asana but also the board view, the Kanban style of managing your projects, you can do so. Just create a duplicate of your project, start with creating a blank board without any tasks, and then go to that desired task and you can select all of them and then also add it to that board.

Now, of course, when you are adding new tasks, you're going to want to remember to add that board as well if you want it to appear in both places.

But because of all the other information that you're probably already adding to that task, that's probably not too much to ask, is to add that and making sure that it's added to that board as well.

I hope you found this video helpful, and if you enjoyed today's tutorial, I would encourage you to give this video a like, leave me a comment in the description below, and be sure to subscribe right here to Simpletivity.

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

Google Keep is a fantastic tool for capturing all of those notes and ideas. All those thoughts that pop up throughout the day. And I know a lot of users really appreciate the layout of Google Keep.

It is very simple. It's not nearly as full-featured as some other note-taking applications out there, but it's very visual, and many people like the sort of large sticky note feel of Google Keep.

Well, today I wanna show you five additional ways in which you can use Google Keep, or five things that you may not know about Google Keep so you can enhance your experience.

Now, of course, Google Keep at its core is a note-taking application, but Keep can also be a fantastic to-do list.

So you can always drag your notes along.

Todo Lists

If you want to reprioritize and order which way you're going to tackle your to-dos, each note could be a separate to-do. One of the ways that I like to manage to-dos within Google Keep is by using the pin note feature.

So, let's say that these first two, these ones in yellow, are the ones that I wanna tackle before anything else. I can simply select the pin icon here, and they're always gonna be at the top of my list.

As I go about my day, I can be reminded of what's most important. And sure, I may have other things that I need to get to, but this can be a great way of prioritizing your list.

But, of course, there's other ways in which you can keep a to-do list within Google Keep as well. A very easy one is by creating a checklist.

So I'm just gonna call this "To-Do List," and immediately I can start adding items. I've gotta call Sam today. I wanna email tickets to the client. I want to review the marketing report.

Very easy. Very quick to add your items here within a checklist.

And another bonus of the checklist within Google Keep is that I don't have to open up the note to access it and check things off. Even in this standard view, I can start checking things off of my to-do list.

So a very functional to-do list, whether you're working with the desktop version or the mobile version.

My second tip for you is to use location-based reminders, and I'm gonna show you how that works.

Now, you may be already familiar with adding a reminder to a note in Google Keep. Usually, when we think of reminders, we think of date-based reminders.

So if I click the reminder icon, I can choose later today, tomorrow. I can pick a specific date and time, but at the very end, we have "Pick place."

Now, the great thing about a location-based reminder—in this case, my task is to buy some ink toner for my printer—I'm gonna say "Pick a place," because I know that I'm going to get that at my local Staples store. So here it is. I'm gonna select that Staples store. It is now added to that note.

And you're probably thinking, well, what's so great about that? I mean, you've got the address there. You've got the name of the store. So what?

Well, the great thing is that now, when I am close to this address, when I am close to this store, I'm gonna get a location-based reminder. I'm gonna get a notification on my smartphone.

So if I'm driving by, if I am within a couple of blocks, maybe I happen to go into the store two stores down, I am gonna get a reminder: "Hey, you need to buy ink toner for your printer, and the store is right here." You're very close to the store.

So choosing a location-based reminder can be a great way to be reminded not just by date or time, but when you are in proximity to that location.

Sharing Notes

Now, the third thing that I love about Google Keep is the ability to share my notes with others. And I'm gonna take a look at this one as an example.

Let me drag this one over to the left. "Conference Items to Purchase." Let's say that you and your team are about to set off on a conference next weekend, but you've got a number of things that you need to purchase, right?

You're gonna be showcasing some products or services. You wanna have things prepared for your booth. So you've got a number of items here. Some things you might find at, like, an office store. Other things, like pink socks—I don't think you're gonna find those at Staples. Maybe you want the entire team in pink socks.

Extension cords. Where are you gonna find all of this information? Well, in this case, I've decided to share this note, and you can share by adding a collaborator here.

And the great thing about sharing a note is that not only do we both have access to this, but as I start to pick up things, as I start to purchase these items—maybe I've done the first two: the poster board and the duct tape—they will see these changes happen immediately.

So they will know that they don't need to worry about these items, and maybe this person happens to be at a clothing store, and they've picked up the pink socks.

So we can both be updated at the exact same time.

In my personal life, I actually use this with my wife. We use a Google Note as our shopping list because who knows who's gonna be the next one at the grocery store?

So we both have access to add items to the grocery list, and also check them off as we purchase them.

Annotations

Now, the fourth thing I want to show you today has to do with images and when you have pictures within your Google Note.

A lot of people don't realize that you can make annotations to the images here. So, in this case, I've got a note that's titled "Webinar Cover Image Idea." And maybe I'm collaborating with others, maybe we want to review this particular image.

Well, if I click on the image once again, not only do I get a full-scale version, not only do I get a large version of it, but in the top right-hand corner, there's an annotation button. There's an annotation icon.

So, if I click this, now suddenly I can start to make drawings on this item. At the top, I'm gonna choose a red color, and maybe I want to say, you know, "This is great." I'm gonna underline that word, and I can write over here, you know, "This is great. I really like that."

Maybe I want to cross off this period and say, you know, "I don't like that. I think we should remove that over there." I can highlight. Of course, I can always go back and remove these annotations as well.

But if I like them, I'm just gonna go back. I'm gonna click outside and hit "Done." And now my annotations have remained with that image. Now I can remember the notes that I made. I can share that with others, and we can go ahead and design the best cover image for this project.

So any note that you have with an image, click on it one more time, and then in the top right-hand corner, you can click that annotation icon, and then you can start making drawings, making notes directly on that image.

Voice Recording

Now, lastly, I want to show you something that, again, is an underused feature I find within many note-taking apps, and that is the ability to take voice-recorded notes.

Now, you're not capable of doing this within the desktop version, but you are able to do it on your smartphone or mobile device, and here's an example right here.

In the bottom left-hand corner, I've got this note, and it says, "I just had this great idea for a blog post: How to stop snoring even if their partner enjoys hearing it?"

And you may say, well, you know, nothing is capitalized here; you don't have a period. That's because this was translated directly from my voice note. You'll see there's actually a little play button here.

So if I open up this note, I can actually select the play button. I can listen to that note if I want to, I can choose to download the audio if I want to as well, but the great thing about voice narration is that it transcribes it for you automatically. Immediately.

So you have that quick thought—what's going to be quicker? Taking out your smartphone and using your thumbs to type in a few sentences, or hitting the record button? And not only do you get the audio recording, the original audio recording, but you also get it translated directly for you as well.

So those are my five additional ways on how you can get the most out of Google Keep.

Now, I'd love to hear from you. What are some of your best tips when it comes to using Google Keep? Are you using some of these five? Or are you using something additional? Maybe something that someone else would like to learn from as well?

As always, thanks so much for watching, and if you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And be sure to subscribe right here to Simpletivity.

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

hello everyone Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity

and if you're already a subscriber here to the Simpletivity channel

you know that my greatest desire is to help you simplify your work life

I want you to spend as little time on the insignificant things so you can spend more time on your most important work

and you know just recently I received a great question in my last live webinar

I received a question about consolidating email addresses

specifically this person was asking about how she could combine two different Gmail accounts

two different Google accounts so she could only deal with a single account

so today we're gonna be looking at how we can consolidate our email so we only have to deal with one email account here within Gmail

now what I have set up is I've got two test accounts

I've got this light-coloured account here

and if I click on the tab at the top

I've got this darker, there's a blue shaded account here

so the goal in this example is that we don't want to have to come back to this account ever again

we want everything that comes in to this second email account

we want it to arrive here in the first email account

but we also want to go one step beyond

when we reply to the forwarded email from the email that is intended for this account

when this email comes in to the first account

we want to be able to reply from this account as well

now the steps that I'm going to be showing you are going to be specific to receiving and replying to emails within Gmail

but this second account doesn't necessarily need to be a Gmail account

it could be an Outlook account

it could be some other email service

so again the goal is that we want to never ever come back to this account

we want to deal with all of our email here

and again you may be managing multiple email addresses

you may have personal email

a business email

you may have a separate organization or some other board or some other service that you provide volunteer hours

you want to be able to deal with that in a single email address

you don't have to bounce around to multiple accounts

so the first thing that we need to do

let's go to the second email address

this is the one that we want to essentially forget

we never want to come back here again

we want to go to settings

we're gonna click on settings

and we want to go to the forwarding area

forwarding and POP/IMAP is what it's called here in Gmail

and at the very top we have forwarding

and I want to select add a forwarding address

pretty simple right

I just need to enter in the address that I want my future emails to go to

so this is the address of my test account

this is the light-coloured Gmail account

I'm going to select next

it's going to give me a little dialog box

you want to proceed

yes that's the right address

I'm going to say proceed

and it's gonna say that a confirmation code has been sent to verify permission

I'm gonna say okay

let's see if we've received that

so let's go back to the initial email address

and yes here is that email

and it looks a little complicated here

but essentially it says to allow this second address to automatically forward mail to your address

please click this link to confirm

I'm going to select that link

do you want to confirm that mail from this address will go to your address number one

and I'm going to say yes confirm

perfect confirmation success

so now that is set up with my first email address here

now we do want to go back to this address just for a moment

now you'll see that nothing has actually changed on this screen

if we come out of the dialog box and then go back in

let's go back to settings

and once again we want to select the forwarding and POP/IMAP section

now you will see I have two radio buttons

so now disabled forwarding is set up by default

we need to come back into here and say yes

please forward a copy of incoming mail to this address

this is the one that we just confirmed Scott F test one

and the second option we have is what we want to do with the mail that is going to remain here in the second address

now you have a few different options

I usually say just keep Gmail's copy in the inbox

but if you want, you can mark them as read

you can archive them

you can delete what is happening here in this address that we are about to say goodbye to

or maybe a better way to put it is that we're just going to ignore it going forward

because we're gonna be dealing with it in our first email address

I'm gonna leave it at the initial one here keep Gmail's copy in the inbox

so we're gonna forward it to that new address

be sure to select Save Changes

and then at the very top of your screen you'll notice that it gives us a warning notification

you are forwarding your email to this address

this notice will end in seven days

so for the first week it will remind you

if you do happen to come in here and log into this account

it's gonna let you know that it's forwarding email to this address

but eventually this warning will go away

so let's test it out

okay let's go to a third email address

so now we have things set up

let's make sure it's working properly

so I'm going to go to a different email address

and I'm going to craft a new email

so let's send an email to this is the one

this is the one that we want to forget

remember this is my second email address

so I'm sending it to this address but it should appear in my first Gmail address

I'm going to say hi did you get this

okay we won't put anything in the description area

I'm going to select send

so first off let's go to the old address or the one that we want to ignore

so of course we received it here right

this is where we sent it to

we sent it to this second address

but we don't want to have to look for our messages here anymore

so let's go back to our primary email address

and look at that it showed up as we have set it up

perfect exactly this is exactly what we want happening

we don't want to have to go here anymore

we want those emails to come back here

it's been sent to this address

it's showing us as two different addresses here just because I happen to use exact same subject line and from the exact same email client

otherwise it would just be an individual email

so don't let that confuse you

so this is perfect

this is exactly what we want happening

everything that is now being sent to this email address will automatically come to my primary address here

but I do want to show you one other step that's going to be most helpful

because to complete this process

when you go to reply to this email

you don't want to reply from email address number one

what if email address number one is your personal address

and email address number two was your business address

you don't want your replies looking like it's coming from your personal account

so what do we have to do there

okay so we're now in our primary email address account

we're going to go into settings

and what we want to select here is accounts and import

and about the third option down you will see is send mail as

now of course by default the first one is our actual email address right

this is the real email address that we use here

but now that we've got things coming in from this second email address

we want to add another email address

so click this link

we get a new dialog box

so now we get to select the name of that new one right

so this is going to be our second email address

this is that new email address

and let's enter it in

this is Scott F test two at gmail.com

we want to leave this checkbox checked

treat as an alias

it's important that we leave that checked

and we'll get a select next step

now before you can send mail as this person as this email address

we need to verify it with that email address

so let's say send verification

and it's going to tell us that we actually have two options here

so it has sent that verification

we're going to go check that

we can either click on the link in the confirmation or enter the confirmation code

so if I move this dialog box out of the way

let's go back to email address number two

okay here is that confirmation that we received here

and we are going to select the link

there is a confirmation code

so I could paste that in

but I'm just going to select the link

cuz it's right in front of me here

so I'm gonna say yes

I'm giving it permission

before you can send mail from this address using the first address

please click the link

I'm gonna select the link

please confirm

I'm going to say confirm

and it says confirmation success

so if I still have this other dialog box open

I can now close that because I've done this first option

I've confirmed using the link

so I'm gonna close that

I don't think it gives us any other information here in terms of a new email in the second one

if we go back to the first one here

you can see look at that a second one has been added

last time we were here we only saw the first one

now we have that second email address

oh now it says that it's unverified

so let's go back to yes

so we just received this in our second email account

we need to confirm that as well right

so I'm going to click that link there

and I'm gonna say confirm

the Gmail user may now send mail as Scott F test

• perfect perfect

okay so let's go back here

and I think the only reason why this is still saying unverified is that you'll see there's not a Save button on this particular page

so if we go back out

I'm just gonna click on inbox for a second

and go back to this email

I have to confirm it on this side as well

so I'm going to click that link

please confirm that you'll send mail or send email as this address

I'm going to say confirm

confirmation success

okay so now this is again

this is our primary email address

let's go back into settings

let's click on accounts and import

and there we go

now we have both of them listed

we saw them they're listed already

but the thing that I wanted to point out is that you have the choice as to which will be your default

and in this case I'm going to leave email address number one

what that means is that when you go to compose or create a brand new email

it's which one is that

which email address do you want to compose by default

which one do you want to pop up automatically

you can always change it and I'll show you that in just a minute

but I'm going to leave that one there

but the second thing I want to show you here is that when replying to a message

we want to select this reply from the same address the message was sent to

you could choose this one so that all of your replies come from Scott F test one

but that's not what we want

if something is sent to email address number two

I want to reply so they think that they're still dealing with me at email address number two

so I'm gonna select that radio button there

and now let's do one other test here

I'm gonna go back to my second email address here

again I want to send something to my test to account

this is the one that we want to ignore

and I'm just gonna say hello with an exclamation mark

I'm going to send it

and so it should appear right

it should appear here

perfectly

and here it appears in my old or the one that I want to ignore going forward

there's where it is

it should also appear

yes of course it's appeared right there perfectly

now what I want to show you is that it's telling me that it was sent to my second email address

it's always gonna let me know that

but when I go to click reply

and let me click here

look at that

now I'm replying as if I was replying to that message directly from this email account here

so it is set up perfectly

this is exactly what we want

now going forward I no longer need to log into this account ever again

unless I want to make some very specific changes or settings

I can just deal with that email right here within my first email account

and the last thing I want to show you in the settings area is that you can have two different signatures

so here in your email signature here is my email address number one signature

I can have a separate email signature for my second email address

so again it's gonna look seamless

it's going to feel seamless as I'm dealing with that email

I hope that you found this helpful

I hope that you will look at ways that you can consolidate your email

so you can spend less time logging into multiple different accounts

and instead deal with as much email as possible in a single email account

thank you so much for watching and please be sure to LIKE and subscribe right here to Simpletivity

remember being productive does not need to be difficult

in fact, it's very simple

Trello gives us so many different and flexible ways to manage our projects

manage our tasks

and manage our teams

but you know what

once in a while you say to yourself I wish Trello could do this

or if only Trello could do that

well today I want to share with you a Power-Up which is going to give you some special features

going to give you some extra special enhancements

and that particular Power-Up is called Butler

now to enable your Power-Ups

you're going to need to go to your menu

select Power-Ups

and you'll get your full list

now Butler

it's in alphabetical order

so Butler is near the top

here is Butler for you to enable it

and again remember if you are using a free or basic version of Trello

you are only able to use one Power-Up at a time

now once you've enabled the

Butler Interface

Butler Power-Up

you're going to see a little link here in the top right-hand corner

so let me click on Butler and show you what the interface looks like

now it looks a little busy here

but the first thing I want to point out here in this Butler dialog is that we have two tabs at the top

you can create special card buttons or board buttons

so what we are going to be doing

we're going to be looking at creating some customized tasks

some customized moves within Trello

and you can either do that at the card level

so you can add some special buttons directly to your Trello cards

or you can add some board buttons which are also gonna appear right next to the Butler link

now in today's tutorial

I'm gonna focus on board buttons because I know there's a number of us who want to know how we can sort our tasks

right

how can we sort the cards within our lists

and how can we move a large number of cards to another list or even to another board

so I'm going to select on board buttons and at the bottom

I'm going to select create a new button

and here we

Create Board Button

have an interface which may look a little intimidating at first

but let me walk you through it

so in this case what we want to do is sort our list

and I know there's so many of you who have requested this from Trello

right

why can I sort things by label

why can't I sort things by due date within my Trello lists

well Butler gives you that capability

so the first thing we're gonna want to do is give our board button a name

and in this case I'm going to say sort task list

it is going to be specific to this list

so that's why I've included tasks in this case

so I'd give my button a name

and next we can select an icon

now these icons here are just for aesthetics

right

they have no powers in terms of what they can do

in this case since it's a sort task

I'm just going to keep it with the default gear icon

and then when we come down

Sort a List

below

we've got four different action options

so this first one has to do with creating new cards

the next one has to do with creating new lists

this one has to do with moving cards

and I'm going to get to that one in a second example

but the last one here is the one we want

this is the ability to sort a particular list

so I'm going to select this action

and then it gives us some predetermined templates down below where we can make some options

now in this example of sorting a list

I'm going to use this first one

so I want to sort the cards in list

anything that is a white box you can make selections in

so I'm going to choose which list

in this case I want it to be my tasks list

I want to sort it by due date

but look at all the other options I have

I can sort it by title alphabetically

I can sort it by votes

I could sort by how old the card is or how long it's been in that particular list

in this case I want to keep it with due date

I'm going to select ascending

and I'm going to add the or I'm going to select the plus button here

now at the top it gives me sort of a brief summary of what I've selected

sort the cards in list tasks by due date ascending

yes that's exactly what I want

so I'm going to select the Save button

and now I'm brought back to my board buttons tab

and this is what it's going to look like

this sort task list

in fact in the background I can already see it up here

I've got this new link

so I'm going to close this Butler dialog

and here in the top I have my sort task list link

now before I select it

I want to show you what my task list looks like

here I have several different tasks

several different cards each with different due dates

and you can see it's in a bit of a random order

right

it's certainly not in chronological order

and you may have a list which is much much lengthier

much much longer than this

and they all have due dates

or maybe they have different labels

or you'd like to sort them in some way

well we're gonna do it in just a single click with this Butler button that I've selected

I'm going to select it

you can see down below I get a new dialog telling me that it's running

and look at that

instantly or in just a few seconds

it has sorted my entire list by due date from soonest to the one that I have furthest out

so I've got this great handy button which I can select at any time

right

I can make changes

let's push this one back to the top just so we can see it one more time

you know I'm going to sort of change the order again

I'll get a select sort task list

and there we

Move Labels

go

we are back to our chronological order

so Butler very very powerful in making these types of changes

let's take a look at another example

I'm again

I'm gonna open up Butler

and I'm gonna go back to my board buttons

I'm actually gonna just delete this one for a moment

I am just using the free version of Butler for this example

and you'll notice free plans are limited to just one button of each type

so if I go to create a new button

it's gonna tell me you need to upgrade if you want more

so I'm just gonna delete this one for a moment

I'm gonna say yes

and I'm going to create a new board button

in this case I want to move a number of my cards to a different list

you probably have a list where you're using labels of some sort

and they mean different things

but at some point in time you'd like to move everything that has a particular label to a different list

and it takes so long to just click and drag

click and drag

click and drag

especially if you have a very long list

well let's make it a lot easier

so in this case I'm gonna say move approved

or yeah

I'm gonna say move approved in this case

because I'm gonna say that everything that's green in my notes list

I'm indicating that that's approved

and I want to move that to my projects list

so I'm gonna call it move approved

this time I'm going to choose a different icon

I'm gonna check the thumbs up icon

that I've given it the thumbs up

and I want to move it over

now I'm going to come back down to selecting an action

and in this case I'm going to select this one with the two arrows

you remember last time we selected the sort action

I want to select this move action here

now there's a few different options

quite a few different options here

the one that I'm going to select is down near the bottom

move all the cards with a

and yes you can choose which label you want

in this case I want green

with the green

and if there is something specific in terms of the label name

you can include it here

I don't have anything specific right now

so I'm going to leave that blank

and I want to move it to the

let's see

yeah

let's move it to the bottom of the list

you can choose a few different options here

just the list

or top

bottom

at the bottom of the list

and I want to move it to my projects list

okay

so I've got everything set up here that I like

I'm gonna hit the plus button

with just like we saw before

it's gonna give us a brief summary before we save it

so this is exactly what I want happening

I'm gonna hit the Save button here

and now I've got my new move approved

you can see the link up here

let's close the Butler dialog

and here is our new Butler button

so on my notes list I have three different items that all have the green label

and remember

think of the list that you have that has different labels

or maybe some other characteristic

and you've got a lot of them

right

you've got 20

maybe

maybe 40

or whatever

and you'd like to move them somewhere else

so with a single click of the button

I'm gonna select move approved

and it might take a few seconds

but there we go

they are gone from my notes list

and if I go over to my projects list

and scroll down to the bottom

there they are

everything with that green label has now been moved over to this list

so think of an activity or think of a task that you use frequently

or maybe even infrequently

that you would like to do with a single click

and explore it within Butler

in this example I didn't give you an example of card buttons

just because I don't find that there's quite as many uses for individual card buttons

but you can explore the options that they have available to you

but I would highly encourage that you check out the board buttons within Butler

if you want to sort

if you want to quickly do a number of things with a single click

Butler is the power up for you

if you have any questions about Butler

or if you have any of your own tips on how you've used Butler

I'd love to hear from you in the comments

and remember

if you like this video

please be sure to LIKE and subscribe

I would love to have you as a subscriber here at Simpletivity

and I want to thank you for watching today

remember being productive does not need to be difficult

in fact it's very simple

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity. Today, we are looking at Google Calendar, and I want to share with you some tips and tricks to help you be more productive and efficient with Google Calendar. A few things that perhaps you haven't heard of before to help you be more effective as you manage your schedule.

Now, the first one has to do with quickly adding an event. You're probably already familiar with the Create button here. By selecting this, we get our event dialog where we can add a lot of details and make many changes to that event.

But what if we want to do things a bit quicker? Well, directly to the right of Create, we have this little drop-down arrow, and this is the Quick Add functionality.

Here, we can just type in our event very much like we would in a conversation. For example, I want to add a meeting with Sam at 11:00 a.m. on October 9th. I can just hit Enter on my keyboard or hit the Add button to the right, and look at that—immediately, it is placed exactly with the information that I gave it.

Of course, I can always open up this event and add more details if I want later, but sometimes we just want to immediately add that event without having to scroll or find the exact date on our calendar. So just use the Quick Add, and you don't even have to add the date itself. You can use terms such as "tomorrow" or "next Wednesday," and Google Calendar will find the appropriate spot and create that event.

Next up, let's take a look at how we can receive a daily agenda. Maybe we don't want to pop into our calendar first thing in the morning. Perhaps we would like to receive a summary via email.

To do so, click the Settings icon (the gearbox) and then come down to Settings. The first thing we're going to want to do is select which calendar we want to receive this email agenda for. Select Calendars. Chances are you're probably managing more than just one calendar within Google Calendar.

I'm going to come over here and select Edit Notifications. Select Edit Notifications, and we have a variety of options here on this page. But the one that we're looking for is near the bottom, and that's the Daily Agenda. By selecting this checkbox, I'm going to receive an email with my agenda every day at 5 a.m. in my current time zone.

Now, you can't change the time when you receive this agenda, but I think for most people 5 a.m. is early enough. With this selected, and don't forget to hit Save when you're changing or adjusting settings here within Google Calendar. Hit Save, and I'm going back to my calendar.

Starting tomorrow morning at 5 a.m., I'm going to receive a nice summary—a single email with a summary of all of my events for that day, and it will also include all-day events. So both all the events and those events that have a specific time will be sent via email.

Next up is a very powerful feature for giving others an opportunity to book you or to find time that is available on your calendar. It’s called Appointment Slots. One note is that this is only for Google Apps customers. You must be a Google Apps customer to use this functionality.

Let me give you an example. I provide productivity coaching, and perhaps I want to allow some 30-minute intervals or slots for my students to sign up for their coaching appointments. I'm going to go here and drag my cursor for this block between 12:00 and 5:00 p.m.

Before I type in anything, you'll see at the top I've got two options: Event is selected by default, but I'm going to select Appointment Slots. Now I'm going to give this a name, I'll call it Coaching. I've already selected the time frame, and I can select the calendar that I want it to be on. I'll select Test Calendar in this case.

I've got two choices down below. I can either offer this as a single appointment slot, but that's not really what I want. I want the second one here, offering multiple slots of 30-minute intervals. I can change those intervals if I like. I’m going to select Create, and you'll notice it gives this a slightly different icon. It's showing me that these are appointment slots, and in the parentheses, it’s showing me the duration of those appointment slots.

Now it's on my calendar. What’s the next step? I’m going to click on this event, and here not only can I make some changes to that event if I want to, but I am given a unique URL. This is what I'm going to be sharing, or I can add guests directly if I want to via email.

Let’s click on this link. By giving them this link, they get a shared view of my calendar, and they may have to scroll to the date that they’re looking for. But here’s where I created those slots. Now you can see I've got my 30-minute intervals for coaching. They can come in here and book which slot they would like. Let’s say someone would like the 1 p.m. slot; they select it, and here are the details. All they have to do is select Save, and that books them for that appointment slot.

So a very powerful tool, especially if you are a coach or providing some other service and want to give some office hours to your students or clients. You book the time that you're available and then allow your customers or clients to book the slots that they would like to use.

All right, next up, I want to show you some things in Labs. Yes, most Google products have additional functionality that you need to enable or disable one by one, and these are some special features or powers.

Once again, we're going to go back to Settings. This time, we're going to click on Labs. I want to show you two of my favorite Lab functionalities. By default, when you open up your Google Calendar account, these will all be disabled.

The first one I want to highlight is called Hide Morning and Night. I’m going to select Enable, and what this Lab edition does is minimize a period of time both in the morning and the night that I don't want to see.

For example, here’s the question it asks you: when’s the last time you had a meeting at 3:00 a.m.? There’s probably some of you watching this video that do have meetings at 3:00 a.m. with clients or team members on the other side of the world. But perhaps this is extremely rare, or perhaps you never have a meeting at that time of day.

So let’s enable this. Once again, don’t forget to hit Save, and we’re going to go back. It’s going to refresh your calendar, and what has happened is that at the top and at the bottom, it has condensed a certain time frame.

Between 12:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., it’s not showing me anything there, and between 6:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m., it’s not showing me anything. So I’ve got this nice condensed view. I’m not going to accidentally scroll up and see a bunch of empty space and then realize, oh, that’s right, it’s early in the morning, 2:00 a.m. I don’t need to be looking at that.

Now you may be saying to yourself, well, what if I want to change these times? It’s pretty easy. If you select it, you can actually drag and change these times. So let’s say I want to pull it back to maybe 5:00 a.m. Perfect. Now 12:00 to 5:00 a.m.

On the evening side, I can do the same thing. Maybe I do want to see my evening. I’m going out to dinner or managing other things. I’m going to drag this back to, I don’t know, maybe 10 p.m. All right, so now I still have a condensed version. I’ve opened it up a little bit, but I can always come back and change this.

So I’ve got a nice condensed view by hiding both parts of my morning and parts of my evening.

The next Lab I want to show you, let’s go back to Labs, and we scroll down near the bottom. We have one called Next Meeting. This can be helpful if you want to know at a quick glance how many minutes or hours before your next commitment.

Again, we are going to select Enable, and don’t forget to select Save. We’re going to go back to our screen, and now here in the right-hand side, we get a new view. Here it’s telling me I’ve got a Skype call coming up with my friend Tim one hour and 57 minutes from now.

So just a helpful reminder, maybe I’m not looking at today’s week or even the current month. I’m planning ahead, doing something else. I’ve got a nice convenient view here on the right-hand side. I can see exactly when that next meeting or event is coming up.

I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful. I hope it’s made you a little more productive and efficient within Google Calendar. If you liked this video, I would encourage you to give it a thumbs up. And if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel. Remember, being productive doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it’s very simple.

Hello everyone scott Friesen here at simple tivity and today I wanted to show you something about Trello so let me just open up my web browser and wait a minute what's that Trello in my taskbar

Trello Desktop App

Yes, that’s right. Trello is now available for desktop. Whether you're a Windows or a Mac user, Trello is finally available as a standalone application.

No longer do you need to go to your web browser and sift through a number of tabs trying to remember where your Trello board is. You can now open up Trello and have it open on your desktop computer all day long.

You can drag that application over to the side of the screen and work with your other documents and files without having to worry about losing that tab or making sure that you have the right web browser window open.

Now, I know...

Conclusion

a lot of us have been requesting this feature for some time so this is probably good to come with a lot of excitement and a lot of fanfare and so far as I've been using the application and testing it out I've been very very pleased the experience is practically

seamless from what you're used to from your on line experience whether it's drag-and-drop whether it's adding attachments whether it's collaborating with others or filtering your cards it's very much the same experience as you would expect from the on-line version so I encourage you to test it out for yourself and what do you think of the desktop version of Trello if you've tested out Trello for desktop already

I'd love to hear from you so be sure to give your feedback in the comments below

and I'm looking forward to doing more features not only on the desktop version

but on how we can take advantage of having a standalone Trello version now

that it's available to everyone thank you so much for watching and if you haven't subscribed yet I would encourage you to do so right here at simple tivity remember being productive does not need to be difficult in fact it's very simple

Hello everybody, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity. If you clicked on this video, chances are you are already an Asana user or at the very least you are considering using Asana as your own personal task manager or perhaps to manage projects with other collaborators. They could be other team members or people that you are working with on a regular basis.

Well, today I want to share with you five of my favorite tips to get the most out of Asana. These are a few simple things that you can apply to be more effective and efficient as you manage all of your projects and tasks here within Asana.

We’re going to start off quite small and work our way up to a few more complex things, but they’re all very simple to implement. Some of them you may have heard of before, and some of them may be so simple you’ll wonder how you’ve ever worked with Asana without knowing them. I know that’s the case for me, and I want to thank ahead of time some Simpletivity users for providing some of these tips in one of my previous videos.

So, to get started I…

Sections

I want to start off with sections within Asana. You know, when I first was introduced to Asana, I was very impressed that you could add these sections. You can separate out your tasks, and here in this particular example, you know, I've got a phone call section, a pending section with things that I'm waiting for, and some office tasks.

So, you can sort of view these as folders—a nice way to segment the different tasks all within this particular project. But when I look at this, I’m probably saying to myself, “You know, pending should probably be maybe at the bottom of the list here. I don’t want it to be here.”

So, let’s take the pending section and move it to the bottom. And then, wait a minute—I just grabbed this section, and I was really puzzled when I first attempted this. I just assumed that everything else that was underneath that section would come with it.

Well, there’s actually a very simple and easy way of doing this. First, start by clicking the section…

Moving Sections

itself and then hold Shift on your keyboard and select the last item in that section. Just like you would in many other applications, including Excel or a spreadsheet, it has selected everything there.

Now, I can select that section and drag it down to where I want it to be. Now I've got my entire pending section, including all of the items that were listed down below.

Of course, I can still move these individual items. I can move them out of a pending state and put them somewhere else in this particular list or within this particular project. But just select again the section header, hit Shift on your keyboard, and then select what else you would like to move. I can move pending all the way to the top of this list if I like.

So, a great way—a very simple way—of moving your sections around. A big shoutout to Jeff Brown who actually shared this tip with me on a previous Simpletivity video.

Now, the…

Full Screen View

next one is also rather simple, but I find it very useful myself. I'm just going to switch to another project here for a second.

You know, it can be very helpful to see your entire list of tasks here on the left-hand side of the screen while you are working with an individual task on the right-hand side of the screen. It can be helpful to see how you want to change the wording of this or what other information you want to add in relation to some other tasks over here.

But I have to admit, sometimes I feel that this view is a little cramped. If I’ve got multiple images or files, or perhaps a long list of comments between myself and another team member, I find that this view can be a little cramped.

Well, there are two ways that you can view this in full screen. The first one is if you click the little three dots here and at the very bottom there is a full screen option. Now I can see everything within this particular task in full screen. I like this view a lot; it’s just a lot more comfortable for me personally, especially if I might be spending a few minutes with this task.

But there’s another and even easier way of doing it, and yes, it’s telling us right there, and that is Tab + X. So regardless of which task you have highlighted, just select Tab + X on your keyboard and you will see that task in full screen. Here’s another one where I’ve got an image and maybe I’ve got some more information down below. I can see it in a nice, comfortable view. Just Tab + X again, and I’m back here.

So, you can toggle back and forth—Tab + X for full screen and Tab + X to get back to the default view. I have started using this shortcut on a very regular basis and I find that you'll probably find some good uses for it as well.

Again, I'd like to thank with Seem to here who shared this tip with me on a previous YouTube video. Thank you so much for showing me how to get this full screen view beyond just clicking this More button. You know, having additional clicks, I can just hit Tab + X and go back and forth whenever I like.

Alright, now the…

Multiple Projects

Third one is maybe no not so much of a tip but something that I think goes underutilized and that is when we want the ability to add a particular task to multiple projects.

Okay so often you may have something that is applicable to beyond just the project that you're currently working on and maybe in this case I've got something here titled submit budget for a quarter three and quarter four but this is something that needs to be done for all of my projects or perhaps it's a task that I want to see visible in all of my projects because it's applicable to all of them not just to one of them it's applicable to more than just this one maybe it's applicable to every one of my projects maybe it's just applicable to a handful of them.

So within your task once you highlight the project area up here you'll see that there is a plus button or a plus icon by selecting this plus icon you get a new field where you can start to type in the name of your project.

So here I want to add this to my new website development and while I'm here I'm going to add it to yet another one my client consulting project.

So now this individual task is now going to appear in not only my personal to-do list asana project it's going to show up in my new website development and my client consulting project.

Again this may seem rather simple but you would be surprised at how many other project management tools do not support this type of functionality.

It's just as easy of course to remove this task from those projects as well if I just hover over the new website development project I can select the X and it is no it will no longer appear in that particular project.

Alright tip number four and this has to

Status Updates

Do with something again which I think is underutilized amongst Asana users and we're going to get out of the ListView for just a moment we're going to go over here to the progress tab.

Now if you haven't selected the progress tab I think you're missing out on a very helpful feature if you only use Asana for yourself well this may not be necessary but there's real power when you collaborate with other individuals or with other team members.

And under progress Asana gives you the opportunity to provide a status update. Now here you can see they actually go beyond just adding text information you can actually use a traditional traffic light system and if I hover over these colors you can see that green is going to mean that this project is on track yellow this project is progressing but there are some risks worth addressing and red would being this project is not on track and needs attention.

Now they're not actually going to see that helpful text down below so you can select these different colors and give your own description or if you don't want to add a color you can just add text directly right I can just say you know great job thanks for working late last night okay and I can say set status.

So in this sense I'm not so much I guess updating a status but I'm sending a message to everyone attached to this project right because this message it's still I guess a status update I'm complimenting my team and I want them all to see it not just a particular task not just a particular individual.

So I'm going to say set status and now where does it go of course it shows me right here down below and it gives me a timestamp as to when I added it but when I go back to the list view you will notice over here in the right-hand side of the screen here is that status update says who it's from it gives me the text down below and now everyone who has access to this project is going to see that update.

Now if I want to update the status I can just click on this link here I don't necessarily have to hit progress since I have a status update I can click this link and it's going to take me directly back.

Let's use an example where we are going to use the traffic light system here I'm going to say red and I'm going to say hang on what happened oops with my cursor go what happened with our newest client let's adjust the deadline okay I'm going to set that as my status and remember I added a color code so I've got this red label along with it.

If I go back to the list view now I've got a new status update and you may be wondering well what happened to the to the previous message right what happened to that first status update that I added.

Well of course the status update should really be its current status right it should be sort of where we feel this project is currently in its current state you know is it in a good shape but in a bad shape middle-of-the-road that type of thing.

So we can always go back to progress and our previous updates right we can see a history of the different updates that we've added here among our status updates but we're only going to show the latest one here in the top right corner of the screen.

Looks like it's taking a bit longer to display this time around now it doesn't interfere when we are dealing with our tasks as I click on different tasks it's not going to take up more real estate but if I don't have an active task displayed then I'm going to see that status update.

So make use of the progress section a great way to not only communicate with the rest of your team but add a little indicator whether you use the colors or not so that everyone on your team can see it.

Calendar Sync

Very last tip I want to share with you is going to allow us to access a Senate information outside of the application itself and probably one of your most used productivity tools is your own personal calendar right you need to know where you're going to be today you need to keep track of all of your meetings other things that are on your daily schedule.

Now of course Asana does have a calendar here and we can see upcoming tasks with due dates we can get a calendar view here within Asana but you may not be using the Asana view here terribly often right this may not be an area of Asana that you make use of especially if you're comparing it to your own personal calendar.

So let's see how we can sync Asana with our calendar if you select the little down arrow here beside your project and we're going to select sync to calendar we can either sync to our Google Calendar or we can use the iCal format which is something that Outlook and many other calendars use.

In my example I'm going to show you how to add it to Google Calendar so here it gives us a unique URL I'm just going to copy it and then what we want to do is we want to get in on over to our Google Calendar itself and if you use Google Calendar you're going to go to other calendars and we're going to select add by URL and this is where we want to paste that information.

I'm going to select add calendar and look at that here I have the same information that we saw in the Asana calendar we see it displayed here within my Google Calendar.

Now of course only tasks that have a due date are going to show up within your calendar sync if that task is already complete or if that task does not have a due date it will not display here but anything with a due date is going to display over here.

You may be asking well why does it show up as an all-day event the simple answer is that none of these particular tasks have a specific time associated with the due date if I did have a specific time well then they would display somewhere else on my calendar but since these have only been assigned to a particular date they're going to appear on the all-day event.

So there are five different tips five different ways that you can make use of some Asana hacks some Asana tips some Asana tricks so that you can be more effective you can be more efficient with dealing with your projects and your lists.

I would love to know what was your favorite one or what's something that I didn't share that you find is very helpful when you are dealing with Asana if you've got a particular tip that you use all the time please share it here in the comments below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video if you liked it please give it a thumbs up be sure to subscribe and I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

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