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Getting started with Jotform Apps

Are you looking for ways to make first-time customers repeat buyers? Would you like to make it easier for your clients to book time with you or purchase your products or services from the convenience of their own phone?

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to create a free app in just a few minutes. This app will help you "Wow!" your clients and customers, making it easier for you to secure that next sale or appointment.

To get started, all we need to do is go to jotform.com. Under Features, we're going to click on Jotform Apps, or you can select the link in the description below.

Jotform has been one of the leaders in online forms, which is important because when building an app, you want to make it actionable. You want to allow people to book time with you, purchase something from you, or submit a request. Jotform already has all of this built right in, so you'll have access to these features within the app builder itself.

Next, we just need to select Get Started Now because, yes, it is absolutely free.

The first thing you'll be asked is whether you want to start from scratch or use a template. Starting from scratch will give you a completely blank canvas, so if you prefer that route, you can choose it.

In our example, we're going to look at using a template because it allows us to swap out anything we like. Even if the template is from a completely different industry, if we like the layout or design, we can customize it to fit our needs.

Selecting a mobile app template

So, I'm going to select Use a Template. So, here within the Template menu, we have over 300 examples to choose from in a variety of different industries and examples.

And the great thing about this is that as you browse through these different options,

we can always select the Preview button and get a full experience as to what this template is going to look and feel like.

So, in this case, maybe I run a salon or a barbershop, so I can take a look at how this is going to be laid out. I can even click on things here within the app itself to see what the forms or other pages are going to look like before I make my selection.

At the top of the screen, we can also search by some keywords. So, let's stick with that salon example, and I can bring back all of these different examples. So, whether I'm a barbershop, maybe I'm a massage therapy clinic, or something along those lines, I can take a look at all of those examples here.

On the left-hand side, they've even broken it down by different categories and different areas like different industries or types of businesses that you may be involved with.

For our case, I'm going to take a look at the Scheduling Apps option because, in many cases, we want people to reserve time or book time with us.

And I'm going to click on this one here, this sort of purple theme. I'm going to select Use Template and just show you how easy it is to create your very own app.

Adding and editing app elements

So, once selecting your template, we now have the ability to edit any of the elements that we see here.

On the left-hand side, there is this Add Element plus button. If this expands, we can see all of the other things that we can add to our app. And there's a very long list of all the things that we could be adding to our app here.

So, if there's something missing, like a particular button, or if you'd like to add some images, or if you'd like to embed a document, you can do so.

For example, sometimes it can be helpful to add a map to your app if people forget where you're located, especially if they're only coming to you maybe once a month, or once a quarter, or whatever the case may be.

So, I'm just going to drag this Map widget over to the place where I would like it to reside. And now, at the bottom of the first page of my app, people can have access to this map. It's going to take just maybe a few seconds to load here.

Of course, I can click on it, change the settings, and change the address.

but now they can always remember where specifically I am located. We also have a number of widgets as well, which is fantastic with Jotform. So, if you're wanting to embed certain things related to your social media accounts or if you want to add a QR code, more on that a little bit later, you can do so as well. I'm going to close that down for a moment and move over to the right-hand side,

Editing the style of your mobile app

where we can choose different styles and designs for our app. So, for example here,

I've got a bit of a purple theme going on here. Maybe if I want to jazz things up a bit

and brighten things up, I can choose a different color scheme here on the right-hand side. Maybe I want something more of a bluish design here for my particular app,

I can do so as well. Of course, all of these things are editable. So, down below, even if I don't find a color scheme that I'm wild about, I can come down here and change the specific colors themselves. So, if I want to be on brand with my website, I can do so here as well. The other thing here is we can change our app layout, for example.

So, if I come over here and if I don't like this layout, maybe I want maybe two columns

instead of just one column here, I can choose that as well. So, there's a lot of variety

when it comes to changing the style of your particular app. We're going to take a look at removing the logo here for a second here because, hey, that's not my logo.

Let's see if we can change that. So, everything here is clickable, almost everything is drag and drop. So, in this case, that's not my logo. So, I'm going to say, Remove that Image and I'm going to choose to upload my own image. So, I'm going to select upload file. I'm going to go over to my desktop and I'm going to go grab my Simpletivity logo. So, now, I can have my logo displayed at the very top of my app.

That only makes sense, right? Yeah, it only makes sense. Let's click on the company name and we're going to call this the Simple App, how about that in this particular case? And we can even add a description down below  if we want to as well. So, remember, everything here is customizable,

but let's get into the actual functionality of our app and how people are going to be interacting with us.

Previewing and testing your app

So, here we can see we've got sort of two big buttons here: Schedule an Appointment and Contact Us. I'm going to click on this for just a second here, because it's saying it's a clone of Contact Us just because we created this from a template. And remember, we can edit not just the text, but we can edit the forms that these are linked to as well. One of the great things is that you can always preview your app

in the top right-hand corner. So, as we're making changes here in the editor, all I need to do is toggle this Preview App button, and we're going to be brought to a live preview. So, this can be a great way to preview what your app is going to look like for your clients. You can click on things to make sure that things are behaving the way they want to. You can even change the landscape view to portrait view to see if everything is going to look and feel the way that you like. And when you're done, all you need to do is come back up here and toggle the Preview App button. You're going to be brought back to the editor window so that we can continue to work

Editing settings for your mobile app

and build out our custom app. Now, let's move on to the Settings area here because there's a few things that you want to pay special attention to. So, first off is the status of your app. And, of course, by default, it's going to be enabled, but you can disable it at any time or disable it on a specific date. So, let's say that you're putting together a special or a unique app just for a particular event, something that you're putting on

just for the month of February, for example. Well, you could disable it on March 1st if you wanted to. The second setting below says Continue Forms Later and because Jotform is all about forms, this is going to allow people to save their submissions and complete the form through the app later. This is a fantastic feature that most other app builders are not going to provide because, well, they're not built on the strength

of a form builder. This is great, especially if you have a lengthier form

that you want people to fill out and they don't have to feel that they have to continue

or finish the entire thing in one sitting, they can come back and finish it at a later date. So, just providing your users a little more convenience as a part of the process.

And then below that, we have a setting that says Add to Home Screen Modal, which I would strongly suggest that you turn on. In just a moment, I'm going to give you a real example of how easy it is for people to install this app on your phone and this is going to give them an invitation to add your app to their home screen. So, not only does it make it more visible for them, but it actually makes it easier for the user to access your app going forward. Here on the left-hand side of the Settings screen,

we also want to pay attention to the name of our app.

So, in this case, even though I changed the name on the home page, we can customize what they will see when it comes to actually accessing the app on their phone. Here, I'm going to set it to "Simple App," so that's what they're going to see.

I also want to edit the icon as well. So, I'm going to select Edit Icon here. I'll choose to remove the current image and then upload the logo we saw a little bit earlier because I want them to see my logo. Or, maybe you have something custom, something special that you want to add there as well.

Lastly, we have a Splash Screen option. I think, in this case, this blue color is actually going to work quite well. This splash screen will appear when someone first opens up your app.

because it may take one or two seconds for them to land on that home screen of the app itself. It's always nice to show your logo to show something there so they don't just see a blank screen. So, you can customize this as well.

How to publish and share your app

Last but not least, let's head over to the Publish area to make it easier for our clients to actually access it. Now, there's sort of three primary ways in which you're going to want to share your app. And no, you don't have to get involved with the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Jotform apps works with all Apple and Android devices, but they don't need to go to the App Store to install it. All you need to do is either send or share a link, you can invite them via email, or you can download a QR code. Now, the link, of course, is something that you could copy and paste and put directly on your website. Maybe you want to send out this link in an email newsletter

or maybe when they buy something from you, you could just include this in the footnotes or say, "Hey, next time, you can purchase or make a request using the app.

Just click this link to install." But another very convenient way to do so is to use the QR code option. So, you will have a unique QR code in which you can either copy this code and embed it on your website or within your email or you can just download the image here and think of your retail store. If you do have a salon, or a restaurant,

or some other brick-and-mortar store, you can actually have this at the cash register so that they can quickly and easily set it up. Maybe you can remind them when they're checking out or when they're completing their order to, "Hey, just take this QR code and you can install this right on your phone." You might even want to give them a slight discount for doing so right there in front of you. But this QR code, you can send out in a variety of other ways as well. So, let me switch over to my own phone

How the app looks on a mobile device

and just show you how easy it is for the user to install this app for themselves. So, here I am on my phone, and I'm going to open up my Photo app, and I'm going to zero it in here on the QR code, and I'm going to say, "Yeah, I want to go to that QR code." So, here you can see I'm immediately brought to the app itself, but because we had that setting, the user is going to be invited to add it to the home screen.

I'm going to say, "Yes, I do want to install this. I want to add it to my home screen."

So, now if I go back to my home screen, you can see right in the top left-hand corner, I have the Simple App installed. My users can click on that whenever they want.

There's my splash screen, and now I'm brought directly to my app. It looks fantastic! It's not within a browser; it doesn't have a URL at the top of the screen. They can click on Schedule an Appointment, and here it is, ready and waiting for them.

They can fill in their name and select a time that works best for them. Keep in mind, all of these forms and options are editable.

If they want to go back and access my Contact Us form, they can do that here as well. I've also provided some handy information, such as notifications of my opening hours.

If they want to call me directly, they can do so with just a click of a button. If they need to visit the website, they can do that as well. And here's the map that we embedded earlier.

How to make your app private

Keep in mind, Jotform Apps also allows you to make your apps private if you would like to.

By default, when selecting the template option, the Public Access selection is always going to be selected. This makes sense for most businesses that want to attract as many clients or return customers as possible.

However, you can also change this to Private Access. For example, if you want to create an app just for your internal staff or employees, you can do so. In fact, you can even limit access by a specific domain name if you're doing this within an organization.

There may be other scenarios where you want to keep private access. For instance, if you're selling a membership, such as running a gym or working as a personal trainer, you might want to provide private access only to people who have signed up for a particular program. This way, they can track their progress.

They can input their reps, and their nutrition, or however you want to design your particular app so you can either make things public or private based on your needs.

So, if you'd like to create a professional-looking mobile app and do it absolutely for free, be sure to check out Jotform Apps. Click the link in the description below to get started today. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

How to enable multiple inboxes in Gmail

You can waste an awful lot of time going back and forth between your different labels and folders within Gmail. If you need to view something on the left-hand side, you can only go into that label. Then, if you want to go back to your inbox, you have to click up over here.

Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you a little-discussed feature that might just transform the way you manage your email. Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you get more done and enjoy less stress.

Wouldn't it be great if you could click a little less and just access the emails or types of information you want right here within Gmail? Well, under Settings, we have an option to create Multiple Inboxes, and this is going to give us an advantage by allowing us to create various ways to access our email.

When you first click on the Settings gear tab, you'll notice a number of different options down below, including Inbox Type. By default, you're probably going to see something like this—just your basic inbox. You may already have customized filters that send certain emails to other labels right away, but this is typically our default view. However, you can choose a few other options.

Way at the bottom is something called Multiple Inboxes. You can turn on multiple inboxes right away by selecting this radio button, and you can edit it by selecting this link.

But I also want to make sure you know how to get here from the traditional way. At the very top, if we select See All Settings, you're probably familiar with this General tab. The third one in is titled Inbox, and we can also access it here as well.

So, right here at the very top,

Adding inbox labels and filters

We have the selection for Inbox Type, and we've just been looking at our default view. Here, we can see those other options as well, but the last one is where we want to pay our attention: Multiple Inboxes.

You're going to be presented with something like this: five different sections, which we can customize either by filter, by some other Gmail search queries, or even give them a customized name so that we can see additional information. Let me show you how this works.

I already have one here called is, meaning I want any emails that I've starred to be in my very first section. But let's take a look at what else we can add as well. The next one down I'm going to set to is. In this case, I'm referring to my Urgent label, which you can see here on the left-hand side.

Keep in mind, you can't just click into these fields and expect a drop-down to appear. Not only can you select some key labels you've created on the left-hand side, but you can also create a fairly complex filter based on a date range or urgency. If you'd like to learn more about specific Gmail and Google search filters, I encourage you to click the video on the screen right now.

For section number three, for example, I'm going to use from instead of is. I'll enter my own email address. Let's pretend in this case that this email address belongs to my boss, a coworker, or a very important client, and I want to make sure I see their emails so they don't get buried with all of my other emails. So, here I have my three different search queries.

I'll come back to the Search Name in just a moment, but let's go to the very bottom of the screen and don't forget to select Save changes.

Now, we are going to be brought back to our inbox,

What multiple inboxes look like

But it looks a little different, doesn't it? Yes, here on the right-hand side, we have our multiple inboxes with our different sections. We have the starred emails at the top, my urgent emails next, and then at the bottom, we have my Scott@Simpletivity emails.

These are always going to be displayed in conjunction with my main email inbox account on the left-hand side. So, not only can I continue to manage the messages that I normally would in my inbox, but I can also have certain messages filter up to the top and deal with them here at the exact same time.

Now, first thing: right in the middle, if you hover your cursor, you can adjust the size of this split. If I want to make it nice and tiny, I can drag this all the way to the right and still have access to any of these emails. If I want to click on an email, it will open up just as it normally would. I can reply and forward as I usually do, but when I go back, I can still see these emails here on the right-hand side.

Let me make this just a little bit bigger for our example. Some other things for us to consider: we don't always have to have them visible like this. We can minimize these sections. For example, maybe I just want to keep an eye on emails from Scott for the rest of the afternoon. I can have that section expanded while minimizing my other sections. Or, I can minimize them altogether until I actually need them.

The nice thing is that I can get directly to this information without hiding my main inbox here in the front of my screen.

Let's go back to our settings.

Multiple inbox settings and options

Remember there's two ways to get to it. We can go to See all settings. I'm going to come down here and select Customize this time, which is going to bring me back to the exact same section. So we can add as many as five different sections here. Thing to note though is that you cannot simply drag and drop these sections around, which is kind of unfortunate.

So for example, if I want to change and have this from email address as my first section, I'm actually going to have to cut and paste this, put it up here, and then put this starred somewhere else. So you might want to take a little bit of time to consider what order you would like your sections to be in.

But another nice feature is that we can actually name these. Remember, this looked a little, well, shall we say just a little messy? Let's go back to that inbox for a second here. We've got things like is:starred,

is:urgent, from. I mean, I know what that means, but maybe I'd like something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing or maybe just a little more direct, especially if I have a complex filter or something there applied.

So if we come back here, we can go to the section name and we can say very important emails, maybe something like that. For my urgent, maybe I'll keep with urgent or I could add something maybe like a stop sign or a red color, something like that. I'm just going to go with an emoji, in this case, and I'm going to say emails from me, maybe something like that. So it's something a lot more descriptive. So I don't have to be staring at the search query. I can look at the section name.

Now there's two other things that we want to pay attention to here on the Inbox tab. Down below, we have the maximum page size, and this is referring to the number of conversations which it is going to show per section. So right now I have it set to 9, but maybe I want to reduce that a bit. I'm going to set this down to 5 conversations per page. I'm going to show you how that looks but also how you can access all of those conversations from those section areas.

And then the last thing we want to pay attention to is the multiple inbox position. Now, in this case, I have it set as right of the inbox. I personally feel that this is maybe the most convenient because you can see your inbox in full view in the top left, and then you can see your multiple inboxes to the right. But you can also choose to display them above your inbox or below the inbox as well. So depending on your preference, you can make that selection here.

Once again, we want to come all the way down to the bottom and select Save changes for anything that we've done here to take effect. So, now you can see, I've got my much cleaner, my much more aesthetically pleasing labels or titles for these sections, very important emails, I've got my stop sign here representing my urgent emails and then emails from me.

And just like we said that we wanted to limit it to a maximum of five emails displayed, you can see, we've only got five per section. Well, maybe only four here because I only have four starred emails. But for the other ones, you can see it is showing me 5 of 11 and 5 of many. So if I want to go beyond and access the emails in this section, all I need to do is select this 5 of many, and it's going to open up all of those emails for that particular filter.

Now I can just go back to my inbox at any time and I'm brought back here as well. And the great thing is, is that everything still applies. Let's say that I want to maybe delete this email and these two emails and this email here, I'm selecting the check boxes. I can come up here and select Delete. So I don't have to do it by section, I can select multiple things at any given time and access them right here on the same screen

Things to consider before using multiple inboxes

Now, just a couple of caveats you should be made aware of before you start to transform your entire multiple inbox view. Number one, applying these changes to your inbox, whether it's in this section or over here within your traditional inbox, will not take effect immediately.

So let's say, for example, I'm going to star this email here and I'm also going to star this one as well. You'll notice that two new emails did not appear here immediately. I still only have these three. I would actually need to refresh the screen in order for those changes to take place. Here, after doing a quick refresh, now I have both of those emails listed here as well. And that's going to go in both directions.

The other thing you may want to be made aware of is that we cannot simply drag an email from one section to another. So, for example, let's take a look at this "Sticking with a habit" email. Maybe I'd like to make it an urgent email. I can't simply just go like this and drag it into my urgent area and move it and apply that urgent label. It's not going to do so.

What I can do is I can still grab that email and drag it into my urgent label folder over here if I want, and that does actually bring it immediately into this section area. Now, if you have any questions about how to use multiple inboxes right here within Gmail, be sure to leave it in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Email safety check

Doesn't it feel great when you find a website that does that one thing really, really well and it does it fast and it does it absolutely for free? Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you seven extremely useful websites that you may have never heard before, but I can guarantee you're going to come back again and again because they're just so useful.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's start off with website number one, and it is called Have I Been Pwned?

Have I Been Pwned? My first question for you is how do you pronounce this word? There's a big debate online, whether it's pohnd or pawnd, or do we just say owned because it's based off of someone making a mistake and actually misspelling the word owned.

No matter how you pronounce this word, this is a fantastic website to check your email or phone number to see if it's been involved in a data breach. Now, of course, you've heard of many important and significant data breaches over the years.

Maybe your banking information has been attacked. Maybe other big services, such as Facebook and other social media accounts, have been hacked.

Maybe you've received warnings in the past. Well, you can do your own checks based on your own information.

So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to type in an email address that I use for testing purposes. And I'm going to hit pwned/pwned, you tell me in the comments, and it's going to tell me that, "Oh no, there's been some data breaches."

In fact, there's been 11 data breaches. Now, if I scroll down, the great thing about this website is that it's going to tell me the details of these particular data breaches for my specific email address or whatever you enter in here.

So I can see things like Adobe and Canva, for example. If I scroll down further, Dropbox, Last.fm, they'll even give me the years in which many of these data breaches occurred, and they're telling me that, yeah…

Look at this, email addresses, passwords, usernames, website activity, all of these things were compromised in these data breaches. So what do you do next?

Well, maybe I'm going to log into some of these accounts and change my email address. That would be one thing.

Number two, I should probably go in there for sure and change my password. Even if I want to keep the username or the email address, log into some of these services and change their passwords as well.

Printer friendly mode

The next useful website on our list is called Print Friendly, and you'll find that at printfriendly.com. Now, how often have you been looking at an article or a webpage and saying, "This is valuable information. Maybe I'd like to save this as a PDF, or maybe I need to actually print out a paper copy."

So you come up to your browser and you select Print. Now, sometimes this can take a little while because it needs to load all of the ads and the images, and other things that are going on in this article.

And even before I saw the preview, I'm looking up here, 11 sheets of paper. Even if this is going to be a PDF, that's, I think, way too long for this article.

Look at all of this menu and website gunk I've got at the top of the screen. And as I scroll down, look at all these advertisement breaks in between.

Here's another Black Friday ad in the middle. I've got these advertisements spaces.

Yeah, this is not very easy to read in this particular format. Well, that's where Print Friendly comes into play.

Let me just copy the URL of that exact same article. I'm going to come over here and paste it and say Preview.

Now it may take just a few seconds, but here you can see a much more readable file. So here we got the entire document, and we're done, that's about it.

That that looks more like two, maybe three pages at most. I've just got the goods of this particular article.

Now, Print Friendly is perhaps even more friendly if you install the browser extension, then you don't have to be coming back to this website. And the good news is that Print Friendly is available on all major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.

So if you want to print just the goods, be sure to check out printfriendly.com.

Bypass content paywall

Now the third website on our list may be a little controversial, but I'll let you decide if you want to go forward and use it or not. The website that we're talking about is called 12ft.io.

And here's the tagline, "Show me a 10ft paywall and I'll show you a 12ft ladder." So here's the idea, you come across an article and maybe it's from a magazine such as Harvard Business Review, maybe it's a news publication such as the Boston Globe or really anything which is requiring a subscription.

So here I've found an article. I've been searching online, and this looks like a great article, really what I'm interested in or what I need to know.

But as I scroll down, I've only been given about a paragraph, and then it's telling me that I'm out of free articles for this month. And this is going to change depending on the website that you're on, right?

Some may give you a few free articles per month or per day or whatever the case may be. Now, I want to be very clear. If you're getting real value from any publication or any website, I think you should be paying for those services.

That's how you're getting quality content and quality information. However, you might stumble across a website where there's just that one article, right? Just that one piece of content.

You may not be interested in any of the other content that this website is providing, but you would just like to see what's going on here. Well, this is perhaps where 12ft Ladder comes into play.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to copy this URL, and I'm going to come back to 12ft Ladder. Now, you actually don't even need to come to the website itself, all you need to do is actually put this little URL in front, the 12ft.io URL in front of it.

But I'm going to paste it in here just for our example here. And I'm going to say Remove the Paywall.

And what it's going to do, it's going to stay on that same tab, but now as I scroll down, I have no restrictions. I've got the entire article here in front of me.

And the nice thing is that usually, it will remove everything else, including the ads. So why is this working and how does this particular website get around this?

Well, if we scroll down to the bottom of the 12ft.io page, you can get the, what, why, and the how does it work? Essentially, the developer of this website says that he thinks that AdWords has killed the web.

And so that we're too often being served up with things with keywords and things just to grab our pieces of information. But how is it working behind the scenes?

Well, Google is indexing all of their content. So new sites and other publications are giving Google the entire article so it can scan through it and do its Google crawler business.

However, this website is making you somehow, I guess, of the crawler or access to that same information so that they can cache a copy of the site each and every time.

Original headshot images

Now the next website on our list is very interesting and also comes with a very peculiar name. Here we are at thispersondoesnotexist.com, and yes, you read that right, the person we're looking at right now does not exist.

What we're looking at is a headshot or an image made up of many other faces. So this is not a real human being.

This is someone that a computer has put together from a variety of other random images. Let me just hit refresh.

Here you can see someone with some type of hat on top. It's a very interesting website, and the way that you might find it useful is if you're looking for some headshots for your website, if you're looking for something for your demos or maybe a database, especially if you're giving examples to your clients or customers.

I know for myself, I'm often needing a few headshots if I'm putting together a database or wanting to put something together where it looks like I've got some actual avatars or actual profile pictures here. And it's almost eerie on this page because this person, and everyone that we've seen so far, does not actually exist.

These eyes are probably from someone different than the nose, than the mouth, than the hair, the ears, and the chin profile. Let me refresh this once again, and again, someone else who does not exist.

Now, you're probably already recognizing that it's not the most diverse collection here. There tends to be a lot more women in this particular collection and a lot more fair-skinned women as well.

So if you are looking for greater diversity, this may not be the website for you. But even just for a few moments of entertainment, you can refresh this screen and look at an image that looks so lifelike, that looks so real, yet this person does not exist.

Something that may be helpful to you if you're looking for images and not just want to repeat all of the stock images and all those things that you see time and time again, you can go have some fun or use it for your own purposes at thispersondoesnotexist.com.

View old websites

Now, speaking of things that no longer exist, here we are at archive.org, and we are going to take a look at the Wayback Machine. How often have you wanted to go back and see what your website or maybe a competitor's website looked like many years ago?

Or maybe you just want to have some fun and take a look at a website from the past. What the Internet Archive does is actually cache most webpages or at least a large variety of webpages over the years.

It's like taking a snapshot of different websites over time. So let me give you just a quick example.

I'm going to actually type in my own website because I'm in the process of redesigning it. Maybe I'd like to go back and see, well, how did things get started?

Was there anything that was working better in the past or not? Let's go back and take a quick look.

So here you can see, we've got a bit of a timeline here at the top. Yes, my website was actually launched in 2015, but it looks like the Wayback Machine didn't start archiving it until 2016.

These little bars represent the different points in time where things were snapshotted, where things were grabbed over time. If I click on 2016, for example, down below, then I'm given a yearly calendar.

I can see the different months to see what things looked like at that time. So let's take a look at, I don't know, November 27th, 2016.

If I go here and click on the time, that's going to be the specific time when they took that snapshot. What it's going to do is actually bring and present that website to me here within the browser.

And things look quite a bit different than they do now on my home screen. Now, keep in mind that some of the fonts, some of the layout may be a little bit different.

So, for example, this Simpletivity link is actually a logo that was over here. It didn't actually look quite like that.

There might be a few things out of alignment, but I can actually go back and I don't have to save a copy of this or necessarily back up the website if I want to come back and review it.

I can come here and say, "Oh, wow, so this is what I did. This is what things looked like way back when. Was there anything that I want to come back and revisit?

Terms of service

Now, the next website on our list is for all of us who don't have the time or effort to read all of those terms of service. And you know what I'm talking about.

Regardless of the software, website, or apps that you use, you're often presented with an extremely long terms of service that, even if you did read it all, would you be able to understand all of the terms and the legalities within those terms of service?

Well, here at ToS;DR, that's termsofservicedidntread.org, you will get not only a summary of the terms of service, but it's actually going to tell you what it means.

So, for example, if we go here to Facebook, it's telling me that Facebook stores your data whether you have an account or not. Your identity is used in ads that are shown to other users.

Now this is the plain speech that we understand. But if I hover over it, it's actually going to give you the specific wording, showing you or referencing the actual terms of service.

On the front page here, you're going to see some of the bigger names like Amazon and Reddit and Wikipedia, for example, but you can search for anything here.

So, for example, if you want to type in one of your favorite tools or one of your favorite services. Let's type in something like, oh, I don't know, maybe something like Todoist, for example.

And here we can see Todoist doesn't have a grade yet. Many of them will receive an actual grade, but here are some of the things that you may want to consider if you want to go forward with using that tool and if there's anything that maybe stands out to you.

So, if you want to go and preview or read some of the things that you couldn't have read in the first place, or let's be honest, you didn't read in the first place, you can always come to Terms of Service; Didn't Read and catch up and determine if you want to proceed or maybe hang back.

Amazon price checker

Last but certainly not least, we are on a website that's going to help you save money and make you feel confident if you are getting a great price on a particular item. Here we are at camelcamelcamel.com, and CamelCamelCamel is all about looking at Amazon products and seeing the price history of those particular products.

Now you can use CamelCamel in a variety of different countries. So even if you're not using the American Amazon site, you can look at a variety of countries down here, including a German flag with a blue on the top.

I don't know why they chose that there, but, anyhow, let's stick here with CamelCamelCamel and we're going to type in something here like, oh, maybe something like a Blue Yeti microphone, for example. I get a lot of questions about, "Scott, what type of microphone are you using?" And yes, I do use a Blue Yeti microphone.

So if I scroll down here, here you can see there's a few different models and things that are going on here. And let's click on this first one here.

It's telling me the Amazon price currently is 129.99. But if I click on the item itself, we're going to get so much more detail.

So how am I going to determine if this is a good price or not? Well, if I scroll down, I can see a full price history all the way back to 2014.

And you know, like most products, there's ups and downs, right? There's sales, there's Black Friday, there's a variety of other things here as well.

So there's quite a gap between when it was cheapest at a mere $85, but that was also several years ago, to its highest price of 131. So, really, if I look at this, the average price has been $116.

Maybe right now is not the time to buy this particular item. In fact, it's very close to the highest price it has ever been.

Let's try another product for our example. Maybe I'm looking for an RGB keyboard, in this case. I'm just going to type in those keywords.

It doesn't have to be a specific product. You can actually do much of your shopping right here at CamelCamelCamel.

And let's take a look at this Razer gaming keyboard, which says it's 34.99. Well, is that a good price? Should I pull the trigger and purchase this today?

Well, let's open it up and see what the data has to say. So, once again, I'm going to scroll down. And even before I do, it tells me, "Hey, this is the best price."

Well, show me the data. Why is this the best price? Well, look at this chart. Things have seemed to continually come down over the years and I can see that, yeah, this is rock bottom.

This is the lowest this particular keyboard has ever been listed on Amazon. So the average price has been 48.91, the current price is 34.99.

Yeah, let's go ahead and buy this keyboard. Now, if there's a particular item that you're waiting for, the other nice thing about CamelCamelCamel is that you can track those prices.

So if you just enter in your email address and say, "Listen, I want to be notified when it drops to a certain amount," you can do so right here.

Now I would love to hear from you next. Which of these seven websites were your favorite? And do you have anything else that you would love to share and add to this list?

Please be sure to do so in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult; in fact, it's very simple.

Focused background sounds

If you want to work at your productive best, it's so important to increase and keep your focus. So in today's video, I'm sharing with you five free apps and websites that will help you stay on track and keep your focus longer.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's kick things off with website number one, and we're taking a look at Noisli.

It is so easy for us to increase our focus often just by adding some background noise. Whether it's noise, music, or just emulating the sounds of some of our most familiar places, Noisli is an incredibly simple yet free app that we can use to add some less distracting sounds.

So, for example, maybe you've got kids, family, and pets at home, or maybe there's construction going on in your neighborhood. Let's mask that by adding some sounds.

Maybe I want the sound of some rain, so I'm going to click on this little cloud icon here. Maybe I want to combine that with some sounds of the night.

(rain sounds) Got some crickets there in the background. Maybe I want a bit of a crackling fire in there as well.

(fire crackling) So what Noisli allows you to do is mix and match a combination of sounds because we all have different things that maybe trigger us or bring more peace or calm to our ears.

What I love about Noisli is not only its simple interface, but I can mix the different sounds as well. If there's too much crackling in that bonfire, I can bring it down.

If I want a little more rain in my mix, I can bring it up a little more as well. And if I want to turn things off, I just have to click on that particular icon.

But it also comes with a few different playlists as well. So here's one that's called Relax, which is a combination of, it looks like rain, thunder, and a crackling fire.

I can choose a random mix if I want to here. This has some wind and maybe some rustling leaves in the mix as well.

Or I can create my own, so I'm going to clear this, and actually, I created one a bit earlier called, well, I'm calling it Midnight Storm. So if I select this one, it's a combination of these three here, sort of a rustling river thunderstorm and some crickets in a midnight sort of setting here.

So you can combine anything that you like here, save them. You can also go and share them with others if you want, absolutely free. Check out Noisli.

Track your focus by typing

The next tool on our list is going to help us track our mood and also help us find out when we are most focused and productive as a part of our day. And for that, we're going to TypingDNA and looking at their Focus app.

Now, TypingDNA is all about analyzing the way that you type, including things such as speed, how often you use the backspace key to see and track your mood. I've been really fascinated with what it's been showing me over the past few weeks.

So here's a snapshot of what TypingDNA Focus is tracking for me over the last seven days. So I can see on average where I am spending more time at my computer and specifically at my keyboard and when I am not.

It's even going to show me some helpful information here, such as how many minutes I spend typing per hour, characters typed, and characters per minute. But I think the most helpful part of TypingDNA Focus is the mood tab, where it's actually going to help me find out where I am more tired, more stressed, but also most focused.

So, for example, here we're taking a look at my last seven days by hour, and we can already see a bit of a theme developing here. Around lunchtime, I'm starting to dip, right, and I'm getting a little more stressed out.

My focus is starting to dip as well. I'm certainly a lot more tired when it approaches the middle of the day.

And you see that that happens again later in the afternoon, but I have some other peaks when it comes to being a little more calm, but sometimes also being a little more stressed as well. Down below, you can see where I peaked on a few different characteristics, such as I was most focused, according to TypingDNA, actually on Saturday at 4:00 pm.

So maybe I'll want to dive into that a little bit deeper, but I was also most stressed at 4:00 pm on the Friday. Why was that the case, and should I avoid certain activities at that particular time?

Now again, we can look at this in a few different ways. Let's take a snapshot of my day yesterday, and I can sort of see the peaks and valleys and determine where I should be putting more focus.

So yes, I would agree I tend to be most focused at 8:00 am, and that is why I do some of my more challenging work first thing in the morning. But I'm also most tired at around 3:00 pm, so maybe I should try to avoid certain activities, or maybe that would be an ideal time for me to take an extended break.

Now if you'd like to get access to three bonus moods here within TypingDNA, be sure to check out the link in the description below. These special moods will only be available for the next 24 hours, so don't delay and start using TypingDNA for free.

Pomodoro timer assistant

Now the next tool on our list is actually a browser extension called Marinara. And Marinara is a pomodoro assistant. If you're not familiar with the pomodoro technique, it's essentially about working in 25-minute increments and then taking a short break.

Twenty-five minutes to be ultra-focused and then taking a short break before selecting what you want to do next. Here you can see up in my browser extension area, I've got six minutes left in my current 25-minute pomodoro window.

So I can see how much longer I have to focus, perhaps on creating this video or perhaps on doing some other task before I'll be notified of taking a break. And the great thing is that Marinara will keep track of all of this information here as well.

We can also adjust the setting so if you don't want 25 minutes, maybe you want something a little longer or a little shorter, you can also change the default amounts and the default settings for both short and long breaks.

The great thing about Marinara is that it all lives here in your browser, so if I right-click here, I can pause or stop or restart the timer, and I can even see how many minutes are left here as well. So I don't have to download another app or have something else in front of me here. I can manage all of this right here within my browser.

Create a focus forest

Now the fourth focus app on our list today is Forest, something that's going to help us stay focused in a fun and very entertaining way. Now, yes, you can use it on your mobile devices, but you can also use it as a Chrome extension as well.

The idea behind Forest is, again, very similar to pomodoro, working in certain increments that you set. But Forest also allows you to block out certain websites.

The goal in this case, and to make it a little more fun, is for you to start with a seedling, start with a small plant, and over the course of your 25 minutes or whatever time that you set, you can grow a full tree.

So here, for example, in my browser, you can see I've got the Forest extension installed, and I haven't started my next one yet here, but it says if I click, I can start planting.

So I'm going to click on this icon, and here you can see I've got this little seedling, and now I've got a countdown timer. Now I don't need to see that visible. It's going to let me know when that timer is done.

Now I can go ahead and work as I would and try to grow a full tree. As the time progresses, this is going to grow a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, until as I near zero, till I near the end of my timer, it will be a completely full tree.

The nice thing about Forest is that you can also set your block list, so if you want to block certain websites, you can do so, meaning it will prevent you from visiting certain websites.

You can, of course, turn this off if you like to, but in this particular mode, it would prevent me from following certain social media pages. As you can see here, since I've already started my particular timer, I cannot adjust the block list mode.

And I like that type of functionality, right? Because I've already decided to work on a particular project or task or maybe just have a focused conversation with someone, so I don't want to be able to adjust this in the moment.

I want to keep going. I want to see if I can grow that tree and keep my focus throughout the next 25 minutes.

Stop mindless browsing

Next up, we have a very simple Chrome extension which is going to help us stay on track by reminding us as to where we should be or what we should be doing next.

So in this case, it's called Mindful Browsing, and it's very simple in its nature, but it can be also very powerful as well. So let's say, for example, I'm doing some work or I'm doing some research on this website, and I want to avoid some of my social media pages.

So let's say I get the urge to go over to, oh, I don't know, something like Facebook. So I'm going to type in facebook.com.

However, what's going to happen is Mindful Browsing's going to say, wait a minute, do you really want to spend time on facebook.com? You said you'd usually rather review my task list.

So you can actually customize these messages. Now it does give us the option here. I can say yes, please give me 10 minutes of time on Facebook, or I can say, you know what, actually that's okay. I should probably get back to my work and what I was doing.

Here with the Mindful Browsing extension installed, you can see we have a few different options. So you can keep adding to your list in terms of the types of websites you would like Mindful Browsing to watch out for.

And I do like that it gives us this window of time. This is not editable. It's only going to be a 10-minute max before it kicks you out of that particular service, but you can keep adding other sites, other things that distract you.

Then down below there's a section called usually I'd rather, and that's why it said here I'd rather review my task list because that's something that I added myself. You can add a variety of different things here, and it will randomly walk through or present you with these options if you try to access one of these websites here.

So Mindful Browsing, incredibly simple, but very helpful if you're tempted to move on to something else. Now I would love to hear from you next. What are some tools that help you focus, whether that's on your desktop or on your mobile device?

Be sure to share them with me in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Connect events to Keep Notes

Would you like to spend less time managing your calendar? Well, then this video is for you because I'm gonna share with you seven time-saving tips and tricks so you can get the most out of Google Calendar.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's jump right into tip number one, which is one of my favorites.

How often have you organized a meeting or been getting ready for a meeting, but you have some additional notes that you don't want to forget when this particular meeting arrives? So in this example, I've set up a meeting with Kate.

I've told her what we're going to be discussing here, but maybe I have some additional notes, not an agenda, but some additional notes that I want to remember to ask Kate, but I don't want to share them with her in advance.

Well, if you use Google Calendar, there's a pretty good chance that you probably already use Google Keep. And if you don't, this might be a really good reason to start doing so.

When you open up any Google Calendar events, such as this, and you come over here to the Google side panel, if I click on Keep, you can see that I can add a new note.

Now you might think that's not a really big deal. Of course, you can take a note. You can view your other notes here as well.

But watch what happens when I say take a note; I am actually creating a connection with this particular note and this particular calendar event.

So maybe I've got question one, I'm gonna ask about the sales team, something like that, maybe question two, talk about next week's conference or something like that. I'm gonna hit Done.

And what I've got is now a related note to this particular calendar event. Yes, I can take additional notes, and I can access my other notes here, but watch what happens when I close this particular meeting, and let's say I can still see that note here.

But whenever I open up this meeting, that related note is always going to jump up to the very top here, but it gets even better.

What if I'm thinking about adding or editing these questions when I'm not inside of Google Calendar? Well, all I need to do is open up Google Keep, whether it's on my mobile device or here on my desktop.

And here you can see I've got that exact connection with that particular event. In fact, I can even go directly to it.

If I click on that little button there, it's gonna take me directly to this particular meeting event. So a fantastic way to create a connection between your notes and specific Google Calendar events.

Add meeting notes

Now, let's stick with the topic of meeting notes, and in this case, what if you do want to share an agenda in advance, or maybe you just want to take notes during the meeting and make sure that everyone who attends has access to those notes?

Well, if you subscribe to any version of Google Workspace, you can take advantage of a new feature. Here, you can see I've got a Test Meeting, and when I click on it, you can see that there's an option here saying, Take meeting notes.

So what this is going to allow me to do, if I select this link, is it's going to open up a brand new Google Doc, but it has the date of that meeting, it has the name of that meeting, already pre-filled out for me.

I can take note of all of the attendees. I can start to add notes. I can create action items during the meeting itself.

And what's going to happen from here on in is that that agenda is now directly attached to this calendar event. If I go and open it up, you can see it's gonna be listed here under the description.

We can click on that again and immediately open it up. Now, what you should note is that this, unlike tip number one, is not going to be private.

Anyone who is a guest of this particular event will have access to these notes. So this is really intended for more agenda purposes or for people to review those notes after the meeting, but a great and quick, easy way for you to add notes directly to your calendar events.

Add multiple notifications

Now, tip number three on our list has to do with saving time and making sure that you don't forget about the most important events on your calendar.

Here, I have a meeting called Team Meeting. And let's say for this example, it's by far the most important event on my calendar this week.

So not only do I not want to be late for this particular meeting, but I wanna maybe give myself a nudge or a reminder in advance, perhaps even a day or two in advance.

Well, when we are setting up our meetings, we are so used to just using the default notification time. Now we can always go into Google Calendar settings and adjust the default time.

So if I open up this meeting, yeah, my default for all of my meetings on this calendar is to notify me 10 minutes in advance. And if I have notifications turned on, I will receive a warning here within my browser, and I will also be notified on my mobile device.

But this is such an important meeting, I wanna make sure that I'm notified well in advance. Remember, you can always add multiple notifications.

You don't have to just change this first one here. I can come down here and say, you know what? I'd like to send myself an email, maybe two hours in advance, right? Just so I'm prepared.

I've got all of my meeting notes together, and you know what? I'm gonna also send myself an email, maybe two days in advance. So I'm gonna say two days in this case, just to make sure it's top of mind and I'm getting prepared in advance.

All I need to do is click Save at this point. And now these notifications will remind me, one, which is going to be a standard notification either in-browser or on my mobile device.

And these next two will be sent to me via email. Keep in mind, these notification settings are for you, the organizer, and will not apply to the guests you've invited to your event.

Now, something else that can save you a lot of time and also save you a lot of effort is if you need to transfer ownership to someone else for a particular meeting.

Change event owner

Let's stick with this team meeting example where I've got only two of us invited at this point, but maybe, let's say for our example, we have a number of important stakeholders in this meeting.

Well, I know that perhaps I have a meeting that might run late, or maybe I just can't make this meeting at all. And I wanna make sure that things can still be updated in my absence.

All you need to do is come up to the top and select the More actions button. And near the very bottom, we've got the option that says Change owner.

Now, in this case, I don't have to just select someone who has already been invited. I can actually select any email address.

I can invite anyone here to be that new owner, and it gives us a standard message here, but I can change this and say, listen, I'm gonna be running a little late, or I'm gonna be off for the next two days. Can you be the owner of this meeting as changes happen?

So this can be a quick and easy way for you to change ownership rather than just delete the meeting and have someone else create it from scratch again.

Enable working hours

Now, the next tip on our list is gonna save you time from telling people that you can't meet or that something is outside of your working hours. Note, this particular tip only applies to those who have subscribed to a Google Workspace account.

So in this case, let's say that you are working in between the hours of nine and five, Monday through Friday. However, if you don't set your working hours here within Google Calendar, someone else within your organization could book you for 7:00 PM or two in the morning or something well outside of your working hours.

So in order to adjust and apply your working hours, come up to the gear icon, select Settings. And then on the left-hand side, under the General menu, we wanna come down to Working Hours, and here you can choose to enable or disable working hours, choose the days of the week, and then those specific times.

And remember, your schedule may not look as standard as this. Maybe on Wednesdays, for example, you only work until 3:00 PM, so you can adjust it for your specific needs.

You don't have to hit Save on this page, you can simply go back to settings. You will note that this will visually do nothing for your calendar.

However, if someone else is attempting to book you within your organization, they will get a warning, telling them that it is outside of your working hours if they try to book you outside of those windows.

Add events from Gmail

Now, the next tip on our list is gonna save you so much time because you're not gonna have to use your keyboard almost at all to book another event. Well, specifically, if that event is originating from your email.

Let's take a look at this example here. Let's say that someone has emailed me and they want to meet later in the week. They've even given me a particular day.

So it sounds like I could probably go ahead and book this individual for a meeting on Thursday. Now, typically, you would have to open up Google Calendar and find the selected time and add that individual and give it a name and everything else that goes on with creating a brand new event.

But since we have most of those details here, and maybe we want to even keep the information here, why don't we just create an event directly from Gmail?

Now, yes, we could do so by using the side panel up here, but you can also do so by coming up to the top of the email. If we select the More option, we can select Create an event.

This is going to immediately open up Google Calendar and create an event with the subject of that email. The person who sent the email or who is included in that email will automatically be added.

And even the body of the message will be included here in the description. Now, in most cases, you're probably going to want to change the name, right?

Because the subject of that email is probably going to be somewhat unrelated or maybe confusing. So I'm gonna say meeting with Scott in this particular case.

But it can be such an advantage to have all of this information right down here so we can include this or maybe review this when it comes to the meeting itself. So a much faster and easier way for you to create that meeting directly from within Gmail.

View multiple time zones

Now, speaking of saving time, I often waste a lot of time trying to convert the time zone of the people that I'm wanting to meet with or planning to meet with in my local time.

Here, by default, Google Calendar is going to show you your local time here on the left-hand side of your screen. But what if you work with others, whether it's colleagues or clients in different time zones, and you want to make sure that you can see exactly when that meeting is scheduled?

Well, if we come up to settings and then click Settings, here within Google Calendar, we have the option to adjust our time zone. So under Time zone, we can create our primary time zone.

We can even change the label if we want, but we can also display a secondary time zone. So in this case, maybe I want to show Eastern time in addition to Pacific time.

And again, I can change the label if I want. Currently, my primary is labeled as Home, but maybe I want to change that. I wanna call that Local as my local time zone there.

So now if I go back to my calendar here on the left-hand side, I can clearly see my local time, but I can also see the Eastern time, my secondary time zone here on the left-hand side.

If you wanna go one step further, if we expand our menu option here, we can also choose to see additional current times in other parts of the world.

If we go back to our settings and back to the time zone area, just below, there is a section called World clock. And here we can add as many different additional time zones as we want, so we can see the current time for different places in the world.

Now, if you want to see even more time-saving tips and tricks, I invite you to click on one of the videos which is on the screen in front of you. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Problem with standard folder systems

How many times have you tried to find a particular file by clicking on this folder? And then I think it's in this folder, and then this folder, and then this folder, and then, ugh, no, that's not it.

So you've got to go all the way back up the tree or back up your folder structure and try again to find out where you left that file. Well, in this video, I wanna show you a much simpler way to manage all of your files and folders so that you can find what you're looking for that much quicker.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. Right off the bat, I wanna tell you that the fastest way to find any file is to use your search feature.

Whether you're a Windows user, a Mac user, or you're storing your files on Google Drive or any other service, by searching for that file, you are most likely gonna find it the fastest, but only if you name your files properly.

Only if you are giving them descriptive names and keywords, so you can use this search field effectively. But let's be honest, we are not always so diligent in naming our files correctly, and that's why we need some type of file folder structure.

How to set up your folder structure

On the left-hand side, here you can see I have my Dropbox account. And when I expand it, you'll notice something unique.

I have 26 folders, one for every single letter in the alphabet. That's right, ABC all the way down to Z, and this is the way that I've been managing all of my personal files and folders for nearly 10 years.

It allows me to find the files that I need in just two clicks. So let me show you how things work.

The purpose of the ABC file folder system is to get to your files as quickly as possible without creating some type of complicated tree or branching structure.

So, for example, if I wanna look at my branding information, branding, well, that's under B. There is my Branding folder, and now here are my branding files and documents.

There were only two steps or only two layers for me to get to this area and find the file that I'm looking for.

How often have you looked at something, maybe like branding, and said, well, that probably fits under marketing or does it fit under design? Or maybe you have design and marketing both under some type of graphic folder or some other tree branch structure.

In this case, you're not so worried about keeping like-minded or similar folders or similar files together; the only thing that is grouping these things together is what they start with.

So if I wanna update my bio, well, yeah, that's under B. If I wanna take a look at some of the backgrounds I've created in the past, or how about business cards that I want to print? Yeah, that's all going to be under B.

I don't have to be thinking about, well, where do I think? Yeah, business cards, that's kind of graphics, that's kind of design, that's kind of a community or relationship building. No, business, business cards, it's under B.

It allows me to get there that much quicker and that much faster. How about my marketing materials? Yeah, marketing's gonna be under M. YouTube resources, yeah, it's gonna be under You.

I know exactly where to go to find these files.

Flat folder system with only 2 levels

And if I open it up, I'm taken directly there, I'm taken directly to those files. So you've probably already noticed that I've purposely kept this system very, very flat, meaning that I only want to go two levels down or two steps to find the file that I'm after.

So the first level is the folder itself, right? We have the letter of the alphabet, and that's going to bring us to another selection of folders.

You'll notice, as I click through these different categories down below and the different folders that I have here, there are no files underneath them.

The second level down is always going to be another grouping of folders themselves. However, at the next stage, if we go back to Branding here, now it is entirely files.

There are no folders at this level, there are no more additional steps or no more additional levels that I need to go. I want to get as quickly as I can to these particular files.

Now, I do wanna reiterate, I probably could get to this file that much faster if I had just used the search dialog up here. But think about all of the files which you have downloaded from someone else.

And how did they name those files? Or did you take the time to rename those files?

This allows you to group things together under a folder, which makes sense, in this case, it's titled Branding, which I'm easily going to find under the letter B.

So, yes, search should be your first choice or your first option when it comes to speed, but that is only going to help you if you have listed and named your individual files appropriately.

Using ABC method with other programs

But there's another reason why I like the ABC file folder method. We spend an awful lot of our time uploading files from our systems.

So, for example, maybe I want to add a file here to my Google Drive account. I'm gonna click on New and say File Upload.

And what I'm presented with is a very small dialog, and no matter the type of system that you're using, chances are, you're often presented with a very, very small dialog.

Now, yes, I could take my cursor and start to drag things out to the bottom or to the right. It doesn't give me an option to maximize.

And yes, I can certainly search for my files as well, but here, I can see an awful lot of my files here on the left-hand side. So if I wanna get back to those branding files, again, it was only two steps or two stages down to find the file that I'm looking for.

Things to consider for teams

Now, a couple of things to keep in mind if you are considering converting or using the ABC folder method. Number one, this method is designed for your personal files, the files and folders that you personally manage.

If you are sharing your files with an entire team or have a resource that you're sharing files with, the ABC folder method is not going to work. Why?

Because the way that you list and the way that you think of your headings and the labels of your folders are probably going to be a little different from other members of your team.

So if you're managing your files with an entire team, you're probably going to have to resort to some more traditional categories, such as marketing, finance, social media, and whatever pertains to your particular industry.

Managing images, audio, or video

The second caveat has to do with if you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of files, such as images, video, or audio. If you're a professional photographer, for example, you're not gonna fit everything under a P for pictures or I for images.

And there's many other great videos here on YouTube which will show you how to properly manage all of those thousands and thousands of image, audio, and video files more appropriately.

But for the rest of us who are dealing with things such as contracts, agreements, and reports, for example, the ABC file folder method can be a lifesaver and allow you to access and retrieve those files and folders in just a few clicks.

Of course, if you have any questions or comments about how to organize your files and folders, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Introduction

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You can do almost anything you want within a Trello card, but only if you know what all of these buttons and every feature does within a card.

So in this video, I'm gonna share with you everything you need to know about every single Trello card function and feature. And let's get started at the very top.

Card Title and List Location

We'll work our way all the way down to the bottom. First things first, if we need to change or edit the title, you can do so just by clicking your cursor here at the top.

I know it doesn't look editable, but even if I'm way over here and click, I can change the name of this card. So I'm gonna say new card, maybe for today.

How about that? Something for this example. I can either hit enter on my keyboard or just click anywhere outside of that field.

Now, just below the title of the card, it's going to show us where this card resides. So here at a glance, we can see it's in the list in progress.

I don't need to close this card and see it over here. I can always see where each and every card is listed. But beyond that, you can see that this is actually a link.

So if I click on this, we can actually move this card somewhere else. Now I can choose a different board as the destination.

I can choose any list within the board that I select up here, and if I select something like my pending list, I can also change the position as to where it will be displayed.

But in this example, I'm gonna keep it in In Progress, which is also going to tell us here is the current list. I can either click outside or hit Move.

In this particular example, nothing's going to happen 'cause we're keeping it right here. Now, the other place that you can access this little pop-up menu is over on the right-hand side, under Actions.

And if I click move here, you can see that we're presented with the exact same thing, but you don't have to come down here. You can always access this near the top of the card.

Description Field

Next up, we have our Description field, and we're not gonna take a lot of time here. You can basically input any text that you want.

Maybe I want to add some notes such as take a look at this website. Now what's important to note is that you can include bullet points or links or almost anything that you want here.

I'm gonna paste in a website link right here. Now, when I hit Save, what you'll notice is that it's going to take many of those links and actually convert them into the official name or how Google and other web browsers actually index that website.

So you can see it no longer says simpletivity.com. It's actually using the title of that particular page.

Now, if I click on this, it's gonna take me directly to that website, but sometimes I may need to actually open up the description to see the full name of that website.

So don't be confused if you see these types of links within your description, they're meant to be helpful. They're not always helpful, but you can always click on the description anywhere and see the actual link name right there.

Now down below the description, we have our custom fields. We're gonna come back to this in just a moment because in order to edit the custom fields and create new ones, we're gonna need to come over here on the right-hand side.

But for now, just note that any custom fields that you add will be displayed directly below the description.

Comments and Activity Details

And then at the very bottom of our screen, there may be some additional things that we add in between, including checklists and attachments, but at the very bottom, we are going to have our activity feed.

Now the activity feed is primarily used for comments. So if I want to add a comment, I can just click on this field and start typing away.

I've got a few additional features here available to me, including the ability to record a Loom video. I can add an attachment from here and maybe mention that attachment.

I can use the at symbol or click this icon to mention someone else on this board directly, add an emoji or even reference another card.

And when I'm done typing in this comment, let's just put in the comment, comment, I can hit Save down below.

You'll see there's one other option available to us here and that is a Watch checkbox. So if I want to watch this card for updates, maybe I'm adding myself to a conversation or something here that I want to keep track of, I can select this checkbox and I'll be notified of other updates.

I'm just gonna hit Save here. And now we've got our first comment down below.

But you'll also see to the right of the activity title, there is a Show details button. If we click this, we're not only going to see the comments, but we're also going to see what else has been done to this card.

So I can see that I have deleted an attachment from this card about an hour ago. And then I deleted this image from this card about an hour ago as well.

And we can see that as we make more changes and adjustments, you can keep track of what is happening with this particular card. Of course, if we don't want to see all of these details, we can select Hide details.

And then we will just be returned to view the comments here.

Suggested Actions

Well, let's make our way over to the top of the right-hand side, and yes, we've got a number of buttons to go through, but this is going to make you so much more of an expert with using Trello and being able to use Trello cards in a variety of different ways.

At the very top, we have something that's called Suggested. Now in this case, Trello is trying to predict what we might want to do next based on other behavior.

So in this case, you can see that it is giving me a Join button. You may not see a Join button on your cards, depending on your various boards and how you interact with Trello, but for this particular board and card, it thinks that, well, maybe I do want to join this board.

So I can click this and immediately, I am now a member of this board. Now I'm gonna remove myself from this, from this card, excuse me.

And you can see that that Join still remains. If you do not want to view the suggested items, all you need to do is select this gear icon and say, Stop showing suggestions, and you will no longer receive these types of hints.

However, they might be helpful because maybe there are certain things and you'd like to have them appear at the top of your card.

Adding and Removing Members

Next, we have our Add to card section, and there's a number of things in which we can add. The first one is members.

So if I click on this button here, I can either search for a particular member, someone who has access or is a member of this board, or I can come down here and click on the members themselves, including myself.

So I can either add myself. I could add multiple people. Maybe I'll add my teammate here. And now you can see that they're gonna be listed in this Member section.

Now that we have at least one person added to this card, you can see that we also have a plus button. So if I click this, we're gonna see the exact same pop-up dialog, where we can add further members.

If I want to make adjustments to those who are already added, I can click on them and select Remove from card. And now we don't have any members listed on this card.

Adding and Removing Labels

Next up is our labels. And here we can apply different colors. We can create new labels or adjust.

We can hit this little stylist icon and edit the actual label name for any of our labels here. So maybe this card is a new project. I can select that.

Maybe it applies to more than one label. I can do so here as well. When I'm done, all I need to do is hit X or click anywhere else on the card itself.

Adding Checklists

The third option down is the ability to add a checklist. And this can be a very, very powerful function.

If we select Checklist, it's going to give us a default title, just listed as checklist, but maybe I'm gonna say something different. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna call this a Test Checklist.

Now the importance of naming your Trello checklist is that you can create one checklist and then repurpose it or use it in other cards.

So for example, I could copy items from some of the other checklists that I have used here in the past. Otherwise, if I want to start fresh, I can leave this as none and then select Add.

And here you can see below custom fields, I now have this test checklist, and you can start adding items directly.

Now I have another video that goes into Trello checklist in much more detail, including some of these special features and functions.

But at this point, what you can do is just add your checklist items and or delete the checklist when you're finished, or perhaps you just made a mistake.

And we're gonna move on to our other features here within our Trello cards.

Due Dates, Reminders and Complete

Something that is very important when using Trello or at least will enhance your use of Trello is adding due dates.

So if we select the Dates option here, we're gonna be presented with a miniature calendar. So maybe this particular task is due in about four weeks' time.

I can select that date. I can choose a start date if I want to, but it is not a requirement. Lastly, I can specify the exact time if I want to as well.

And I can also specify the due date reminder. This can be helpful to notify me enough time in advance, depending on what this card represents.

So maybe one day before is not enough. I'm gonna select two days before, and hit Save. Now I will be notified of this due date two days prior to this time.

Now, if I need to, I can always click on it and change that due date. And last but not least, maybe I've completed this card. Maybe I've completed this task.

Here I can use this checkbox and it will mark it as complete. It will mark it as done. So, a very effective way of managing your cards here within Trello.

Below Dates, we have the Attachment button

Adding Attachments

and this is fairly straightforward. Many of us may want to go to our computer and we are going to select a file.

Maybe I'm gonna select this image here and now I've uploaded this particular attachment to this card. Now, images such as this, we have the option to make a cover, which we'll get to in just a moment, but you can attach virtually any type of file that you like.

If I select this attachment button once again, you can see, we can also attach directly from some popular cloud services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

We can also paste in a link. So for example, maybe I want to go back and I'm going to paste in that link for that website.

And I can give it a name. Maybe I'm going to call it website in this case, and I'm going to select Attach. So now you can see that this latest attachment, this is this website link, appears above my last attachment.

And it will always be displayed in this particular order. You can always comment directly on one of these attachments. You can choose to remove it, or you can choose to edit it.

So for example, if I don't like the title of this website, if this isn't very descriptive, I can select Edit, and I can change the title down below.

I'm gonna just remove some of these attachments. I'm gonna leave this one for just a moment here, just so we have some more room for our demonstration.

Location and Maps

Below Attachment, we have Location, and this can be very helpful if you are managing things that are directly related to an address or a geographic location.

So for example, we can use this search bar just like we would in Google Maps. So for example, maybe I want to type in something like the Empire State Building.

You will see a list of things that match that search here, or I could enter in a specific address. I'm gonna select that. And now I'm presented with a miniature map right here within my card.

Now you can expand this if we click on this option here, but this is especially helpful for realtors or people who are doing service calls, or maybe you need to go out and manage different properties or buildings.

You can keep that information here and have direct access to Google Maps. If I want to remove it or change the location, all I need to do is select these three dots here.

I'm gonna select Remove in this particular case. And now that location is gone.

Card Cover

Now we've talked a little bit about this cover button already 'cause you can see here with the attachment we uploaded earlier, we can actually make this image a cover, but we have many more options available to us.

So for example, if I select this cover button, first all, we have the choice of what type of cover do we want to display?

Now you can see these two options are actually grayed out because we haven't selected a color, an attachment, or some other image listed below.

So maybe I want to use a color instead of something that I've attached. Maybe I want this card to stand out.

I'm gonna select this red color here and I'll leave it at this default. This first cover choice here. What I can do, is you can see that we now have this bright red cover at the top of the card, but if we close the card, this card is now listed bright red here as well.

Let me just move it over to my In Progress. I had a rule set up for this particular card that anything that was completed should automatically move to this stage over here as a part of automation.

But I'm gonna move it back here just for our example. So here you can see this card really stands out because it's got this red solid bar at the top, but we can make it stand out even more.

Once a cover is applied, you can see that that cover button no longer exists on the right-hand side.

But now we come up here to the right and select Cover. I could choose this second option, which is not gonna change anything when we have the card open.

But if we go back to the board view, now we can see the entire card is shaded in this red color.

So this can be a great way to make certain things stand out. Now we're not limited to color. I could go here and choose this image, for example, the thing that we uploaded before.

Now, if I leave it in this state, this might be a little distracting, especially for the text that I have on it. So what is more common is using this left one here where we can still see the image, but we can see all of the card details when we're viewing it at the board view.

But again, you don't have to have a cover at all. And if you want to choose to remove it, just select, Remove cover here. The attachment remains the same, but we will no longer have that color shade at the top or at the board level view.

Custom Fields

Our last option here under Add to card is Custom Fields. And you can see in this example, I've actually already added a few custom fields.

Here is a time duration where I can input a number, and here is a custom dropdown in which I can add.

Custom fields can be so powerful and really help you to customize your boards for your specific needs. So if I select Custom Fields, I can either manage my existing custom fields or I can add a new one.

So here I'm gonna select a new one. Let's leave it as a checkbox. And maybe I just want something that says paid or unpaid.

I can choose if I want to show this on the front of the card or not by toggling this option and then select Create. Here you can see now I have this Paid checkbox, which I can either check or uncheck, letting me know if this client or this project or whatever this card represents, is paid.

Now, if you want to rearrange the order of your custom fields, you can't do it here, but you can do it from the Custom Fields button. All we need to do is come to the left-hand side of the field that we'd like to move and click and drag,

and I can move this Paid checkbox to the front position. So now you can see this Paid checkbox will be listed first.

Now, keep in mind, the more custom fields you add, the more layers and the more rows that will appear down below.

So you want to be mindful of how many custom fields are necessary and in what order you would like them to be displayed.

Power-Ups and Automation

Now the next two options here, we're not going to spend an awful lot of time on, but if you want to add a power-up, you can quickly and easily get to your power-up menu by selecting the plus Power-Up option.

If we close that menu, we will be brought back directly here to the card. And this is where your power-ups will be listed as well if you need to access further options.

The same is with automation. If you want to create your own rules, you can do so here by creating a custom automation button, or you can choose to add one from a pre-existing template, which is listed right here.

Move and Copy Card

That now brings us to the last part of our card and that is the Actions section. Now, many of these are straightforward.

We already talked about the Move button. By selecting this, we can move this card to anywhere else that we want.

The Copy option will allow us to take everything on this card and copy it into a brand new card.

We can change the title and we can choose if we want to keep some of the things that already exist here, or we could maybe, for example, uncheck the comments if we want that new card to have no comments at all.

Lastly, we can select Create card if we're happy with our selections here and create that copied card. I'm just gonna hit X on this particular example

Make a Template Card

and move on to our template option. Now, this is a very powerful feature here within Trello.

If you are needing to use many of the same features, attachments, checklists, labels, but then would like to expand on them.

So for example, maybe I want to create a card, which I already have some particular details, including links, maybe links to a particular form or document, and maybe even some of the individuals that I want to be attached to this card.

Well, what I can do is make this card a template where you will now see this checkbox here beside the button, but you will also see this new header at the top telling me that this is a template card.

Now, I can create new cards based off of this template and only have to manage this template going forward. So this can be a great way to save time and give you a little bit of a headstart with creating those new cards.

If you want to change or deactivate the template, you can simply select this button. And now this card is no longer available as a template option.

Watch a Card

Below that we have the Watch button, which allows us to get notifications when something changes on this card.

Now by default, when you join a card. So let me go back up here and I'm going to join this card. You will see that by default, I'm going to automatically be watching this card.

And that just makes sense, right? If I'm a member of this card, I probably want to see all of the updates and changes that happen on this card, but I could come down here and un-watch this card, even if I am a member.

So maybe I'm not the owner of this card or responsible for its outcome, but I'd still like to keep tabs on what is happening with it.

In this case, I'm not going to add myself as a member. I'm not gonna join this card. I'm gonna come down and select Watch, and now I will be notified of things that happen on this particular card.

You can also see at the very top of your screen, we have this little eyeball icon letting me know that I am watching this card.

Archive and Delete a Card

Next up, we have our Archive button. So if we do not want to see this card on this particular board, but perhaps we still want to be able to access it or search it in the future, we can select to archive it instead.

Immediately it will be archived and at the top of the card, you can see that it is telling us that this card is archived and the button now changes to Send to board.

So if I'd like to return it to this board, I can select this option. And now we're back in our original state.

You'll also notice that once you archive a card, you now have the option to delete this card. It's sort of a two-step process if you want to delete this particular card.

And that's for safety measures, just to make sure that you want to go through with the deletion process. I'm gonna say, send back to board.

Share a Card

And lastly, we're gonna come down to our Share button, which is also going to give you a quicker way to delete your card if you need to. Now by selecting Share, there's a number of things here that we can choose.

We can choose to print this card. We can export this card. We can also get a link to this card. If you want to send a link to someone else and make sure they come directly to this card, you can share this link as well.

Keep in mind your existing permissions will be in place. So if they don't have access to this board, they will not be able to access this card.

We can even display a QR code. And if you'd like to download it and use it for marketing purposes or however else you are using your Trello boards.

Next up, we can embed this card by copying in this code, or we can use this unique email address if we want to send comments directly to this card.

Yes, every single Trello card comes with a unique email address. So if you need to email content and comments directly into it, you can do so here as well.

Lastly, if you want a faster way to delete your card, you can open up Share, and directly select the Delete link here.

This is going to prompt us, are you sure that I want to delete it? But in this case, we don't have to hit archive first in order to get to this delete step.

This video was made possible by my friends at Rewind. The number one backup and recovery solution for Trello. Listen, mistakes happen, but you can recover from small errors all the way to major catastrophes in no time with Backups for Trello.

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How to enable Zoom closed captioning

Wouldn't it be great if you could produce accurate live transcriptions right here within your Zoom meetings for free?

Well, the good news is you can, and you can do it with just a single click, even if you're just using the free version of Zoom.

So in this video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know about closed captioning and enabling auto transcriptions in Zoom.

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

And let's start off with where you need to go to make sure that your transcriptions are working and available to you.

So first things first, you're gonna want to go into your Zoom settings here, and you're gonna want to select your profile picture and then come all the way down here and select check for updates.

It's really important that you're on the latest version of Zoom to make sure that you can take advantage of this feature.

And here you can see I am on the latest version at this point.

If not, it may take a few minutes.

It may have to restart Zoom, but after you're complete, you can hit close here.

The second step that we wanna take is that we want to actually log in to our Zoom account online.

And usually, you need to go to zoom.us in order to log into your account.

On the left-hand side of the screen, we wanna come down to the admin section.

We want to select account management and then we wanna select account settings.

And then within account settings, what we wanna do is we wanna come over here.

This is sort of our submenu, and we wanna select in meeting advanced.

And that's gonna take us directly to where we want to be.

Zoom transcription settings

Where we see closed captioning.

Now by default, this is probably disabled, so you're probably gonna have to toggle this to turn this on.

Once you've turned this on, you're gonna have these three different options.

These are three different checkboxes.

Now, the first one is to allow use of caption API token to integrate with third-party closed captioning services.

That was a mouthful.

Now, this has been available for some time because there are many other services that allow captioning and providing this service.

But you may not need this or have no need for it in the future.

You can choose if you want to keep this on or off.

It is really the second checkbox where we want to pay the most attention to, allow live transcription service to transcribe meeting automatically.

Now keep in mind by checking this box, it doesn't mean that all of our meetings are going to automatically be transcribed.

We're gonna still have to initiate that, and I'm gonna show you how to do so in just a moment.

The last checkbox is to allow viewing of the full transcript in the in-meeting side panel.

So this can be helpful to both yourself, but also participants of the meeting if they want to go back and review what has been said earlier or even search through some of those keywords.

The only other option here that you're gonna want to double-check is save captions.

Do you want to allow participants to save fully closed captions or a transcript?

So this is up to you if you want to toggle this on or off, but depending on the meeting, this can be a valuable asset.

Using Zoom transcriptions in a meeting

So with our settings in place, let's go see how we can enable this within any of our Zoom meetings or webinars.

So here within my Zoom meeting, if I come down to the bottom, I've got a number of different features, many of which you're already familiar with, such as sharing your screen or accessing your participants.

But because I have live transcripts turned on, here you can see I have this live transcript button.

So I'm gonna select that, and I've got a few different options here.

I've got this API token, for example, here.

This is this third-party closed captioning service.

I can assign someone to type for me, or I can choose if I want to type.

And this can be very helpful, especially if you have someone who is going to be interpreting into another language, or you just trust them to translate and transcribe this particular meeting.

So you can assign yourself or assign someone else.

But where you're most likely going to take advantage of is the live transcript down here.

Now, the last checkbox just before I enable auto transcription says to allow participants to request live transcription.

And this is something that you may have seen more recently where you can ask the host, "Hey, can you please turn on the transcriptions?"

If I uncheck this box, they won't have that ability to request myself, request the host in order to turn these on.

So at this stage, all I need to do is select enable auto transcriptions.

I can now close this box, and here at the bottom of my screen, you can see my words being transcribed in real-time.

Now I am really quite impressed with how accurate and how fast these live transcriptions are.

You can see that the words that are coming out of my mouth are not only almost 100% accurate, but they are being presented in probably half a second after I utter those words.

Moving closed captions on the screen

Now let's take a look at a few other features that we wanna pay attention to.

Sometimes it's not always helpful to have these transcriptions at the bottom, depending on what we are showing, if we're sharing slides or maybe something else on our screen.

So you can always take your cursor and drag your transcriptions to somewhere else on the screen, somewhere else where it's maybe a little more applicable.

Now, this is going to be specific to each and every user, so just because I've dragged it somewhere else, it doesn't mean that my viewers are going to view it in this area.

They can choose as to where they would like this transcription to be displayed.

But let's take a look at one other option that is very helpful, and that is actually accessing these transcriptions if we want to go and search them or review them later.

Viewing full transcript and saving the file

If I come back down to the live transcript button, you will see that there's this small up arrow beside it.

And if I click on this, I can either choose to hide the subtitle, I can change or adjust some of my subtitle settings, or I can view the full transcript.

So if I select this option here on the right-hand side, now I can see the full transcription for this meeting, including what's happening in real-time.

Now, the great thing about this is that I can scroll back up and review what has been said earlier, and you can see that there are timestamps beside each one as well so I can see when it was said.

In this particular example, I'm the only one in this meeting, but if there was someone else, you would also see their profile picture or if they don't have a picture, you would see their initial beside their comment so you can go back and see exactly who said what when.

But last but not least, we can also come up here and search our transcript.

So let me type in the word Zoom.

And now I'm immediately taken to all of the times, all of the phrases where I uttered the word Zoom in this particular case.

So if you forget or if you say to yourself, "I thought we already addressed that.

Or didn't someone else say something on this topic," you can use this search function to go back and see what was said.

Last but not least, if you'd like to save this transcript for your reference or perhaps you'd like to send this out to those who were unable to attend this meeting, you can come down here and select save transcript and then you can download it and use it any way that you wish.

Now if you have any questions about how to use Zoom closed captioning and auto transcriptions, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Reasons for installing the Desktop App

You already know the many benefits of using Google Drive online.

However, if you want to save time and get more flexibility out of all of your files and folders, you should consider installing Google Drive for desktop.

So in today's video, I'm gonna share with you everything you need to know in how to get the most out of this app.

Everything from installing and setting up your settings to why you should consider using the desktop app in the first place.

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

And let's start off with the two key benefits of downloading and using the desktop application.

Number one, you're probably used to logging in and opening up your browser to access all of your files.

Here you can see I've got a couple of test folders up here and then a variety of different files down below.

But sometimes I get tired of always having to go to my browser, keeping a tab open, or just opening up a new tab to find all of my files.

When I'm working here on my computer, wouldn't it be easier if I could just open up my File Folder system, my Explorer system, or Find File and go directly to those files?

Yes, absolutely.

The number two reason I would encourage you to use the desktop application is if you don't always want to be simply using your Google Drive applications, such as Docs or Sheets or Slides.

Maybe you prefer to use some Microsoft Office applications and you wanna keep editing in that format.

Here's an example right here.

You can see by the icon that this is actually a Word document, which I've uploaded.

Now, if I double click on this, it's gonna open it up in Google Docs.

That really shouldn't be a surprise because we're here within Google Drive.

But what if I don't like working with Google Docs and the menu options here up above?

What if I'd like to continue to work in Word?

Well, no problem, you can do that with Google Desktop.

How to install Drive for Desktop

So where do you go to get the Google Drive for desktop application?

Well, I'd actually recommend that you do a search rather than just give you a URL.

Why? Because the URL is not very memorable.

Here you can see the second one down is download Google Drive, and if I click on this link, you'll see a screen such as this.

Now, all you really need to pay attention to here is the blue button to Download Drive for desktop, whether you are a PC or a Mac user, and also keep in mind, you can download Drive directly to your iOS or Android device.

Now, once things are installed, let's open up our desktop and see how it looks and feels there.

Well, we don't have to go very far.

All I need to do is open up my File Folder or in this case, my Explorer Window.

And you can see at the very bottom here, I've got a listing of some of my most common locations on my PC, including my Desktop, Documents, Downloads, some other areas here.

Here's my Window C file and then down below, I've got my G Drive, Google Drive G.

And as you can see here, I've got two different sections.

I've got My Drive and then I've got Other Computers.

Now I'm gonna come back to this Other Computers here in just a moment.

But if I click on My Drive, you can see I have now access to all of the same files and those two test folders that you saw on Google Drive.

If I open things back up again, here are those two test folders, here's the files down below.

I can now access everything here on my desktop computer.

Accessing files from your desktop folder

So I no longer have to launch a browser to find those files.

If I want to look at an image here, I can just double click on this, and it's gonna open up this image right here on my computer.

Now I can edit it here with any other application that I have installed on my computer.

And if we go back to this Word document, remember this About Page Revisions that we saw on our online version of Google Drive?

Well, of course, it's a Microsoft Word document.

If I double click it here, it's gonna open it up within Word.

So maybe I'm more comfortable using Word here, I can do so, but everything here is going to be saved, continue to be saved to Google Drive.

So one of the nice advantages of using the Google Drive for desktop application.

Now, of course, you probably have a mix of different types of file types here within your Google Drive account.

And although I have a Word document here, many of my files here are either a Google Sheets or a Google Docs, or maybe a Google Form.

So for example, if I open up this Google Form, it can't launch it within the desktop because Google Forms does not have a desktop application.

However, it's going to take me directly to this file by opening up my browser.

So it was a simple double click to open the file up just like I would anywhere else, and it's taken me directly to this file.

So I didn't first have to go to my online Drive tab and then search for it.

I can go directly to that file.

I can make my changes and know that I can always access it right here from my desktop.

The other nice thing, because you've got your own Drive here, your own Google Drive, you can drag in any other file into this account.

So if I want to use this as a backup service, maybe if I want to share a particular file or a folder with others through my Google Drive account, all I need to do is drag and drop that file into my file here.

So it can be used as a backup tool, could be used in a variety of different ways as well.

Drive for Desktop settings

Now that you know a little bit more about how to use Google Drive on your computer, let's make sure that you're comfortable with the different settings and some of the things that you may want to switch when first installing the desktop app.

So in order to access your settings, all you need to do is come down to the taskbar and find your Google Drive for desktop icon.

I'm gonna click on this, and you can see that we are given some of the most recent activity here, including the file that I just opened here letting me know that everything is now up-to-date.

If there are any particular notifications, you can find them here as well.

But where are you gonna want to pay attention to is this little gear icon.

So you can set your own personal preferences, and that's gonna open up this little dialogue here.

Now we're actually gonna start on this first tab, you can see that there's two.

One is Google Drive and the top one is going to be listed either as My Laptop or Your Computer or whatever you've named the system in which you've downloaded the application.

So I'm gonna start here because this is, I think, one of the key benefits of using this tool.

Here we can safely back up our files or just make them accessible on either Google Drive or Google Drive and Google Photos.

So in this case, I'm displayed with this option here because I have yet to add a folder, but maybe I have an existing folder here within my laptop, and I'd like to access it on Google Drive.

So in order to choose a folder on your computer, select the Add Folder button, and this is gonna open up your Explorer bar or something similar so you can find your files.

So here's the particular folder in which I'd like to add to my Google Drive account.

I'm just going to select it here, say Select Folder, and now I have the choice to either Sync with Google Drive, or I can also back up to Google Photos.

Now, in this case, I'm just gonna keep this first option here, and I'm going to select Done.

So now under My Laptop, I can see a full listing which in this case, of course, is just the one folder, which is now being backed up to my Google Drive account.

Of course, you can add as many folders as you like, as long as you have room within your Google Drive account, and you can see them listed here.

Now, the second option that we have here is Google Drive, and that is folders from Google Drive.

Now I actually like this, it's giving me a warning here.

I'm gonna go back 'cause I forgot to hit the Save button.

So I'm gonna hit Save to make sure that this file is going to be uploaded and backed up to my Google Drive account.

Selecting to Stream or Mirror Drive files

Now I'm gonna go to my Google Drive here, and now I can access my files and open in Explorer.

This is simply gonna open the exact same screen that we saw earlier but what we do wanna pay attention to are the two choices down below, Stream Files or Mirror Files.

Now by default, Stream Files will be selected when you first download and install the Drive desktop application.

And what this means is that all of your Drive files are stored in the cloud only.

We do have the choice to set specific files or specific folders to be made available offline, but by default, you are simply streaming or accessing those folders in the cloud.

The second option that we have down below is to mirror those files.

And what that means is that all of your Drive files will be stored in the cloud and on your computer.

So by default, that means that you'll have access to everything offline even if you're away from the internet, those files will actually reside on your computer.

One of the big differences beyond just online and offline, of course, is hard drive space.

If you choose Mirror files, you'll be storing a lot more information on your local computer.

So you can take a look at the pros and cons and see what is best for you.

Now, before we leave this dialogue, we wanna come up here and hit this icon as well, 'cause there's a couple of additional things that I want you to pay attention to.

There's a few other tweaks that you can scan down this screen.

Some of them are maybe a little more detailed or a little more specific that you won't need to get into or make changes to.

But I do want to pay your attention to this very first option here.

So we can see that there's a checkbox that says, Real-time Presence in Microsoft Office.

And again, this is very helpful to any of you who are using a lot of Microsoft Office products, such as Excel or PowerPoint or Word.

And if you're sharing those documents with others, if we leave this checked, we can see if someone else is editing a shared Microsoft Office file.

So just like you're used to seeing this within your own Drive files when you're working online, now we can see something similar.

So I would usually recommend that you keep this checked, so that you can see when others are working on that file.

Lastly, you can choose a different Drive letter if you wish.

Now, it's not surprising that Google has chosen Drive G for Google, but if you have a preference, you can choose from one of the other drives that is available to you as well.

So if you want the convenience and flexibility of accessing all of your Drive files from your desktop computer or to back up and upload your desktop files directly to Google Drive, be sure to check out the Google Drive for desktop application.

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

Applying bulk actions

Taskade has so many great features to help us work more efficiently.

So in today's video, I'm sharing with you seven of my favorite tips and tricks so you can get the most out of Taskade.

Whether you use it for project management, as your personal to-do list, or maybe just for brainstorming, there's something special which is gonna help you work smarter in today's video.

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

Now tip number one has to do with something that we often overlook but can help us save so much time, and that has to do with bulk actions.

Whether that's a bulk movement or maybe bulk editing or bulk formatting, Taskade makes it really easy for us to do all three.

So for example, maybe I forgot to put these three items that are actually meant to be in the details down below.

Most project management systems will force you to do these things one at a time, but not here in Taskade.

All I need to do is highlight that section, I can drag it down here, and now it's a part of my detail section down below.

How about this subsection down here?

Maybe I want to have this indented.

Well just simply highlight and hit my tab key, and I can move it over.

The other great thing about bulk actions is that we can apply bulk editing as well.

So if I want to format everything under this task heading, all I need to do is select it and I can bold all of this text.

I can even add some highlighting color or underlines if I want, just to make things stand out as well.

So don't forget to bulk move, bulk edit, or bulk format right here within Taskade.

Easy video conferencing

Now tip number two has to do with making use of video conferencing right here from within Taskade.

Rather than jumping out of the application and going and finding a video conferencing link, all I need to do is come up here and hit the toggle chat button.

So if I don't wanna be limited to just a text-based conversation, I can come up here to the right-hand corner and select start call.

Now anyone who is invited or a part of this project will have access to this particular meeting.

I'm gonna select join meeting here and turn my camera on, and here we are ready to go.

I can collaborate with others.

We can all see what's going on here on the screen in front of us.

And it even has other features such as screen sharing, so if I wanna share something else, I can do so and do it all right here from within Taskade.

Multiple views and layout

Now tip number three has to do with one of my favorite features, and that is the multiple views in which we can view our information.

You're probably most used to using the list view, which is often the default view for our projects.

However, at the top of the screen, we have four different additional views in which we can make use of.

The first one is a board view.

So if you like a more kanban style view or maybe just seeing your work in different columns, this may be the view for you.

Next, we have an action view which is actually actionable.

What I love about the action view is that there's so many different things that we have here at our fingertips, or should I say our cursor tips, including the new timer feature.

But if I wanna collapse something, I can still do so here and just focus on the tasks that I'm worried about.

I can still use everything here such as the checkbox feature and work through almost more of a spreadsheet or a column and rows format.

But if you want something even more flexible, you might love the mind map feature here, which will turn your data into a mind map.

Or if you love to brainstorm, you may want to start your next mind map right here within Taskade.

Last but not least, we have an organizational chart view which is essentially turning that mind map view on its side, but the nice thing is that it's still functional.

It doesn't squeeze everything across, so I don't have to be scrolling far to the right.

I can see everything here based on my different headers, the things that I have chosen in my other views.

The other nice thing, for example, if I like this action view and I want it to be my default, all I need to do is click it a second time, and now you can see I have this little star beside it.

What that means is that every time that I open up this particular project, it will bring me back to my default view.

Now if I want to deselect it, all I need to do is select it one more time, and maybe I wanna come back here to the list.

I'm gonna hit that one twice, and now this will be my default view.

So no more do I have to start a project or reload my software and go to my preferred view.

I can let Taskade know what I like, and it will remember it for me.

Review history and restore versions

Now another great feature which has saved my skin more than once is the ability to quickly review any changes and version history, but also to be able to restore my projects to any point in time.

Here in the top right-hand corner, we can click on the project history, and this is going to give us a running history of the most recent events.

So here we can see some of the things that we've completed, some of the things that I've edited within the last 30 minutes.

Now I can continue to load more if I want to, but up here at the top, we can also click the version history, and what I love about this screen, what I love about the way that Taskade has laid this out is not only can I see all of my versions here on the right-hand side, many of them by the minute, because it's going to save that version depending on what has changed or what has been edited.

But I also get to see the changes on the left-hand side.

So as I toggle through different changes, I can go and see, well which one is it that I want.

This is, yeah, this is the one that I'd like to restore.

I can preview it here live in front of me before I select the restore point.

An incredibly helpful feature so you're confident that you're restoring your project to the one that you want.

Quickly share projects

Now the next tip in our list has to do with easily sharing our projects or workspaces with others including with those who have no experience with Taskade at all.

Here in the top right of our screen, we have this large invite button, and when I select it, we have two options available to us.

We can either invite someone to our entire workspace, this can be a collection of different projects, or we can just invite them to a particular project.

So in this case, I'm gonna select the individual project.

Now we've got a few different ways in which we can share this project, either via email or username.

We can send them an invite link, which I'm going to choose in this case because perhaps I wanna share it with someone who I know is not familiar with Taskade or who's not maybe just interested in using Taskade for this particular project.

That's fine.

Maybe I've done the brainstorming.

I've been doing the work here in an application that I love, but I just wanna share that information with others.

I can either allow them to be an editor, a checker, or what I'm gonna choose in this case is a viewer so that they can only comment and chat, but they cannot edit the project.

I'm gonna select that and then copy this link, and now I can paste it wherever I need to.

So quick and easy, a variety of different ways in which we can share our projects or workspaces with others.

Organize with tags

The number six tip on our list has to do with using tags within our project so that we can easily filter or find the information that we're looking for.

So for example, you can already see that I've got a couple of tags here that I'm using.

I've got finance up here, and I've got a few more that are labeled both marketing and finance.

Let's say that this video conferencing setup is a task for the marketing team, so all I'm gonna do is hit that hashtag, and I can either enter it in manually myself, or I can choose from one of my existing tags.

Now whenever I want to go and find or group these tags together, I can just use the search function up top.

In this case, I'm gonna search for everything that is marketing and hit enter.

And now everything is going to be brought back that has that marketing tag.

What I especially like is that it keeps my different blocks and my different subheadings open.

When I've used tag searches in other project management tools, often they will just tell me the individual line item, and maybe in some small print, I have to look to see where exactly does that exist.

But the nice thing here, let's go back and let's search for finance as an alternative here.

So I'm going to search finance in this case.

I know exactly that this task is under the background section.

It's also under the number one goal, and this particular task is under next steps so it keeps it nice and clear, and I can do this search within my multiple views as well.

So don't forget to use tags to help you order your various tasks and your brainstorming ideas.

Chrome browser extension

Now the last tip that I have for you today is to make use of the Taskade Chrome extension.

With the Taskade Chrome extension installed, you have several different options as to what you would like to see happen when a new tab or window is opened.

So for example, I can choose that when I open up a new tab here, it's gonna open up my last project here within Taskade.

So let's try it out.

I'm gonna hit that plus button and automatically I'm brought to the last project I was involved in.

This can be very helpful, especially if you find it hard to focus in and stay on top of your most important tasks and projects.

But those aren't the only options available to you.

You can choose to have the dashboard up here, or a brand new project, or maybe your calendar so you can see all your due dates.

Of course, you don't have to choose any of these options and just choose the default if you wish, but this can be a great way to remind yourself as to what you should be working on next.

Now as an added bonus for watching all the way to the end, I'd like to upgrade your Taskade workspace for free.

All you need to do is use the Simpletivity coupon code, and you'll receive a 100% off lifetime discount to your upgraded Taskade workspace.

Please know this coupon is only valid for the first 1,000 users, so if you want to get the most out of your Taskade account, be sure to use that coupon code.

You can also see the link in the description below for more details.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.