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Email Tip 1

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And for years, I spent much more than 30% of my day in my inbox,

but after applying these five techniques, I spend no more than one hour per day, and you can do the same thing. So let's dive in. Tip number one, turn off all of your email notifications, both your desktop and mobile notifications.

To this day, Microsoft Outlook by default will show the preview of each and every new email for the desktop version of Outlook. That means even if Outlook is minimized, you're going to see a preview in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Nothing is more distracting

or will tempt you to spend more time with email than by seeing all of those notifications. But don't forget to turn off your notifications on your mobile device as well. Whether you use Outlook, Gmail, or some other mail client, be sure to remove the notification badges on the front of your app. You know what I'm talking about,

that little red circle that shows you the number of unread emails. Not only will that distract you and tempt you to open up your mail app more often than you need to,

but it also adds an awful lot of stress as you see that number grow and grow. Don't worry about the number. You should always expect to be receiving new emails

throughout your day, even while you sleep. So instead of letting technology dictate

when you choose to deal with email, decide to choose for yourself how often you want to open up the email app.

Email Tip 2

Tip number two, move all of your read or replied emails out of your inbox. Something that wastes so much of our time is trying to decide, where should I start and where should I stop when it comes to addressing my inbox? And here you can see I've got a number of emails which I've either read or replied to.

Well, the easiest and best way to keep a clean inbox is to remove everything once you have touched it, once you've read it, once you've replied to it, once you no longer need it, be sure to move it to your archive folder or to some other folder or label.

Or if you're really not going to need it again, you can simply go ahead and delete it. Every single email client has a safeguard in place, where anything that is moved to the trash folder, for example, will actually remain there for 30 days.

So if you need to go back and retrieve it, you can still find it. And archiving your emails is maybe one of the simplest ways to keeping a clean inbox. Let me show you how easy you can do that here within Gmail without taking an extra step.

Within our settings menu, we can come down to this one called Send and Archive. And if you select the top radio button, it will say, show "Send & Archive" button in reply.

What that means is if I come up here to this email and I decide to reply to it, instead of just hitting Send and have this message remain in my inbox, I can select Send and Archive. The message is sent, and now I'm moved on to my very next email.

Coming back to my inbox, that message is no longer here. I'm one step closer to keeping a cleaner inbox. Now, if you're overwhelmed with where to start with cleaning out a very messy and overwhelmed inbox, I've got a tool for you.

SaneBox has recently released a new tool called Email Deep Clean, so you can regain all of that storage and clean out your inbox. In just a matter of seconds, you can determine how far back you would like it to scan and then select which sender,

either based on the total number of emails or the total number of space taken that you would like to remove. This is probably the fastest and easiest way to clean out any inbox, whether you use Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, or any other email client.

And best of all, you don't have to use some complicated search or filters to do so.

If you want to learn more and use Deep Email Clean for free, be sure to click the link in the description down below.

Email Tip 3

Tip number three, get comfortable with using search instead of creating dozens and dozens of folders. So often I see people wasting time by dragging every single email into a dedicated folder and deciding which label that they should apply to almost every single email.

Instead of creating these folders to click onto on the left-hand side of your screen, be sure to make use of the search function.

So for example, rather than just producing a client folder, I can just search for my client's name in the search field, and suddenly, every single message will come up in front of me. Further yet, if I want to go into more detail, you can always use the advanced search option.

So for example, maybe I want to make sure that I'm looking for an email that only has a specific attachment. Well, I can easily do that here as well and go directly to what I'm looking for.

In addition to the search bar itself, Gmail and Outlook have added some quick buttons that will get us there that much faster.

Here, for example, in Gmail, I can quickly see if I want to filter by a specific timeframe, if I want to filter by an attachment, or if I want to look for a recent sender or search for a certain email address.

So this makes it that much easier for me to find what I'm looking for rather than wasting all of my time sorting through and filing every single one of my emails.

Email Tip 4

Number four, unsubscribe or block senders you don't want to see ever again. I know that it may seem like it's going to be a bit time consuming upfront to unsubscribe to a particular sender, but think about how often you click on their messages and just get into the habit of deleting those particular messages.

Instead, why don't you just take a few seconds upfront and actually unsubscribe to those newsletters or other marketing emails. Almost any marketing email, if you scroll to the bottom, will have some type of link such as this one, where you can unsubscribe from the list.

But what if that particular email sender does not honor your subscribe request or you can't find the unsubscribed link? Well, in this case, you can choose to block that sender

so you won't receive emails from them in your inbox. Here within Gmail, if I come up here and select more, I can select Block, and then in brackets, it will give me the username of the particular sender.

In this case, going forward, I won't receive messages from them, a quick and easy way, especially if I can't find the unsubscribe link.

Email Tip 5

Now, my fifth and final tip in saving time with email may be the most difficult,

but also the most valuable, and that is to only deal with email a maximum of three times per day. Years ago, I used to spend most of my day with my inbox open on one of my multiple screens. This led me to dealing with email nonstop throughout my day

and not accomplishing the things that I wanted to. But when I chose to drastically pull back and only deal with email twice in my day, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon, not only was I able to accomplish so much more, but I was actually able to get through more of my email.

Why? By only choosing to deal with email at specific times, I could batch and get through so many more of those messages

and then not feel the need to come back to my inbox so frequently. This may be difficult to implement at first, but trust me, it is so worth it. Of all of the the tips on today's list, this may make the biggest difference.

By combining the other four with this one, you are going to not only set yourself up for success, but spend a lot less time with email, saving you so much more time for your business, your clients, or whatever other projects you are working on.

And if you're wanting to be even more efficient and effective with your email, be sure to watch this video next, where I show you how to be a master of your filters right here within Gmail.

Problem 1

There seems to be a constant debate as to which is the better Task Manager. Todoist or TickTick. And while both of these apps are great, in this video, I'm going to show you a tool that does four things better than both of those apps.

And best of all, it's free. Number one, let's take a look at the relationship between our notes and our tasks. For most of us, our tasks are generated from our notes.

Either we are doing a brainstorming session or perhaps we're taking notes during a meeting and then we're generating our tasks and our to-dos from that collection of notes. But most of our task managers are not built around notes.

Here within Todoist, the best that we can do is add a note within the description, but that's within the description of the task that actually seems kind of backward because chances are we are taking those notes first.

This might force you to use another tool such as Evernote or Google Keep or some other scratch pad off of the side of your desk, and then converting it to a task. Now over in TickTick, they've gone one step further and they've given us the ability to create lists.

And in this case, we can create things such as notes. Here I've created something titled a new note and I've jotted down some bullet points but that's essentially it. I can't quickly and easily convert anything here into a task.

Now, I could come up here and set a reminder for the entire note but chances are there's only a few items or pieces of key information that I actually want to convert

into a task. But here within AmpleNote, we have access to all of our notes, tasks, and calendar all in one centralized place. And best of all, there is a direct relationship

between all three of these components. For example, I was taking down some quick notes, some quick thoughts earlier today. Here you can see I've got a few different bullet points here, and then I decided to add a task directly within my note.

Now the best thing is that this task is not going to reside only here within my note area. If I switch over to my tasks, here you can see that research a new training to attend

is now with all of my other tasks, which may be a combination of tasks that I've created as a one-off or tasks which I've created within other notes. So in this case, it follows a much more natural progression from brainstorming or note taking.

And then if I do want to convert this, for example into a task, all I need to do is highlight it and suddenly it has become a task which I will now see on my task list

and which I can now pull over onto my calendar as well.

Problem 2

Number two, adding tasks directly to your calendar. Now, I've talked about time blocking and time batching for a long, long time and the importance of giving a time estimate and making sure that you're able to accomplish what you set out to do.

And if you only keep your tasks in a list format, that is very, very difficult. You want to be able to see it in the context of all of your other meetings and all of your other events. Here within Todoist, we can view sort of a chronological view of all of our tasks

but this isn't really a true calendar. Yes, Todoist does allow us to integrate and has an extension for other calendars, but there's certain pieces of functionality that you just can't do outside of Todoist. So you're going to find yourself going back and forth.

TickTick on the other hand, does have a calendar view. However, you do need to upgrade to their premium version in order to make use of it.

But here within AmpleNote, not only do we have direct access to our calendar and can easily toggle back and forth but we can drag and drop any of our tasks here on the right hand side directly onto our calendar so we can see the relationship between other things that are going on and the other tasks which perhaps we've dragged onto our day already.

So for example here on the right hand side, I want to send out this invitation.

I'm just going to drag it over and put it here for 10:00 AM. Meanwhile, maybe I'm going to drag this recording a podcast  and put it over for tomorrow at 11:00 AM. So already I'm being that much more actionable as I put tasks directly on my calendar.

Now you'll notice that the two tasks which I just added have different lengths, and that's because I set that up ahead of time. When I created those tasks, I gave them a time estimate so when I pull them onto my calendar, that stays with it.

I don't need to recreate it or give it some type of default value, which you sometimes find with other calendar or to-do list extensions.

Of course, if I want to change the details of any of my tasks, all I need to do is select it and I'll have access to everything here on the right-hand side, including changing the duration, choosing the ability to give it a custom reminder or adding any other details that I like. But I can also do that directly from my calendar.

Maybe I know it's going to take me about two hours to record this podcast episode. All I need to do is drag it over like that and everything is set. As you've heard me teach before, I can't emphasize enough how valuable it is having your to-dos on the exact same screen as your calendar.

Think of the following scenario. You've already planned out what your most important tasks are. Now you can plan out your entire week in advance making sure that you're making the best use of your time and all you need to do is drag and drop those tasks in the appropriate place on your calendar.

Problem 3

Now speaking of deciding what's most important and what you should do next, let's take a look at priority. Now, of course, the ability to set the priority for your tasks is a basic feature of any task manager.

Here within Todoist, we can come over here and select one of a number of different priority levels. So if red is high urgency priority level number one then maybe I'm going to set this to priority level number two

and you can see the different color shading here. This also gives me the ability to filter or sort by these different options as well. Within TickTick, almost the exact same rules apply where I can quickly and easily set a number of different priority levels

for any of the tasks which I've created. But just having a simple priority level is often not enough. often have you applied the highest priority to dozens of your tasks?

Now, which one should you tackle first? Well, here within AmpleNote they've created something called a task score which can be a great way when you're determining which of the next three, four or 10 tasks you should embark on next.

And the great thing is, is that it's dynamic based on a variety of different factors, not just the length of time or due date, but also if it's important or urgent. Here's a task I created quite recently so it only has a task score of one.

However, if I say that it's important suddenly that task score increases. If I say that it's urgent as well, well that task score jumps up as well. And if I base it on the start date, or how long it's going to take, that task score will continue to change.

But if I scroll down here and let's say open up this task you can see that it has a task score of 12.5. What are the differences here? Well, it's also looking as to when I created this task which I think is really valuable.

It's taking into account and assuming that I've been meaning to do something with this for a very long time, even though I have not given it a start date, even though I haven't chosen it as important or urgent, maybe this is something I need to revisit next.

And best of all, that task score translates to other parts of AmpleNote.n Here we are back in the calendar view where I have a number of my tasks listed on the right hand side

and I've chosen to sort it by task score. So you can see these first three are red, the next one is yellow, then a number of blues and then a few that may not have a very high task score at all.

Now I can identify which ones should I be looking at next, or which ones do I need to revise. Maybe the due date has changed, maybe something else has changed and I can edit that task.

But this gives me so much more and better information than simply adding my own flags and my own priority level. And even though tasks with the same color may look very similar I don't even have to dive into them to know that this one has a higher task score than the one down below.

So I can be more efficient and quickly make better decisions when it comes to planning my day.

Problem 4

Next, let's take a look at something that continues to distract us whenever you are working with your to-do list. And that has to do with constantly seeing tasks or things that you don't need to engage with for some time in the future.

Here within my Todoist account, I have a task that says it's very important but I don't really need to think about this for another six to nine months. However, there's no real great way

for me to hide or minimize this task. It's always going to be visible to me and often very distracting. What if there was a way in which I could hide my tasks until I want to see them? Well hear within AmpleNote, we can do that for any single task.

It may look like I have a very long list of tasks here but there's perhaps a number of things that I don't need to think about and therefore I don't even want to see it until sometime in the future.

So here on the right hand side you can see that every single task has a little icon which allows me to hide until sometime in the future. So let's say, I don't want to engage with this for another week. Well, I don't want to see this.

I don't want to see it in my calendar view, so I accidentally drag it onto this week. I don't want to see it here as I'm analyzing or grouping my other tasks together. I'm going to say one week and now it's gone.

It's vanished. It's almost like hitting the snooze button. It will return in its normal state exactly at that time. Now, of course, at any time we can always choose and change our filtered settings and we can choose to show our hidden tasks if we want to go back and see what is waiting for us in the future.

But this feature alone is a fantastic way to keep our focus and also keep us distraction free as we strive to be more efficient and more time effective with all of our to-dos.

So if you'd like a more effective way to bring your notes, tasks and calendar all together in one place, and take advantage of all of the features which I showed you today absolutely free, go to amplenote.com or click the link in the description down below.

And if you want to save even more time as a part of your day, be sure to watch this video next where I show you seven Google Drive tips and tricks so you can be more effective and spend more time on the things that you want.

Project Planning

If you run your own business, you know how important it is to keep costs low. But we're fortunate to have so many tools available to us that are absolutely free that will not only help you to stay organized and save time but also make you look professional and experienced to your clients.

So in this video, I'm going to walk you through an entire business scenario. Everything from brainstorming, project management, and communicating with my client, and do it absolutely for free with these five tools.

In this scenario, I am a consultant and I'm helping my client with a number of different projects. We've just finished our first big call together but now I want to put those ideas into a more formal timeline, and for that, I'm going to be using Miro.

When it comes to visualizing your notes or putting something together

in a more meaningful context, Miro is a fantastic tool. So after my initial consulting call with my client, I've wanted to take all of my notes and put them into a more formal timeline, and Miro is a fantastic tool for doing so. Here I can zero in on exactly

what we're going to do in the month of May, and I can easily and quickly edit everything that I need to here. If I want to change colors, if I want to add graphics,

if I just want to throw a bunch of new ideas on the board, I can do that here as well.

And if I need to change things, everything is essentially just drag and drop so it's very easy to manipulate. Or if I need to add other information on the fly, I can do so quickly and easily. I'm going to add an about us page as one of our key goals for this refresh.

Video Messaging

But now that I've finished producing my free timeline within Miro, I could just simply share the link, but I want to give my client some context because maybe they've never used Miro before. And I want to explain some of the intricacies or details of this timeline.

Now, I could try to explain myself in a very lengthy email but it's going to be so much easier if I can communicate to this verbally. And so for that, we're going to use another free tool called Loom. Now, Loom, we can either record video directly

or we can also share our screen. So if I want to pinpoint certain things within that timeline, I can do so at the same time. But for this example, I'm just going to record

a very simple message so that they know exactly what I'm talking about and they can get clarity on where we're going to move next. So now that I'm signed into my free Loom account, all I need to do is come down here and select record a video.

And in just a few seconds, it's going to bring up the video recorder dialogue. Now I can always choose as to what exactly I would like to record. Do I want to record both the screen and my camera? Maybe I only want to record the screen if I'm a little camera shy.

But in this this case, I'm going to select camera only. Down here in the left hand portion of the screen, I can drag this anywhere that I want to so if I want to get it out of the way of my screen recording, I can do so. But now the very next step

is just to hit start recording. "Hi Jane, I just wanted to give you "a little more detail

"about the project timeline "which I'm passing along. "As you'll see in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah". And of course, I can go into as much detail as I want. Now this message is a lot more specific.

They may be getting the differences in my tone and body language which goes so much further than simply sending an email. When I'm all finished with my recording, all I need to do is hit this finished recording button

and then I will be brought to my editing page where I can go ahead and review the video. I can edit out portions of the video if I want to as well.

And then of course, rename it, and share it directly with my client. And best of all, I can manage all of my previous recordings here within the Loom interface as well.

So if I want to see how many people have actually watched it, even allow them the ability to comment directly on the video so that they're not just limited to replying via an email. So now that I've clearly communicated

Project Management

the project timeline with the client, let's get started in our project management phase and actually start recording and working through the specific tasks. And for that, we're going to use a free tool called Walling. Now, Walling brings together

sort of the best of both worlds. Whether you're wanting to organize your ideas

or whether you want to manage entire projects together, you can do it all right here within Walling. In this case, as a part of our redesign project, I've listed some of the goals here, and maybe if I want to group them together, that's easy, I can drag and drop things almost anywhere.

Down below, I've put together some of our copywriting examples, and I've even attached a few documents as well. Next up, I've got a section called our "Target Audience" because I don't want our client to forget what we are focused on as a part of this project. And then lastly, I've got a section called "Tasks".

This is where the rubber is going to meet the road. Now as you can see, each of these different sections are laid out somewhat differently. Here I've got more of a traditional conbon or board style view where I've got tasks that we have planned, things that we are doing right now, and then also things that have been completed.

And the great thing is is that I can be as granular and as detailed or as vague as I need to be. So here for example, I have completed this particular task, I'm going to check that off, but I still have one more that I need to complete before I can drag this over into the done column.

Walling is an incredibly flexible tool which also allows us to bring in information from other places. So whether that's a website that you're wanting to reference or maybe it's something that we've used already previously.

So here under my goals section, I can double click anywhere and start a new brick. In this case, I'm going to call this the project timeline. And because we've already created that timeline, I'm going to choose to embed a link.

All I need to do is paste the link that we used for that mirror board, and now we have direct access to that timeline directly here from within Walling. So if you need to bring in other tools, whether they're free or paid versions, you can always do so right here within Walling.

Now, Walling is free with unlimited bricks, meaning you can create as many of these tasks or items,

or files or whatever your bricks are going to represent absolutely for free.

Online Documents

But now that we've actually started working on this project and have gained some momentum, I need to come back to this task and make sure that I can complete it.

In this case, I need to send a customer survey and also take a look at some other data. So let's take a look at another free tool which is going to help us along. And for that purpose, we're going to be using Google Drive. Now, you probably already know

many of the features and advantages of using Google Drive, but let's not forget that it is free for up to 15 gigabytes of data. So whether you are sharing and creating documents or in our example, we're going to use it as a survey, we can use that right here within our Drive account. So here for example, I've created a customer survey

and Google Drive makes it simple and easy for us to do so. I want to get some detailed feedback about what is their favorite social media platform because this might frame the way that we design that website and make changes as a part of the launch.

The great thing is is that not only can we manage all of our surveys and forms right here from within Google Drive but we can also manage all of those responses as well. And if I need to, I can come up here to the top right hand corner,

I can choose to share this link. I'm going to select copy in this case, and then I can go back and paste it within my Walling account for example so we can quickly and easily reference this information. But remember, there are so many additional things

that we can do here within our Drive account. So if you don't want to pay for a costly Microsoft subscription, you can use Google Drive instead to create your presentations or manage your spreadsheets.

In this example, maybe I want to explain to the client the benefits of using a conbon board. Remember, we set something up within our Walling account and I want to make sure that they're familiar with how to use it. So in this case, I've produced a very simple document that I can share with them so that they can read it on their own terms.

Meeting Scheduling

But now that we've done some actual work and shared some information with our client, it's time for a follow-up meeting. So how can we find the ideal time to meet,

make it as seamless as possible for both parties, and do it for free? Well, the free version of Calendly still allows us to create one key specific event type and allow us to use it as often as we want to. So in this case, I've created a 60-minute one-on-one meeting, and if I need to come in here and review the details or change those details,

I can do so in a matter of seconds. For example, one of the things that I often recommend people do is review how many days out can someone book me? Maybe 30 days in advance is a little too much for my case so I'm going to change that to 21.

I'm going to select save and close. And now what I can do is come up here and share this link with anyone. I can come up and select copy link and when I paste that into an email or my project management system, or really anywhere that I like to, they will be brought to my Calendly booking screen so they can quickly and easily decide,

yes, this Friday and 1:00 PM is best. After selecting confirm, all they need to do is enter in their name and their email address, and now both of our calendars will be notified.

I don't have to do anything further. This meeting will be booked directly on my integrated calendar. But there might be an even easier way for you to send your Calendly invitations.

If you install the free Calendly browser extension, not only can you access your meetings from anywhere within your browser, but you can also add times directly to your email. So rather than just sending them to a link, I can choose this option and say that I only want to give them the options of next Monday and Wednesday.

I'm going to select finish and share. And now what you will find is that it is copied to my clipboard. I'm going to come over here to my email and hit paste.

And now I've given my clients something easy for them to access so they can book our next appointment time directly from their inbox. Remember, staying organized and looking professional doesn't have to cost you a thing.

To learn more about these five free tools, be sure to click the links in the description down below. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

ChatGPT Tip 1

Running a small business can be tough, but you don't have to do it all alone. In fact, ChatGPT can save you an awful lot of time and energy. So in this video, I'm going to share with you seven different ways in which ChatGPT can help you and your small business.

First up, dealing with customer complaints or very angry messages. So all I'm going to do is give it the prompt reply to this email and I'm going to put colon,

that colon is actually very helpful because you're giving direction upfront. And now we can just include any details that we want. And in this case, I'm going to just paste

the email that was sent to me. In this example, the customer is very angry. It's been three days since I was trying to do something. I don't have access to your portal. My accountant is very angry. I need this ASAP.

Let's see what ChatGPT says as part of their response. And in just a matter of seconds ChatGPT has produced an excellent formatted response to this complaint.

Now, of course you could write such an email yourself, but are you going to remember to be apologetic at both the beginning and the end of the email? And are you going to think of some of these solutions yourself?

For example, in this reply, it states, "In the meantime, I can send you your past invoices via email and you can forward them to your accountant." I might not even have thought of the solution myself. I might have just tried to get them to log into their account directly, again and again. But in this case, it's more forward thinking.

And even if they don't want to go down this route, it makes me sound very supportive and comforting to this particular client. So ChatGPT is not only going to save you an awful lot of time, it may actually give you some additional support ideas for your tougher clients.

ChatGPT Tip 2

Number two, ChatGPT can be a great way to quickly calculate your return on investment. Let's say that you're thinking about purchasing a new piece of hardware or a new piece of equipment.

And you've got some basic estimates or basic data in terms of how much it's going to cost to operate and how much expected revenue you should anticipate. So in this case, I've just told it calculate the ROI of the following colon.

Again, we're seeing this pattern of giving it some brief instructions and then we can simply either paste in that information or give as much details as possible. The price of my equipment is here.

I think it's going to cost about this much per month and I'm anticipating that it will bring in this much per month. So should I go ahead and purchase this piece of equipment? Now, of course ChatGPT can easily make these calculations, but what I appreciate is that it walks me through the steps

so I can go back and see exactly what it has done. So under cost of investment, it's showing me the combination of the cost of the equipment along with its operating costs over the next 12 months and then it's showing me my expected total increase

in revenue over the next 12 months as well. Down below, using that formula, we can see it is a positive 28.7%, meaning that for every dollar invested into this new piece of equipment, I can expect a return of 28.7 cents. So this is going to help me make that decision. Is that enough to go forward with this particular investment

or do I need to do some further investigation?

ChatGPT Tip 3

Next on our list, we're going to look at using ChatGPT to produce a product description. Now this is a particular area that I find very, very difficult and also very, very time consuming. And depending on the number of products or services

that you offer, or how often you update those services, you may find yourself bogged down by writing and rewriting these descriptions over and over again.

In this example, I've asked it to write a product description for the following, an 8-week group coaching course where you'll learn how to optimize your project management software and spend less time at your office.

As you can see, I've only given it one descriptive sentence. Let's see what it comes up with. Now, I won't waste your time

reading out the full description. You could always go ahead and pause the video

at this point if you'd like to read it in its entirety. But what I appreciate about this product description is just by taking a few keywords, it fleshes out the description

with things that are relevant to this particular topic. So for example, in this line it says,

"You will also have the opportunity to connect and network with other like-minded professionals who are facing similar challenges and share your experiences and successes." It's also adding keywords such as "you'll be able to work smarter, not harder and achieve better results in less time." All of this just based on a very brief description.

Now, like with most things that we ask ChatGPT you're not going to simply copy and paste this and now put it on your website or throw it into a social media post, but it gives you a fantastic template, a great starting point where you can adjust some of the wording and some of those sentences, but roughly 80% of the work is already done for you. And best of all, it might even give you some new ideas that you hadn't thought of before.

ChatGPT Tip 4

Now, I know we've already talked about replying to an angry customer complaint or a customer support issue but another way that I love to use ChatGPT is for formulating follow up emails.

What am I talking about? Well, you're probably already in a discussion with a potential customer or client, but they haven't responded to your last message. Maybe it's been a few days and you need to provide a follow up, but you need to change it up each and every time.

Otherwise you're going to come across sounding like a robot yourself. So what we can use ChatGPT for is to create a new follow up message based on the previous message.

So in this prompt, I've asked it write a follow up email to this message, colon. Again, you're starting to see a recurring pattern. And then I've simply just pasted in this email, a message that I wrote to Jane about two days ago.

And in just a few seconds, ChatGPT has produced a great follow up email which is repurposing some of my earlier words and some of my earlier thoughts, but in a newly formatted email. So I've saved an awful lot of time.

I haven't just sent a one sentence reply, which can often come across as cold to a potential client but it's something that I can use and get on with the rest of my day.

Now, pay special attention when it comes to the results within ChatGPT. In this particular example, you can see that it has put in some boiler plate information.

So thank you for considering, in brackets company name, for your office move. You would definitely not want to just copy and paste this entire message and send this as is. This is your opportunity to include your company name. So always be sure to read through and make any minor adjustments as necessary.

ChatGPT Tip 5

Now, in addition to replying to lengthy emails or writing product descriptions, ChatGPT can save you an awful lot of time when it comes to communicating via a newsletter. I don't know if you're anything like me, but I often scrutinize my words and my sentences.

And writing my weekly newsletter takes an awful lot of time. But ChatGPT can get you there so much quicker and actually do most of the writing for you. In this example, I've asked it to write an email newsletter on the following topic.

And in this case, the topic is never spend more than one hour per day in email. In this example, I've purposely given ChatGPT something very short and specific and let's see how it does.

Now, one of the bonuses when you ask ChatGPT to write any type of email for you, whether it's a newsletter or a reply or a follow up, is that it will often include a suggested subject line and that's exactly what it's done for me here. Subject, boost your productivity, never spend more than one hour per day in email.

Now, yes, it sort of took that exactly from my prompt. But now, as you can see in real time, the rest of this newsletter is coming together really, really well. Not only has it got an eye-catching opening paragraph but it's starting to break things down by bullet points down below.

So I don't even have to come up with the tips or the tricks or the suggestions. In this particular case, maybe you're wanting to address a certain subject that you are not an expert in, but you can still provide quality tips or advice.

Again, this can be a fantastic framework for you to start with, allowing you to only make a few minor edits before you send out that weekly newsletter.

ChatGPT Tip 6

Now, where you may find ChatGPT most helpful is helping with things that you don't do frequently, things that you may only do once or twice a year. And a good example of that could be posting for a new job or writing a job description. In this example, I've given it the following prompt, write a job posting for this position.

Dental office assistant, part-time, minimum experience is two years. And what is so great is that with just three pieces of information, it's produced a fantastic job description including a breakdown of all of the responsibilities and all of the qualifications in bullet points. Yes, it's included the minimum two years that I required

but it's also adding all of the other factors that you would expect for an office assistant. Including strong organizational and time management skills, excellent communication and customer service skills.

So I don't have to think about all of the skills that I need or what a standard position would require. Of course, I can edit and adjust any of this information. But this alone has probably saved me up to 30 minutes of time in my day, especially if I'm only needing to post a job once in a while.

ChatGPT Tip 7

Next up, we're going to be taking a look at something that most of us don't include when we're sending out meeting invitations, but we know that we should so we can have a more effective meeting. Or at the very least, have it during the meeting so we can stay on track.

And that is developing a meeting agenda. In this example, I've given it the following prompt, create a meeting agenda for a 45 minute meeting to discuss the new product launch that is now two weeks behind schedule.

Let's see what ChatGPT comes up with. Now, one of the great things about using ChatGPT for your meeting agenda is that it will do the math for you. And in this example, it realizes that we're talking about a touchy subject that we're behind when it comes to our release date.

So we're going to have to solve some problems in this 45 minute meeting.

So not only has it broken down the different components from an introduction to status update, impact, action plan and then next steps, but I love how it's given the most amount of time to the action plan, because aren't meetings supposed to be actionable?

This is where we're going to decide what we're going to do next and get ourselves back on track. But it doesn't ignore the other important elements of the meeting as well. In addition, it's included things such as date, time, and location.

And of course, we could insert attendees as another option as well. So I could almost copy and paste this entire thing and just plug it into my calendar invitation or into an email and we are almost done.

Not only are you saving time, but you've got a fantastic framework to work with. Now, if you're a small business owner

and you love saving time, you're going to want to watch this video next

where I show you how to send and receive text messages directly from your desktop so you can ignore your phone and just focus on your most important conversations.

Intro

You have one customer, but you're probably using three to five different apps to communicate with them. So why waste all of that time, energy, and money when you can communicate in just one centralized location? In this video, we're taking a look at an application called NextivaONE.

So let me know if this sounds familiar. You're already using your phone to make phone calls and for text messaging, but you're probably using other tools on your desktop for instant messaging, such as Slack.

In addition, you need to meet with your clients so you're using Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet. Already, we're up to about three or four different pieces of technology.

Well, here in NextivaONE, we can use all of those forms of communication and keep track of them in one centralized place. So here I am within the Nextiva interface,

and at first glance, we are looking at all of my communication, which may not sound very helpful but you'll notice as we look at these individual line items it's a combination of both phone calls I have made and received, and also text messages as well.

So I can have everything here at a single glance at my fingertips. But let's dive in a little bit deeper. I'm going to click on Chris Baker here, which I've had an ongoing conversation with.

And now I've got a complete history of every touchpoint we've had, every piece of communication we've had from our phone calls from our text messages, I can even add personalized notes so I can keep everything here in just one place.

And of course, if we glance over here to the right hand side of the screen, I have additional pieces of information about Chris as well but more than just a repository or a history of our communication together, I can reach

Text Field

out to Chris in a variety of ways all from my screen without even having to touch my phone. Here at the bottom of the screen, you'll notice that I have a text field just waiting for me to enter in information so I don't have to jump to another application.

I don't have to pick up my phone. I can instantly send Chris a quick message.

Phone Call

But if I want to go one step further, I can also leave my phone alone and call him directly from my computer as well. Here I've got my phone call icon. I can select that and immediately initiate a call and take that call from the comfort of my computer.

And then while I'm on that phone call, or perhaps while I'm texting with Chris I can quickly and easily add a note so I can contextualize our conversation and keep track of our running history together.

Conversation Filter

And lastly, within this conversation view we can quickly filter out that conversation as well. So here you can see I can filter by the type of channel whether that was an incoming or outgoing phone call whether it was a meeting or some specific types of calls.

We can also filter our conversations by a date range. So if I remember that Chris says something very important last week I can narrow it down by that timeframe and just zero in on what we were talking about at that time.

Making Calls

But perhaps the most powerful and useful feature here within the Nextiva application is this blue plus button in the top right-hand corner of your screen. By selecting this, we can make a call to anyone, text anyone, or also start and join our own meetings.

So first off, making a call. If someone is not already within your Nextiva account,

you can easily just type in their phone number right away. And if there happens to be other like-minded numbers listed within your account, those individuals will appear here as well. Of course, we've got a great big number pad that we can use if it's someone that we haven't already imported into the Nextiva service.

Scheduling Meetings

But in addition to the convenience of making a call or sending messages within Nextiva, we can also start and schedule our own meetings. And immediately it's going to give me a preview. Of course, I can adjust my audio or video settings,

but I'm going to say start now. At this point, I can immediately type in the email addresses or the names of people that I would like to invite to this meeting or I could copy this invitation as well.

I'm going to hit cancel for this example just so we can take a look at the meeting interface. Now, what I really enjoy about this meeting interface is that it's simple and to the point. Yes, we have all of the features that we've come to expect including the ability to share our screen, manage our participants,

and also manage a chat here as well. But in addition to something that is simple and easy to use we can also minimize this at any time and go back to our Nextiva interface.

So for example, if we are talking about this client, Chris, on a particular call, I can look up that information. I can even text him a quick message while I'm on this call or add an additional note if I want to.

And of course I can go to anywhere else on my computer if I like to as well. But keeping that video meeting and that communication live here within the application and whenever I want to return to the full version of the meeting, I can do so by expanding here.

And remember, anyone who joins me or who is a participant of this meeting will be included as a record

so I don't have to go back to a calendar to see if I did speak with someone last week.

It's all going to be included here within this Nextiva history.

Team Collaboration

Now, within many of our communication tools, you're probably used to having the ability to create a specific channel  or area so you can have a focused conversation,

and Nextiva is no different. Here on the left hand side, under team collaboration, we can create our own rooms. So if you want to have a very specific or focused conversation, such as with my marketing team, I can do so right here.

In this marketing team example, you can see that there are three members who are having a conversation, including myself. And not only can we keep that conversation nice and focused but we can attach documents and other files as well.

Speaking of which, we can keep track of all of those attachments in one place, which can be very, very helpful, especially when you're working on a particular project and you want to be able to reference or remember where that file is located.

So if you like the idea of using less apps to get more done, Nextiva might be the right app for you. To learn more, go to nextiva.com or click the link in the description down below.

And if you're looking to reduce even more apps within your tech stack, be sure to watch this video

next where I show you how to manage all of your tasks without having to use a to-do list manager.

Uh-oh, my email is showing that I've used 74% of my storage space, and with all

of my attachments and all of those future incoming emails, the rest of this is going to go rather quickly. So what is the easiest way that I can recover my email storage without having to do some type of filter or search, or manually go through my largest emails?

In this video, I'm going to show you an easy and free tool so you can declutter and regain that storage in just a few minutes. Recently, SaneBox released a new feature called Email Deep Clean specifically designed for those of us who are running out of storage space or who just want to declutter their inbox.

So let me show you how easy it is to use. Now, not only is SaneBox's Deep Clean feature free, but it also works with any email client. So whether you use Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft 365,

or Apple Mail, you can use this deep clean feature. In this example, I'm going to be using my Outlook account. Now, the alternative would be for me to go through one

by one or maybe pick some date in the past and just hope that there's nothing valuable that I'm going to permanently delete. But with the Deep Clean feature, we can do it so much more effortlessly and do it in just a few clicks.

Here I am within my SaneBox account, and you can see that I've already connected it with my Outlook address listed here. Now, of course, you can make use of all of the other features here within SaneBox, including their AI folders, which will automatically separate your important and less important emails.

And the more that you use it and train it, the better it gets. But we're going to be focused on the Deep Clean feature. So I'm going to select View Emails here. Now, if it's your first time using this feature within SaneBox, all you will see is this Date window and the Scan button here.

But because I've already made use of this with my account, it's showing me the details of my last scan. So for example, earlier today, I scanned for emails that were older than the year 2022.

But before I get to the details down below, let's do a new scan. So I'm going to click on this calendar window here, and I'm going to jump up a little bit. I'm going to select January 1st of this year. I'm going to assume that the first two months are emails.

that I'm going to want to keep, but in this case, I want it to go back and scan everything before this date. Now all I have to do is select Re-Scan, or if it's your first time, it will say Scan.

Now, depending on how many emails and size of attachments that you have within your email client, this could take a few minutes. Of course, it's going to vary by user. But, you don't have to stay on this screen.

SaneBox will automatically email you an update, when this scan is over, so you don't have to waste your time. You can get on with your day and do something else, and then come back when the scan is completed. But you'll notice here that it's given me an update.

We're about 1/3 of the way through of this particular scan, so it should probably only take maybe another minute or so to complete. So my scan just completed, and it probably lasted no more than two minutes to scan through all of my emails older than this calendar year.

What you'll see now is a collection of emails that have been put together in a few different ways that are most helpful when we're trying to decide what we can get rid of for good. First off, you can see that we can group these emails together, either by the most storage used or total messages.

So, just to clarify what that means, if we scroll down here, here, you can see michaelhyatt.com. This sender is in the number one spot for storage used. And beside it, you can see there's a total of 19.3 megabytes all attributed to this sender.

If we go down the line in descending order, you can see that that size will change,

but we can also choose Total Messages. It may just take a second to re-sort.

In this case, Michael Hyatt is still the most, with 244 emails, but Moore's Clothing now comes in second with a total of 42 emails. So this may come down to how much storage space you're wanting to get rid of.

That's usually what is calculated when it comes to your email provider, or if you're just more focused on decluttering, you may be wanting to pay closer attention to the total number of messages. At this stage, what I can do is go through and either select all, if I'm confident, I want to get rid

of everything, or I can start to sift through these different senders. And I think that's the real power here, is that it automatically groups everything together. Now, if I come down to a particular sender here and I say to myself, hmm, do I want to keep that?

Do I want to know a little bit more? I can come over here to the right and say Show More. And what that will do is give me some additional information. First, it's going to tell me that it belongs in the inbox. Now this is based on SaneBox's analysis of my email and my email habits. 

It's going to tell me the last message that I received

from them, and then it's going to show me some recent subjects. So this is really helpful if any of these are going to trigger my memory or if I'm going to decide if I want to keep or get rid of this sender; for any of these, if I select them, I'm going to select this one, and maybe this one, and one more down below, now I can go ahead and safely select Trash Selected.

Now, after selecting this button, it's going to give us a warning. Am I absolutely sure I want to move all the messages from these three contacts to my Trash folder? It's also going to tell me the total amount of space that I'm saving.

There is no undo available for this action. Now, keep in mind, it is only moving these messages to the Trash folder at this point. Most of our email clients will automatically get rid of everything in the trash within about 30 days.

So if I want to go ahead and manually erase them after this step, I can do so. But what it means is that it's going to move all of these messages from wherever they may be, from the inbox,

from a special folder, from a label, from anywhere within my account. In this case, I'm going to say I'm sure, and I'm going to select Confirm. And at this stage, it will proceed with moving our selections to the trash.

Just like when it did the scan, we don't have to stay on this screen. We can keep an eye on the progress here, but it will send us an automatic email when this step has completed.

And once SaneBox has finished moving all of my selected emails to the Trash folder, I'll be returned to the Email Deep Clean screen, and I can continue to go through if I want to, as my results will still be shown down below. But of course, I can use this tool as frequently or as often as I like.

So if you want to declutter your inbox or regain all of that email storage, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity1, or 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.

Forms Tip 1

You already know how to create a Google form, but why aren't many people responding? In this video, I'm going to show you seven simple things you can do

to increase the chances of people submitting your form and also allowing you to gather more valuable information.

Tip number one, let's make sure that we use this description field at the top of the form, and what I recommend is using a combination of gratitude but also a time estimate.

So in this example, instead of giving them a description of what the survey is, I'm going to say thank you for taking just two minutes to fill out this quick survey. This plays on two psychological factors.

One is gratitude. I'm thanking them in advance for taking the time, which always makes that individual feel better. But number two, I'm also emphasizing that it's only going to take a few minutes of their time.

I've said two minutes and I've also emphasized with other words such as just and quick, so that they know that this isn't going to be very time consuming. If someone clicks on your form and they assume it's going to take them 10 or 15 minutes to complete, they may close it immediately.

But if you can tell them upfront how painless this is going to be, they are much more likely to continue filling out the form.

Forms Tip 2

Tip number two is to get them engaged early on with two very quick and simple questions. Never ever start your form with a long form answer.

I recommend that you start with something very, very basic such as name, email address, or maybe a very simple multiple choice such as a two or three option multiple choice question. The theory here is the sooner you can get them engaged and actually filling out the form,

they are much more likely to complete and submit that form. So make sure that those first two questions are as easy and as painless as possible. Once someone has started, they are much more likely to say I've come this far, I might as well finish this form. So make those first two questions as easy and as simple as possible.

Forms Tip 3

Now our third tip has to do with making your form as readable and easy to use as possible. Sometimes when we're creating our Google forms, we often forget that we can change the font and the text size for almost everything here on screen. We don't have to be stuck with the defaults. If I come up here to the top right hand corner

and select customized theme, we can customize our header, our questions, and our text. So for example, maybe I want the question text to stand out that much more.

First off, I'm going to make it a little bit larger, but then I'm also going to come down here and choose a different font. And for many of the fonts listed, you can also choose if you want to bold them as well. So not only am I changing the font,

I'm going to make it extra bold so it stands out that much more. And don't forget, these theme changes will also apply to the mobile view of your form. And since more and more of us are filling out and will be accessing your form on a phone or a small device, having your fonts and your text a little larger or a little more pronounced can go a long way.

Forms Tip 4

Now the fourth tip on our list has less to do with making it easier for your viewers,

but more about getting the most valuable and unbiased information. And that has to do with randomizing your multiple choice questions. In this example, I'm asking what is their favorite social media platform? And here you can see I have it listed with YouTube as the first option and Twitter as the last option.

Countless studies have shown that we show bias to the first option available to us and we are less likely to choose the last one on the list even if it happens to be true for us. So depending on your multiple choice question, I recommend that you shuffle the order.

By selecting this multiple choice option, I can come down to the lower right hand corner, select more options, and then select shuffle option order. Now, nothing is going to change here in the editing mode of my form, but if I select the preview button, here you can see now Twitter is listed first followed by YouTube.

And if I open up the form a second time, this time Facebook is presented first, followed by Instagram. So each and every time that this survey is presented, these four options will always be shuffled.

Remember, as a form creator, the goal is to get the most valuable and most accurate data possible. So for most of your multiple choice options, consider shuffling that option. And if you want to turn it off, you can come down here and select it again, which will uncheck that selection.

Forms Tip 5

Now the next tip on our list I think is the most common problem that I see, and could be the number one reason why you are not getting as many responses as you'd like,

and that is making too many of your questions required. Of course, here in Google Forum, this little red asterisk indicates a required field, meaning that the user will not be able to submit the form unless they put in an answer.

However, if you include too many required questions people may not fill out your form at all or get halfway through and then come to a question that they don't feel comfortable answering. And even though that they've answered something earlier on, you won't get any of those responses.

Now of course, as a form creator we think that all of our questions deserve to be answered and we would love to hear our respondent's answers. But isn't half of a form completed better than no completion at all? So in this case,

pay special attention to what actually needs to be required. In the bottom right hand corner of all of your questions, you can select the required toggle. So in this example,

maybe the only thing that I really want is that email address and I'm going to make everything else optional because even if they don't provide detailed feedback or suggestions, just knowing what their favorite social media platform and also collecting their email address is going to be valuable to me. So pay special attention

as to how often you use the required fields.

Forms Tip 6

Now another reason why people may be ignoring your form or not completing the submission process is that they think that it is too long. And a great way to get around this is to break up your form into multiple pages.

And Google forms makes this a lot easier than you think. Often, users will open up a form and quickly scroll to the bottom of the form before answering a single question to determine how long this is going to take. And if it looks like it's going to be a very lengthy survey, they may never even start with the process.

But what we can do is break things into chunks.

So here, I would like to have the user just have the first three questions displayed

and then have the last two questions displayed on a separate page. So what I'm going to do is select this multiple choice question, this is my third question, and I'm going to add a section below it.

Remember, wherever your question is selected, indicated by that highlight on the left hand side, the section will be added below it. So I'm going to select add a section. Here you can see I have my section two of two, and at the top, it's telling me this is my section one of two.

Now you may want to give this new section a title. I'm going to say new section in this case. And now when I hit that preview button, you can see that all they are presented with are these first three questions.

Let me just put in a dummy email address for our example. I'm going to hit next. And now we're presented with our new section. So we can break this up into two, three, or as many pages as you like, but this often makes it a lot easier for the user to complete a lengthy form.

Now an important tip to keep in mind when it comes to using sections. If you decide that you want to remove this section, all you need to do is come over here select the more option, and hit delete section. But be forewarned.

Google form will let us know that by deleting this section, we are also going to be deleting all of the questions and responses within that section. So the better option, especially if you're wanting to keep those questions and responses, is to merge the section up.

I'm going to select cancel in this case, I'm going to go back to more and say merge with above. Now I'm returned to my original form without any sections

but I've preserved my questions down below.

Forms Tip 7

Now for our seventh and final tip, we want to make sure that we thank our user

for filling out the form, but also perhaps direct them to a next step or maybe a particular webpage. And for that, we're going to come up here and select settings.

Under settings, we want to expand the presentation area and we're going to scroll down about halfway down to the confirmation message and we can select edit.

Now by default, Google Forms will usually include something like this. Thanks so much for giving us feedback. But of course, you can fill out whatever you want in here.

If you want to be a lot more specific, such as thank you for participating in this year's walkathon, or maybe something particular to your business. Keep in mind that although Google Forms does not allow us to redirect to a specific webpage, we can also include webpages into this message.

So in this example, I'm going to invite the user to click here to learn more about our services.

And all I've done is included the domain name of my website. I'm going to select save. And now when I go back to my preview and select submit, I'm brought to my thank you page but I also have a clickable link. So I'm redirecting them back to someplace where I want them to go.

And if you want to get even more out of Google forms, be sure to click on this video next where I show you five bonus tips that every form's user should know.

App 1

Would you like to add some automation to your workday? And do you like apps that are easy to use and won't cost you a thing? In this video, I'm going to share seven free tools that make automation easy. So, let's dive in.

The first app on our list is called Unroll.Me, and what it does is connect directly to your email account, so you can drastically reduce the number of messages in your inbox. What Unroll.Me is specifically looking for are subscriptions to your email account.

This is going to be not only a quick and easy way to unsubscribe, but also allow you to summarize

and group a batch of subscriptions together. So let me show you how it works.

Here within my Unroll.Me account, it's showing that it has found 12 new email subscriptions and it's listed it in alphabetical order, which is very easy for me to go through one by one and see if I still want to subscribe to these services.

From this same screen, I can immediately go over to the right and decide if I want to unsubscribe, if I want to keep it in my inbox, or if I want to add it to my Rollup.

What is a Rollup? Well, if I choose to add this to my Rollup, what it's going to do is look for new messages, and rather having them display in my inbox, it's going to give me a fantastic summary.

Here, if I click on my Rollup on the top of the screen, I may only have one message for today, but if I had several from my subscriptions, they would all be listed here. And if I click on them, I can choose to open and read them as I would normally.

And if you don't want to view your Rollup within the Unroll.Me interface, that's fine too. Here within my Gmail account, you'll notice that it automatically has created an Unroll.Me label.

If I click on this, I'll find that very same email, along with the other eails  which I've included in my Rollup, so I've got one centralized place that I can go to find my emails. This is a very simple and easy way

for you to automate your subscriptions and clean up your inbox.

App 2

The second tool on our list is going to help you create a fantastic and professional-looking user guide in a matter of seconds. How often have you needed to share something with a client or with a colleague, or maybe it's for yourself, because you only do that one thing in QuickBooks once or twice a year. Well, with Scribe, you can create those easy-to-follow user guides in a matter of seconds.

First, let me show you what a finished Scribe looks like. In this case, I've got one titled, "How to Change Drive Share Settings," and you'll notice, it has a step-by-step guide, including screenshots and highlights exactly where the user needs to to click.

In total, this is a 12-step guide, but you know what? I didn't actually edit any of these labels, I didn't take these screenshots or add this little circle image. In fact, I created this entire Scribe in less than one minute. So let me show you how easy it is to create a Scribe of your own.

Within your free Scribe account, all you need to do is come up here and select New, and I'm going to say Record a Scribe. Next, I can select which tab within my browser I would like to record. In this case, I'm going to go back to my Gmail account.

t's telling me that my capture has started, and there is an indicator here in the bottom left-hand corner. Now all I need to do is go through the steps that I want to record.

So I'm going to come up here and select the gear icon, select Settings, I'm going to scroll most of the way down, and I'm going to change my email signature to this My Signature, and don't forget to hit Save Changes.

Now that I'm done, I'm going to come over here to that indicator, I'm going to say Show the Controls, I can choose to pause the recording if I need to set something up or go somewhere else, I can choose to delete it if I want, I can of course, move these controls, but in this case, I'm going to say Complete the Recording.

And what it's going to do is open up a new tab with my complete Scribe in an easy-to-use user guide. So here you can see, it's even included the logo of Gmail, configuring Gmail settings. It even has much of the text accurate, although of course, all of this is editable. As I go down, you can see that it is highlighting exactly where I clicked,

and Scribe will even capture the correct instructions, so it's very easy to follow along.

Now, you can edit any component of your Scribe if you like. So for example, yes, technically, this is the URL of my Gmail account, but in the case when I'm sharing it with someone else, I'm just going to reduce it to that, and this is still clickable, so that when they receive the Scribe, they can go directly to that application.

I can change the name and add a full description, but right off the bat, the user will see how many steps and roughly how long it should take them to do so.

When I'm all finished, I can select Done Editing, and then hit this Share button, and either add an email address if I want to, I can link them to this particular Scribe, or I can export it as a PDF, as well.

Now, if you're wanting to take advantage of additional export and some advanced features, you can sign up for their Pro Plan, but the basic plan lets you create as many Scribes as you want, absolutely free.

App 3

Now, the next automation tool on our list has received a lot of attention, and for good reason, because ChatGPT is extremely powerful and can be used in so many different ways.

Here within my ChatGPT account, of course, I could ask it to write a number of different copy, such as add copy, sales copy, or perhaps product descriptions, but there's additional features that you may want to take advantage of.

For example, did you know that ChatGPT can help you make better decisions? In this case, I've asked the AI bot to create a pro and con list of buying a PC versus a Mac computer. Let's see what it comes up with.mIn a matter of seconds, it's going to create a bullet point pro and con list so I can review what is going to be best for me,

or perhaps, if I'm suggesting it for someone else. And you can do this for virtually anything, whether it's an application, a product, a service, whatever you're thinking of,

you can create such a list for yourself. While this bullet point style is fairly easy to read, I'm now going to say to create this in a matrix style table. And now, in just a matter of seconds, I have a nice table view of the same information, but I can click and drag and copy this into a spreadsheet, into a presentation, or somewhere else where I need to.

App 4

Now, the next automation tool on our list is also about producing text or information

in a matter of seconds. But in this case, we want to take a look at taking templates

or things that perhaps you need to type in time and time again, and be able to reproduce them in a matter of seconds. And for that case, we're taking a look at an application called Text Blaze.

Text Blaze is a text expander, so you get to create the text one time, and then in just a few keystrokes, you can insert it anywhere that you like. In this example, I share my Zoom link quite often, so I don't want to have to go

and copy and paste that from my Zoom account or from a Notepad or somewhere else with in my system, I would rather just hit forward slash and the letter Zed on my keyboard, and there we go, in an instant, I have my entire invitation, including my link and password for my Zoom account.

What about a standard reply to an email that you use all the time? Well, if I click on my Trello reply, here, you can see where I can craft that message and fine tune it, including links, including special formatting that I need to use.

And now if I go back to my test area, all I need to do is select /tr, and I have this message, which is actually going to prompt me for a name. So I'm going to say, "Hi, Bill," because that's whom I'm replying to, I'm going to hit Enter, and now I have that entire message right here, including my desired link and any other formatting that I may want to add.

What if you'd like to add even more detail? Well, here, I have an email reply, which states that I'm going to get back to them within three days, but I don't want to just say three days, I want to give them a specific date.

So I'm going to say /wait. Here, again, I can be prompted for a specific name, and you can see that I say that I will get back to them before February 27th, which is exactly three days from today. So you can be as complex or as simple as you like,

but rather having to type out the same thing over and over again, let automation work for you so you can use just a few simple keystrokes and then input it wherever you like.

App 5

Now, the next automation tool on our list is one of my all time favorites. In fact, I've been using it for more than seven years, and I really can't think of using email without it. It's called Boomerang, and it allows you to do a number of different things, but let me show you what I use it for on a daily basis.

Here within this email example, I'm asking a colleague if they'll be in town sometime next week. I want to see if we can get together.

But what happens when you're asking a question via email or if you want to make sure that someone responds to one of your messages? Do you set a special flag or a label? Do you set up a reminder in your calendar to check in within a few days?

Well, with the Boomerang extension installed, you'll see that you have some additional features here at the bottom of your email. What I'm going to do is select this Remind me checkbox, and then I can choose when I want to be reminded

if, and only if, this individual does not reply to my email. So instead of tomorrow afternoon, maybe I want to be reminded in two days' time, so I'm going to select that option here, and then to the right of it, it's going to say, if no reply, meaning that this message will only return to my inbox if this person does not reply.

However, if they do reply within the next 48 hours, no additional message will be sent to my inbox. And I can choose other options here, as well. If they didn't click on the message, if they didn't open it, or regardless, maybe I want to have this message returned, regardless what they do on their end.

But in most cases, I choose if no reply, so I never, ever forget to follow up with someone and can choose my specific timeframe. If you want to get started with Boomerang for Outlook or Gmail, you can do so absolutely for free.

App 6

Now that we've looked at a tool that I've used for many, many years, let's take a look at a new automation tool that I am starting to use each and every week, and that is called Grain.

Grain integrates directly with your Zoom, Team, or Meet meetings and allows you to not only record the entire meetings, but also gives you a complete searchable transcript and allows you to create your own highlights. But when it comes to automation, it gets even better.

Not only will it produce all of these features automatically, but it will also provide you with a summary. So immediately after the meeting, you've got a complete summary of what was said.

It will also show you a timeline of what was going on and who spoke at what time. So for example, maybe I know that the person I was meeting with said something very, very important, but in the last third of the meeting, I can see when he spoke up, click on that area, and either replay that part of the meeting, or I can search through that transcript here

on the right-hand side. And if I want to create my own highlight reel of key moments of our meetings, I can do so together.

So in this example here, I've created three highlights, which I can instantly copy their link, share it with others if I need to prove how the customer felt or what their insights were in a particular call. Grain is the perfect tool if you never, ever want to take meeting notes again, and get the most value out of each and every meeting.

App 7

Next, we have an automation tool, which will allow you to stay out of your social media platforms that much more.

What we're looking at is Buffer, which allows you to create social media posts in advance, but also be able to post to multiple different channels, so you can create your content and then ignore it for maybe weeks or even months on end.

In this example here, I've created a Facebook post which is scheduled to go out tomorrow at one in the morning, but that exact same post is going to be listed on my Instagram account at 8:22 in the morning, because maybe I recognize that my users and followers are quite different within those accounts.

To create and schedule your own post, all you need to do is select this Create Post button, and now I can choose if I want to schedule it to one or as many platforms as I like.

In this case, I'm going to send the exact same post to my Facebook, Instagram, and my LinkedIn account. First thing, I'm going to choose an image, in this case.

So I'm going to select this image here, and then I can add my own text. Now that I've added the text that I'd like to include with a little help from ChatGPT, I can select Customize for each network. And if I want to make specific changes, I can do so.

But in this case, I can either choose to schedule these posts for a specific time, I can also choose to share it right now, or I can choose to add it to the queue. I'm going to select this queue option, because in advance, I've told Buffer that I want to post on a regular basis.

And here you can see this next posting, the one that we've just created,

will go out on February 27th, two days after the one that is going to be scheduled next, so you can quickly and easily add new posts to your queue and make sure that you always have something to share on your social media platforms.

And if you're looking for additional ways to make marketing easier for your business, be sure to click on this video next, where I show you seven tools you should be using right now.

Intro

I just finished a great call with a client but there's a problem. I forgot to write down any notes. How am I going to remember the key highlights and conversations from that meeting and be able to share that with others?

No problem, let me show you a free tool that integrates with Zoom, Teams and Google Meet and will allow you to never have to take notes again. So I just finished this client meeting

Grain

about an hour ago but I've got the entire video including a complete searchable transcript at my fingertips and so much more. I'm using an app called Grain. You can find out more at Grain.com.

Not only do I have a searchable video that I can look through, but as you can see, as I scan and drag my slider, I've got the complete transcript available to me here on the right-hand side as well.

So rather than wasting my time going back and forth within the video, I can actually search for key words here within the transcript. So for example, I know that we were talking about a calendar and exactly, look at that. Five times we spoke about the word calendar.

I can quickly and easily go to those sections of the meeting and find out exactly

what I'm looking for. But if I also want to zero in on when someone said something,

I can come down here to the timeline. Here, you can see that these purple shades indicate when someone was speaking. So maybe I remember that Lucian said something really key near the end of our meeting. Well, I'm going to come in here

and click Perfect. Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for. I can zero in on exactly

when my client said something important and then I can come over here to the transcript. Now, you'll notice that something is highlighted here. What you can do with any portion of this text is click and drag.

And I'm going to select this highlight icon. And what it's going to do is create a video highlight of that area. Next to the timeline, I can click on Highlights. And here, you can see, I've created some other highlights already so I can create a bit of a best of list or a highlight reel of that conversation.

But wait, it gets even better with the help of AI. Coming very, very soon

within the Grain interface is the ability to summarize your entire meeting. So under Summary, I've got the entire meeting summarized in just eight notes. And as I review these specific bullet points, it's done an exceptionally good job of summarizing what we spoke of in a 45 minute span.

And if I want to, I can click on any of these areas

and go directly to that part of the meeting. Is there someone on my team or maybe even the client itself who I want to send a summary to? There is a Copy Summary link here which will copy it to my clipboard and then I can send it to them via an email.

But there's another great AI function which is coming soon as well. And that is the Q and A section. In this case, Grain is going to be listening to all of the questions that were asked throughout the meeting and then provide the answer down below.

So I can quickly look at what questions did the client have, how did I respond or vice versa depending on the theme of that particular meeting. And I've got it all at my fingertips here. But now that you know a little bit about the value that Grain can give you after the meeting, how easy is it to set up Grain with your video conferencing software?

Setup

Well, the easiest way to use Grain is to integrate it directly with your calendar.

In that case, Grain can identify all of the meetings on your calendar that contain a video conferencing link and then automatically be invited and start to record that particular meeting.

Here, you can see, under my Settings, I'm going to click on Account Settings and then select Recording. And you can see that I already have Grain connected to my Google Calendar account.

Now, any meeting that either I create or a meeting that someone invites me to and has a video conferencing link within it will be invited and start to record in that meeting as well.

Now, there's a few different settings you can adjust here if you don't want it to record all of your meetings or in this case, I've toggled this one that says, "Only record "if I am the calendar event organizer." So you can tweak it for your own needs. With this calendar integration in place, I can now see all of my meetings here within my Grain account

and I can even launch them here as well. But what if you don't have the integration set up or if you want something to be recorded on a meeting that you were not the event organizer for? Well, that's where you can paste in the meeting invite link or the meeting ID up here at the very top.

So let me show you how to do that with Zoom. So here I am within my Zoom meeting and I'm about to begin. But I want to make sure that Grain is going to record this meeting as well.

And perhaps I forgot to set up the calendar integration. All I need to do is come up here and paste the meeting invite link and select Record. And now, the Grain recorder is going to join the call.

Here, I've been notified] in the bottom right-hand corner that Grain is waiting in the waiting room because I have that set up within Zoom. I'm going to say Admit. And now, Grain has been entered into this meeting] and will record everything going forward.

Now, it's always recommended that you let your meeting participants know that you are recording this meeting. But Grain helps us out in that case as well. It will automatically send a chat to everyone when it first enters the meeting room, letting them know that it is being recorded.

And if you like, you can share that link 'cause maybe others would like to benefit from the transcript as well.

Library

Back within our Grain account, we can manage our library of previously recorded meetings. So I can quickly and easily jump back into another meeting. And even if you've recorded hundreds of meetings, Grain makes it really easy for usto find out what we're looking for.

We can filter by owner, date, include our own tags, or my personal favorite is people. So for example, if I click on People, I can say, "I want to go back to that meeting "where I met with Martha." Well, that was easy enough.

I've now zeroed in directly on that particular meeting. Here, within the library, we can also look at our Highlights. And just like I created a few highlights for a meeting I had earlier today, I can collect all of my highlights in one place.

And with just a single click, I can copy this link to the clipboard and share that highlight with others. So if I want to share these ideas and maybe support my own suggestions with evidence from my meetings, I can do so in a matter of clicks. But if you want to collect a variety of things

from multiple meetings in one place and send it out as a polished video, Grain allows you to do that with the Stories feature. So for example, I've started to create a story called New Software Demo where I'm collecting the responses from people which I've shown my product to.

If I click on this, I can give it a title and I can break it down into different sections and then include those highlights, those clips within those areas. If I hit the play button here in the top right-hand corner, and now, I've got a polished video with all of my highlights in one place that I can quickly and easily share with others.

So if you never want to forget what was said and have meeting highlights at your fingertips, be sure to check out Grain at Grain.com.

And if you want to look and sound your best on Zoom, be sure to click on this video next where I show you seven settings that you're going to want to check before your next meeting.

 One of my favorite productivity tools recently made a very big announcement,

 so I want to make sure you know all about it. In this video, I'm going to share why this change to the Walling Free plan is such a big deal. I'm going to give you a quick review of what Walling is and what it's best used for, and of course, some of my personal favorite features. So let's dive in.

First things first, let's talk about the big announcement. Now, Walling has always had a free forever plan. However, you were limited to a total number of 100 bricks. Now, bricks in Walling really refer to any entity within the workspace. So here I've got a collection of notes. Here I've got some tasks,

maybe I've got some files and images. Each individual one would be counted as a brick. Now that's probably fine for one or two workspaces or one or two projects,

but that's probably going to limit you in the long run. Now, Walling has removed that limitation, so you can work with unlimited bricks. So now you can brainstorm

and collaborate 'til your heart's content and never reach a limit with the number of things you add. The only limitation you may want to keep in mind is that you have a total of 10 free walls, think of workspaces to work with, and for many of you, that might be all that you need. So with that limitation out of the way, let's take a look at some of Walling's key features.

Now, at first glance, you may think that Walling looks an awful lot like Notion, but I don't think that's a very fair comparison. Yes, Walling is very flexible, but one of the complaints I continue to hear about Notion is that it is too free form.

People are often worried that they're going to break something, that they're going to ruin something and they don't necessarily like dealing with a completely blank page. But here within Walling, I would say that the feel is a lot more convenient and also a lot more faster, very similar to something like Google Keep.

So if I want to add a new note, I can double click anywhere and add it and then move it to anywhere else that I like. And very similar to something like Keep, we can change the color, we can assign people, assign due dates and assign reminders directly to that note task, idea, file, image, whatever it is you want it to represent here within Walling.

The other fantastic feature here within Walling is that it's really easy to organize everything together. You'll see that I've broken down this particular wall

into a number of different sections, including goals, copywriting, target audience.

I've got a few files and even some images here at the bottom. But if I really want to focus, I can easily collapse some of these sections and just focus on a particular area itself. And this can be great, especially if I want to keep my views very different between those sections.

So for example, under target audience, I've got this information just listed in sort of a traditional visual block style. But if I want to, I can convert anything into a combo board, for example. So maybe I want to move things through a different process, I can do so.

If I want to come up here and view this as a traditional list, I can do that as well. If I want to add due dates and view a calendar,

I can change and go back and forth. Or if I like a more traditional table, or almost database style view, I can do that here as well and have that custom view right

beside something else that can be very, very different. Speaking of keeping things

at the forefront and nice, big and bold, if you deal with a number of images, Walling is a fantastic choice. In so many different project management and other productivity tools, the images or attachments are often buried beneath a card or beneath a task.

But here you can keep your images up front. So for example, I've got a number of images here under inspirations, and if I click on any one of them, I get a nice big preview to deal with and I can work in this mode as well. So it's more than just a preview.

I can add comments and collaborate with others. So if you're dealing in marketing, if you're dealing in graphic design, mock-ups, or anything that deals with a number of images, Walling may be a fantastic solution for you.

Now, another personal favorite feature of mine is how easy it is to share your information and share your walls with others. Now, here at the top of my workspace, I'm going to select share and of course I can invite others by the traditional method of sending them an email invitation.

And yes, Walling allows us to change the level of ability

for those different users. But what if I want to share something with a client or someone that doesn't need direct access to my wall? I can give a shareable link here at the top of the screen. And the great thing here is that it's going to be a view only link.

So I don't have to worry about others editing or making changes to this wall, but maybe I can update a client as to what is going on or explain as to what we are thinking about with the new project that we are engaged in. So instead of forcing someone to create a login and to learn how to use a new tool that they may not

use again, or at least not in some time, Walling makes it super easy to share that information. In addition, Walling gives us some flexible ways in which we can view our information. If I click on the dashboard here on the left hand side, here you can see I have my four different projects in a Kanban board of their own.

So I can keep track of things at a high level and then go back down to that granular level whenever I want to. And then of course, at the top of the screen, I can also click on assign and get a clear view as to what is overdue and what I should be focusing on next.

So if you're needing to keep your team on the same page, Walling can be an excellent choice.

Now, if you like the sound of free tools, that can do a lot for you, be sure to click

on this video next where I show you how to create a free user guide in just a matter of seconds.