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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to find Google Forms Add-Ons

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limit form responses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So make sure you review this default message

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

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

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

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

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

Custom form notifications & email

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are simply just the defaults that are included here

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

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

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

Add form booking calendar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that are too close to the current time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should I be using a CRM?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pipedrive CRM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Activities Page

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting Started

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding more sections 

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

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

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

Sharing your project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love seedless watermelon.

Who wants to deal with those pesky seeds (spitting sounds).

So when I found out that there was such a thing as a staple-less stapler, I had to check it out.

Of course, we've all experienced the joy of unjamming a traditional stapler or, if we've run out of staples, being frustrated that we didn't have enough to finish the job.

Well, a staple-free or staple-less stapler solves both of those problems.

There's no staples!

So there is nothing to un-jam, there is nothing to run out of.

So how does a staple-less stapler work?

It uses a cut and fold method.

Let me staple these 2 pages together.

You'll see that it makes 2 cuts, a larger cut here and then a tiny slit at the top, which it uses to slip that piece of paper up to the top.

That's how it makes the bond between pages.

As a result, this is not going to be nearly as strong as a typical or a metal stapler.

But I find for most things around the house, whether it's receipts, most of the things that I need to staple are only 2 or 3 pages in depth anyhow.

This is perfect.

This is perfect for most things around the house.

Because of this cut and fold method, it's interesting that it actually makes a stronger bond the more pieces of paper that you use.

Here I've got a stack of 4 sheets, and this is actually an even tighter bond between the pages than it was between just the 2 sheets of paper.

You'll see right on the front that this is limited to 5 sheets, so you're not going to be stapling a booklet together.

You're not going to be stapling something that has a lot of pages together.

It's also very convenient.

As you can see, it's quite small and really designed to fit easily in your hand.

It doesn't take much effort to use and is very safe if you have a family with kids around.

You don't have to hide this away.

No one is going to pinch their fingers in there.

It's only paper that can fit into that slit.

A staple-free stapler can be purchased for less than $10 at your local office supply store.

So if you don't already own one, you can easily pick one up and check it out for yourself.

No staples and easy to use?

It's very simple.

The headphone industry is a two billion dollar a year industry, and that's just in the US alone.

So chances are you have not only one pair of earbuds, not only two pairs of earbuds; you have probably more like half a dozen pairs of earbuds lying around your home at any given time.

Now of course, we get our earbuds when we purchase a new smartphone or perhaps an mp3 player.

But chances are you've probably upgraded your earbuds to something that's of a bit higher quality or something that just fits a lot better.

Well today, I want to show you what's the most efficient way to travel with your earbuds.

So we know if we take our earbuds without a carrying case of any kind, if I just wrap them up against my finger like this and I throw this into my bag, that's going to be a knotted mess when I go to use them.

It might wrap itself up with whatever else I have in my bag, and I'm going to be spending time taking out knots and uncoiling this when I want to listen to my music.

So what's the solution?

Well, it's something that you might already have lying around your house.

It's a coin purse or a change purse.

You may have had a few of these when you were a child.

I know I had lots of fun with these.

They have a spring opener, just a gentle squeeze opens them up on the top; otherwise, they always remain closed and they're very, very thin—extremely thin.

So when I'm traveling, I use the same method.

I'll take my earbuds and I'll wrap them up against my finger like this, but then I can just tuck them into my change purse.

And look at that—it keeps it very, very thin.

I can slip that into my backpack, slip that into my briefcase, almost anywhere.

They're safe, and they're easy to get to.

But the added bonus is that they do not knot up.

The way that I put them in is the way that they remain.

So when I go to use them, I pull them out; I don't have to untangle anything.

I just pull them out, and I'm ready to listen to my music at any given time.

You can pick up a coin purse or a change purse at most dollar stores.

If not at a dollar store, you can certainly find them for less than five or six dollars.

They're usually made out of leather or synthetic leather, and they can also be used for many other purposes.

So there you have it—the most efficient way to carry your earbuds.

Until next time, it's very simple.

It's become far too easy for us to look at a dashboard to determine if we slept well last night or if we had a high-intensity workout.

But how do you actually feel?

Do you feel well rested?

Do you feel good?

Stop telling me how busy you are! I don't care and it sounds pathetic.

When someone makes a request of your time, do you catch yourself saying, "Sorry, I'm just too busy"?

Now it's bad enough if we stop there, but for most of us, we continue on with some kind of story like, "I'm working 80 hours a week, and I'm on this very special project, and I'm also working in this organization, and I'm volunteering on the weekends, and I'm helping my neighbor with project X, Y, and Z, and my kids are involved in this, that, and the other thing so that pretty much books up my Tuesdays through 2027."

Now at first glance, it may sound like we're complaining about how busy our schedule is. But I think often we find ourselves boasting about our schedule in an attempt to try and out-busy someone else. I think we do this because unfortunately, we correlate busyness with importance and that's simply not true.

When we say, "I'm too busy," it sounds like we have no control over our schedules. When I hear someone go on and on about how busy they are, I don't think, "Wow, they sure must be important"! No, if anything, I feel sorry for them because it sounds like they have no control over their schedule.

The other problem with saying, "I'm too busy," is that it's usually a lie. If we really wanted to do the request or the activity that was being asked of us, we would make time for it. But the easy excuse is to say, "I'm too busy" or "I don't have time."

So let's stop saying, "I'm too busy." Instead, we can tell the truth by saying, "That's not a priority for me right now."

Changing the words that we use can remind us that time is always a choice. And if we don't like the way that we're spending our days, well then, let's change our priorities.

It's not that difficult, in fact, it's very simple.

Thank you. Pomodoro—it's the Italian word for tomato. It's also the name of a very powerful time management technique.

Here's how it works.

Step number one: be very specific about what you want to accomplish in the next half hour.

Number two: get yourself a timer and set it for 25 minutes. 25 minutes is a traditional Pomodoro time interval. You can use your app, you can use a desktop timer, you can even purchase a tomato Pomodoro timer online.

Then work exclusively on that task for the next 25 minutes without interruption, without distractions.

When the timer goes off, stop. Take a short break. This is the real power of the Pomodoro Technique—taking short mental breaks before returning to that task or perhaps a new task.

Once you've finished your break, again be specific about what you want to achieve and repeat the Pomodoro interval.

Until next time, it's very simple.