Unlock Efficiency: Elevate Your Skills with Our Training & Videos

Google Keep is a fantastic tool for grabbing all those ideas, notes, and thoughts in one centralized location. Especially if you are using Keep on your mobile device, you probably quickly add a number of notes in a single day.

If you're already a user of Google Keep, there's a good chance that you also make use of Google Drive, and in particular, the Docs application for creating reports or writing articles. Maybe you take meeting notes within Google Docs.

Today, I want to show you the relationship between Google Docs and Google Keep, how they integrate with one another, and how you can access both from either application. Let's start by taking a look at Google Docs.

Here I've started a new article, and let's say I've captured a number of ideas within my Keep account. Maybe I've got some images, notes, or the rough draft, the puzzle pieces of a great article, and I want to access that information.

To do so, all we need to do is select Tools, and about halfway down, we have an option that says Keep Notepad. If we select that, what appears on the right-hand side of the screen is a mini version of all of our Keep notes.

We can search the notes, add new notes, and even edit these notes directly from this view. So now, when I've got some text, maybe the start of an article or just a few points, I can select the three dots and say Add to Document.

Now my text is immediately here within my Docs environment. Let's say I want this image and I want to bring it into the document.

I just showed you how to do so by selecting the menu option, the three dots. Well, Keep actually makes it easier; I can just click and drag that image, and now it's directly in my document.

Whether it's text or images, let me give you one other example, this one involving a checklist. What happens when you take a checklist into Docs? It will actually convert it into a bulleted list.

Of course, I can come in here and edit it any way I like. All that great information, all the pieces of my reports or an article or maybe notes that I've kept on a client, I can pull directly into my document.

But it gets even better because this relationship works both ways. Let's say I've got some information here that I would like to bring into Keep.

I'm just going to delete a couple of these notes so we can get a better view. Let's say I want to bring some of this information back into my Keep environment.

You will notice when I drag things out of Keep, it doesn't remove them from my Keep notepad; it's going to keep it there. But let's say this first sentence, I would like to create a new note around it, and it did not originate here.

All I need to do is highlight that piece of text or it could be an image, right-click, and I can say Save to Keep Notepad. Now you can see it's created a brand new note that I now have accessible here within my Keep notepad.

I'm going to switch back over to my Keep application or to the main Keep window. Here you can see that piece of text that I've brought in.

There's another advantage to doing this. You will see down below that there is a Keep integration link.

What happens is that it keeps that link between this note and the actual Google Doc where it came from or where it was created from. If I click on this link, it's going to bring me back right here to the original document.

This is where that note originally came from. Another way of doing this is by taking a note within this Keep viewer from within Docs.

Let's say this is a new note, a new note from Google Docs. As I'm creating this note, it again adds this automated Keep integration link.

It's going to keep that tie, that sync between this document and the note that I'm taking here. I'm going to select Done, and now when I go back to my Keep tab, there you see that same Keep integration link.

If I select it, it's going to bring me right back to this document. You don't have to have all of your notes synced to the actual document where you kept it.

Let's say I just want to add a new note, and it's unrelated to this document. All I need to do is select X, remove that source, and now the note that I take here will not link or be related to this area.

But I know that there are people who are starting to use their Keep notes as another way of keeping track of comments within a particular document. Remember, you can highlight that area, bring it in here, and make other revisions as well.

You can use labels, search by labels if you like, and see everything that is integrated or directly related to this document. Just a couple of ways that we can do so.

Let's go back to our Keep account and see how we can create a new document directly from our Keep environment. Let's say I've got the start of an article here, something titled New Blog Idea.

It's just a rough scratch. I've been writing a few things, or maybe I've grabbed a long piece of text from the internet, for example.

We can actually start a new Google document directly from this note. Here's how to do it.

If we go to the More option down below, you will see at the very bottom there's an option called Copy to Google Docs. When we select this option, it may take just a moment.

It says it has been copied to Google Docs. Let's open that document.

What has happened? Look at this.

It's brought in all that text, everything that I got started in my Keep environment. It's now got me set up within a new document in Google Drive.

It's brought over the title of that note and all of the information that was within that note. Maybe you're a writer, or maybe you have a long piece of information, lots of text or lots of information in a note, and you want to branch that out or apply some rich text editing.

You can flesh it out into an article or report by selecting Copy to Google Docs. Another way of bringing in information, this time from Keep, and bringing it directly into a brand-new document within Google Docs.

There's one other example that I want to show you today and how Google Docs and Google Keep can integrate with one another. Another advantage of using both of these tools together is the OCR technology that is built right into the Keep environment.

Let's start this one in Keep. I've taken a screenshot of a poster here.

You may already be aware that when you are grabbing an image with text on it, Google Keep has the ability to grab and convert any text on that image into real text. If you want to edit this text, let's say these bullet points that are listed here, and you'd like to include that in your Google document, all you need to do is come down to this menu again.

Above the Copy to Google Docs option, we have Grab Image Text. I'm going to select it this time, and what has happened is you can see just down below, it has taken the text up above and it has put it into this note.

I'm going to open it up so we can see it in a bit more detail. It's not always perfect, as you can see.

It's missing a couple of letters here and there. It's supposed to be "at the beach," right? I'm going to put in a capital B there.

This is supposed to have an L, long sleeved shirts and pants. But otherwise, it's done a pretty good job of grabbing the text that we see up above.

Now it's here down below. Now we're going to go back to Google Drive.

If I go and find this note, here it is. Now I have the text within here, right now I have the text available to me.

If I'd want to bring that into my document, I can select it, grab it, and bring it in here. Now it will bring in the entire note, so I've got the image up above, but now I've got all that great text as well.

That's really what I wanted. I can come up here, delete the image, but now I've got all that text that I wanted from that poster.

It only took me a couple of seconds, and now I can edit it, manipulate it here within Google Docs. Those are a number of different ways that you can use information in both Google Docs and Google Keep, and send it between them.

You can have the information that you've grabbed, click and drag, add images, text, even bullet points and checklists directly to Google Documents. I hope you enjoyed today's video, and I would love to hear from you.

What is your favorite tip about the integration between Google Keep and Google Docs? Be sure to include it in the comments below.

Thank you again for watching. I encourage you to give this video a like, and please subscribe to the Simpletivity YouTube channel.

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

Managing a team is never easy. However, there are some things you can do to get the most out of your staff.

Today, I want to show you how you can use Trello to manage all of the job responsibilities, all the job tasks for your team, regardless of how many employees are part of your organization. Recently, I was speaking with Michael Timms of Avail Leadership.

Michael is the expert when it comes to succession planning and getting the most out of your team. He shared with me this fantastic idea of how to use Trello to manage all of your staff's responsibilities.

Job Roles

Now, when we talk about responsibilities, we're not talking about daily to-dos. No, we're talking about things like job roles or the types of things that you might find on a job description.

Let me show you what I've got set up here in my Trello sample board. In this example, I've got a team that consists of four individuals, or a department that consists of four individuals.

At the top, I've got one list for each job title. Here you see I've got an Operations Manager, Business Analyst, Quality Control Coordinator, and an Administrative Assistant.

Headshots

Below the very first card in each of these lists is the individual that has that title. Here we have Sue, Joe, Phil, and Diane.

I highly recommend that you use headshots of your team or your staff when you're creating such a board in Trello. It makes it much easier to know what you're talking about and as you're moving cards around, to have that picture, to have that visual in front of you.

Now, below the headshot, we have a number of job roles. These are the responsibilities of these individuals.

As I said before, these are the types of things that you might include in a job description. What are they responsible for on a day-to-day or weekly basis?

As Michael shared with me, to get the most out of your team, you want your staff to play to their strengths. You don't want them to just fulfill the assignment that they were perhaps hired for, but if they are especially skilled in a particular area, perhaps they can take on someone else's role as well.

For example, let's take a look at our Operations Manager. Let's say that Joe has a background in HR, training, and recruitment.

This is something that he loves to do, and he's got experience in it, whereas Sue, this is something that she doesn't particularly like; it actually eats up too much of her time. So even though recruitment and training are part of her responsibilities, what we can do is take this card and drag it over into Joe's list.

Now, this is something that is under Joe's area of responsibility. But we don't want to stop there.

You may notice a few other things about this particular Trello board. You will notice that each and every card actually has an hours value labeled underneath it.

Weekly Hours

These are the estimated number of weekly hours that they are using on those particular tasks. We have just added 2.5 additional hours to Joe's responsibilities here.

So now we may want to look at whether there is something else on Joe's list that maybe Phil, Diane, or even Sue is better suited for. We want our teams to be playing to their strengths whenever possible.

Another thing that you will notice here on the Trello board is that I have a few different cards that have different labels or different colors associated with them as well. This can be very helpful if there are certain themes you want to group together as you're looking at your different employees and the different tasks that they do on a regular basis.

Filtering Tasks

In this example, I have a red label which stands for quality-related tasks, and I also have a green label which stands for reporting activities. Trello makes it really easy to filter out these labels.

Let's say, for example, I want to see all of the reporting tasks among my team. All I have to do is select reporting, and now I have a quick look at all of the tasks and who has those tasks that are related to reporting.

Maybe I want to turn reporting off and I want to look at quality. I want to see who's got the most quality-related tasks.

It's probably not surprising that our Quality Control Coordinator has the most quality-related tasks here. But are there things that perhaps he should also be adding to his list, or are there certain things here that can be deferred or assigned to someone else as part of their job responsibilities as well?

Advantages of Trello

Let me turn that filter off for a moment and show you a few more of the advantages of setting up a Trello board like this. You will notice that the front of the cards is relatively short, and that's on purpose.

We don't want to be dealing with full paragraphs on the front of the card. It's hard to scan, it's hard to read the job descriptions or those job tasks as we're reviewing this board.

But the great thing about Trello is that if we click on that card, within the card we can add a detailed and full description of these job responsibilities if we like. We can even add attachments or links to other websites or other documents which might pertain to this particular task.

Creating a Team Board

You can keep the front of your card nice and simple, nice and clean, and then add as many further details as you like within that card as well. Take a look at creating an HR staff or a team board like this for all of the employees within your organization.

Or maybe you want to test this out with just one department or one area of your company. It's a great way to get everyone on the same page.

Just before I wrap up, I want to highlight one last thing. Let's say, for example, Phil decides to leave the organization.

What happens in most organizations? Often, they go back to the last job description or the last job posting that they had.

But with the Trello board, these are Phil's actual current job responsibilities. So maybe this is where we want to generate that job posting or that job description from.

Conclusion

It's another one of the advantages of having the title as the list and then the individual as the first card. We hire someone new or bring someone new into the organization, and then the process repeats itself.

It's dynamic. We might want to change and adjust some of the cards, some of the job responsibilities throughout the team.

I'd love to hear from you. What do you think about having a board to manage all of your team's job responsibilities?

Have you created something like this yourself? I'd love to hear your questions and comments down below.

I also want to give a big thanks to Michael Timms for providing the suggestion. I'm also going to provide a link to Michael's original article, which goes into even more detail about this process.

You can find that in the description below. Thank you again for watching.

I encourage you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel. Give this video a like, and of course, I'd love to hear your comments down below.

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

Trello is an amazing tool to manage all of your projects, all of your to-do's, and especially when it comes to collaborating with others. Whether it's for your own personal use or if you're using it with your business or with your work, Trello is a very advanced tool for managing all of those ideas and following all those tasks through a particular process.

But perhaps you've used Trello and said to yourself, This isn't just for me, or maybe I want it to do something a little more than what Trello is capable of. Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you three alternatives to Trello, things that can do many of the same things that Trello does but perhaps in a very different way.

So if you're not such a big fan of Trello, stay tuned for three of my favorite alternatives to the Trello system.

Asana

My first suggestion is Asana. Asana is probably an application you've heard of before if you are already using Trello.

There's a lot of debate over which of these applications is better, Trello versus Asana, and that's because many of the same features that you find in Trello can be found here in Asana as well. If I open up one of these tasks here on the left-hand side, you can see I can assign members to it, I can add a due date, I can add attachments, and there's a description area.

There's even a comment section below. In fact, even the inside of one of the tasks within Asana looks very familiar to what we see within a Trello card.

But Asana may be a preference for you or for your team if you are wanting pure task management. Here you can see I have a number of tasks laid out, and I can have multiple members assigned to them.

I can easily see the due dates here, and Asana also makes it very easy for me to check things off. I can simply check this little check mark icon, and I can check my tasks off as I'm going about my day.

Asana is also very powerful when it comes to subtasks, and if you don't like the arrangements or the relationships in Trello, you may like the way that Asana associates subtasks within its system. Asana also allows you to have conversations outside of the particular tasks themselves.

Here you see the Conversations tab. We also have things such as a Files tab, so you can see all of the files associated with this particular project instead of having that file attached to a particular card.

But Asana has also gone one step further, and if you still like the board-style format, Asana has that as well. So you can still create lists, you can still create cards as you would within Trello, and enjoy that Kanban style.

Todoist

Now, my second suggestion as an alternative to Trello would be Todoist. Many people are using Trello as their primary task manager, something for their personal to-do's.

If you want something that maybe isn't quite as full-featured, and maybe you don't need so many lists, you might enjoy Todoist. Todoist is arguably the most popular to-do list app today, and you can see why.

It's a very simple yet powerful layout. Here you can see my tasks for today, and I've got my overdue assignments up here at the top.

It's very easy to add new tasks. Just select this plus button at the top of your screen, and you can add tasks immediately to your list.

Todoist also gives you the ability to separate out your lists into different projects. Here I've got a personal to-do list, a work to-do list, and I can have other lists as well, such as a shopping or perhaps an errands to-do list.

Now, if you are wanting more features out of Todoist though, you may need to pay for their premium service. For example, labels are something that you will need to upgrade to their premium service, and if you want to add more details such as attachments and comments to a particular task, you are also going to need to upgrade to premium.

So if you want a quick and simple to-do list, if you want something that is primarily one-sentence tasks and you don't need to add further information, Todoist may be a great solution. But if you're wanting a few more features, you may need to subscribe to their premium service.

Now, the last application I want to share with you today may just be the best of both worlds. The functionality and the team collaboration of Asana combined with the easy and simple layout of Todoist.

SquidHub

That is SquidHub. SquidHub is a little bit newer than both Asana and Todoist, but I really enjoy the layout that SquidHub has going on with their project management tool.

Here you can see SquidHub has three different columns. On the left-hand side, we have our to-do's and our meetings, which we can separate by different subheaders.

SquidHub also makes it very easy to check things off. If I just check this button, I can check off tasks as I'm going about my day.

In the middle, we have our files and our links. Instead of necessarily having them attached directly to these tasks, we can have a nice directory or a nice folder of all the files and links associated with this project.

What I really like about SquidHub is that you have a messages column as well. As you're collaborating with team members, you can see that discussion, add your message, and add your comments right here on the right-hand side.

You don't have to go to some other area. You don't necessarily have to integrate with Slack or some other communication tool; you can do so right here.

Now, if you don't want to see all of these three columns at the same time, that's fine. You can minimize them and just focus on your to-do's for the day.

On the left-hand side, you can see our menu area where you can have multiple groups and multiple projects. You can also direct message individuals here and view a calendar of all your tasks.

No, this is not a power-up. The calendar is built right into the SquidHub application.

When it comes to adding attachments and adding additional information, I'm going to open up one of these tasks. You won't have quite as many options in terms of adding labels and adding more custom buttons, things that you might find within Trello and Asana.

But for many people, this is enough for them to be at their productive best. It's enough for them to get going, get their project underway, and not maybe deal with all the complexities of all the subtasks and everything else going on.

But again, having that central repository for all of your files and having those messages on the right-hand side of the screen. So there you have it, my three alternatives to Trello: Asana, Todoist, and SquidHub.

Now, what I would love to learn from you is, are you using any one of these three Trello alternatives? If so, I would love to hear your feedback and let me know what your favorite feature is of either Asana, Todoist, or SquidHub.

Of course, I would love to have you subscribe here on the Simpletivity YouTube channel. I also want to give a big shout-out to SquidHub for sponsoring today's video.

If you'd like to learn more about the SquidHub application, I'll leave a link in the description below. Thank you again for watching, and I hope you subscribe, like, and comment on today's video.

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

One of the most popular videos here on the Simpletivity channel is this one about the best way to manage files and folders. In fact, if you do any type of search based on file management, how to organize your folders, or how to structure your files, chances are this video is going to come up number one in your search results.

In this video, I show you the ABC folder method, a very simple but powerful way to not only organize your files but also a very easy way for you to retrieve and find those files afterward. Let me give you just a brief overview of what the ABC method is.

The ABC Method

What it requires is for you to create one folder for every single letter in the alphabet at the top level. Here you see I've got a folder for each letter from A to Z.

Within those folders, I have the contents starting with that letter. Here I've selected my folder W, and I've got subfolders that are nothing but things that start with W: webinar, website, worksheets, and workshops.

If I want to click on something, let's say the website resources, I'm only two clicks away. It's W, and then it's website, and then here I have all of my files.

I do not have some complicated branch structure. I do not have some complicated system of subfolder within subfolder within subfolder.

You know what I'm talking about, like seven, maybe eight levels down, and then you still haven't found the thing that you're looking for. So it can be a very quick and easy way to find and organize all of your files.

FAQs

But with a popular system like this and with a very popular video, I get an awful lot of questions. So today, I wanted to address a few of the most frequent questions I get about the ABC method.

The first one is: "Scott, what if I forget what I labeled it? What if I labeled it 'website,' but then I go looking under 'O' for 'online resources,' for example? What if I start guessing in the wrong places?"

Well, that's very true, and that may happen to you from time to time, that even after you've created that folder, you may go looking somewhere else to try and find it. But I would argue, and it has been my experience, that it is still much faster to guess once incorrectly and then guess the second time correctly than going down that complicated branch structure or subfolder structure and then getting to a dead end and having to work your way back out of that subfolder system.

So it's true that once in a while you may guess incorrectly, but I would still argue that it's going to be quicker, it's going to be faster, to guess wrong once and then find it correctly the second time around. The other great thing about this system is that it often works based on intuition.

I recommend that when you're setting up your system or when you're naming new file folders, you go with the first name that comes to mind. What makes the most sense for the files that you're going to be putting within that folder?

Because chances are that is what you're going to be thinking about in the future when you go to retrieve those files. Another question that I get most often is: "Scott, why not just put these folders at the top level? Why do you have to start with the letter of the alphabet?"

If you just put these folders at the top level, they would still be in alphabetical order, right? You could still view them that way, so why not do it in that sense?

Well, there are a couple of reasons. Number one, if you just put these folders at the top level, how many folders would you have? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? How many different folders would you have to manage?

That's an awful lot of scrolling, and I would much rather you can get to things with just two clicks rather than having to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the file or the folder that you're looking for. But more so than just managing your files within File Explorer or within your system's file system, what about when we're dealing with things online?

Let's go back online, and I'm going to use a common example: uploading a file or perhaps attaching a file to an email or some other resource. When I select computer here, I'm given a relatively small dialog box.

Now, it's true, I could come down here to the bottom right-hand corner and expand this out a little bit, but even in this small, cramped space, it's still relatively accessible for me to select the folder that I'm looking for. Let's go back to W for a second, and there I can find all of my file folders, and one more step down, I can find the file that I'm looking for within that folder.

So think of how often you're uploading, how often you're attaching a file to some type of online resource. You're sharing something with someone else, and we are often given these small dialog boxes.

That's why I really enjoy having only 26 folders to deal with here on the left-hand side. I can quickly get to the file that I'm looking for.

Now, the last question I receive most often when it comes to the ABC method is: "Scott, well, this doesn't really work if you're sharing your files or you're collaborating with a team." I would say that the ABC method is primarily designed for your personal or individual files.

It's true that this is going to be a difficult system to manage with other team members or a large group because what I think makes sense for a particular set of files, someone else may think differently. So, of course, you can still share these folders, you can still share the individual files.

But the ABC method is designed primarily for your individual or personal files. Things that you're not sharing this entire Dropbox folder with, not the entire thing, maybe components of it, but things that you are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, things that make the most sense for you.

So I'm sure you have many other questions when it comes to the ABC file and folder management system. I'd love to hear from you.

Have you used the ABC method, and what other questions do you have about this way of managing your folders and managing all of your files? Be sure to leave that question or leave that comment in the comments section below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video, and I would encourage you to subscribe right here to Simpletivity and give us a thumbs up. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Google keep is a fantastic application for managing all of your notes and ideas but over the last few years more and more people are starting to use keep as their to-do list manager.

So today I want to show you a few different ways on how you can use Keep to manage all of your tasks. Now the most simple or basic way to create a to-do list in Keep is by using the checklist function here.

If we select "new list" we are given a new list format, so we can just start entering our items immediately here on this new card. Down below you can see that I've already created two different to-do lists.

I have one titled "to-do list work" and another titled "to-do lists personal," and I recommend that you keep a separation between those two things. It's fine to have them side-by-side like you see here, but when you're dealing with work, you want to be focused on those work items.

Now it's very easy to add new items here. Simply type in your new item, hit enter on the keyboard, and you can get your second item in nice and quickly.

Keep makes it very easy for you to prioritize and move your tasks in a different order—just drag and drop. As soon as you check something off, it will be kept for you, and you can review it down here in the completed items area.

In case you made a mistake, just uncheck that box and it will be returned to your master list up above. Like I mentioned, you can create as many of these lists as possible.

You can go much further than just the work and personal categories which I've created here. But that's not the only way that you can create a to-do list within Google Keep.

You will notice that I have a number of other notes or other note cards here within Keep, each one of them representing an individual task. So this is another way in which you can keep on top of all of your tasks, on top of all of your to-do's.

The great thing about doing this at the individual note level is that I can always add images to these cards. I can add notes and further descriptions to these cards if I want.

I can even share and collaborate with others when I do it at the individual card level as well. But don't worry about separation; some of you may be thinking, "Well, I don't want all of my notes just in one unmanageable list."

That's where labels come into play. Over here on the left-hand side, you can see I've also created a personal label and a work label.

When I click on the work label, now all I see are my work-related tasks. The great thing is, when I add a new task up here, it will automatically add it to the work label area.

So anything that I add when I'm focused here on my work-related tasks, it's all gonna come back here to my work-related items. If I click on personal, again all I see are my personal-related items.

These colors, for example, and other things that I set up can be unique to those labels or unique to that particular space. Now there's one other advantage of using the individual note level for your tasks, and that is that you can add reminders to any task that you want.

Let's say I want to make sure that I phone Kim later today, so I'm gonna set a reminder. Actually, let's pick a more specific time—I want to make sure I do it before the end of today.

So I'm going to say this afternoon by 1 p.m., and you can also see that some of my other tasks have reminders attached to them as well—tomorrow 8:00 a.m., today at 12:00 noon. If I'm using Google Keep on my mobile devices, I can receive a reminder when these tasks are due.

But there's an additional benefit: if you use Google Calendar, and for most of you who are already using Google Keep, you're probably using Google Calendar. These reminders show up there as well.

Here you see in red, these are the reminders that were created from those tasks within Google Keep. You'll need to turn on your reminders calendar in order for you to see that on your Google Calendar.

But here I have the exact same task that I created in Google Keep, but I can see it on my calendar. I can even mark it as done directly here from my calendar.

If I want to change the date, I don't have to go back into Keep—I can actually edit and change the date right here within Google Calendar. It also gives us a handy link, so if I want to view further details or if I want to go back into Keep, I can just select this and I can view this note directly in Keep.

So this can be a great way to manage your tasks, especially if you don't want to be going back and forth between multiple applications. You can set up your to-do list in the morning, for example, and then work in your calendar around your other meetings.

Then you can see those tasks appear at the most appropriate time. So those are just a few ways on how you can use Google Keep as a to-do list manager—either set up individual cards or multiple cards as checklists.

Whether you're separating out work and personal or maybe you want to go even a little more granular, you can have a to-do list just for the emails or phone calls, the communication that you're going to be doing today.

You can even have a list that is specific for today and a separate list for things that you want to accomplish later in the week. An alternative method is that each and every note, each and every card you see here, can be a task itself.

Again, you can add further details, images, you can change the colors on these to represent something specific to you. And don't forget about labels—you can have multiple lists.

Here we're viewing my personal list, and here you are looking at my work list. So I'd love to hear from you next: have you used Google Keep as a to-do list before?

If so, how are you using Keep as your task manager? Thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, and I'd love to hear from you, so be sure to leave a comment down below. Remember, being productive doesn't need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Download File

this video is designed to help you prepare for your day in less than seven minutes before you begin it's recommended that you find a quiet location to perform this exercise first

What are you grateful for? Write down at least 2 things that come to mind.

take out a blank piece of paper or create a new note in your favorite application answer the following question what are you grateful for write down at least two things that come to mind ready begin you next what are you feeling excited about

What are you feeling excited about?

right now it could be a project an event or something else write down at least one thing that comes to mind ready go you next what are you feeling worried about

What are you feeling worried about?

right now it could be an upcoming deadline an important meeting or a strained relationship write down what comes to mind ready begin you

Review what you've just written down. What are you going to do about it?

now review what you've just written down what are you going to do about the issues that are worrying you right now write down your action items ready go you finally who needs to hear from you today

Who needs to hear from you today? Write down the names of these people

it could be a client a co-worker or someone from your personal life write down the names of the people who come to mind ready begin you you've now identified some very

Use this information as you create your to-do list and adjust your schedule.

important information to help you plan the rest of your day I encourage you to reference these notes as you create your to-do list and make adjustments to your schedule I hope you've enjoyed using the

Thank you for using the 7 Minute Morning Routine.

7-minute morning routine remember being productive doesn't need to be difficult in fact it's very simple

Download File

This video is designed to help you perform an effective and meaningful weekly review in less than 10 minutes. Before you begin, it's recommended that you find a quiet location to perform this exercise.

First, take out a blank piece of paper or create a new note in your favorite application. Write down everything that may be cluttering your mind right now.

For example, any new ideas, issues, or opportunities that you are currently thinking about or have been pondering lately. Ready? Go.

Next, review the list of items and notes that you've just created. Move all relevant items to a more appropriate location.

For example, some items should be added to your to-do list, your calendar, or a project management application. Ready? Begin.

Next, open up your calendar and review the last seven days. Take a look at every appointment or event you attended in the last week.

See if you can identify any items that need follow-up or some other action on your part. Ready? Go.

Now, with your calendar still open, review your upcoming schedule. Take a look at every appointment or event you have in the next two weeks.

See if you can identify anything you should prepare for in advance. Ready? Begin.

Next, open up any tools or documents you use to manage your projects. It could be a project management application or a file you share with a team.

Review the status and deadlines of each project you are involved with. See if you can identify any actions you need to take based on this information. Ready? Go.

You've now completed the weekly review process. I encourage you to reserve time each and every week to perform this valuable routine.

I hope you've enjoyed using the ten-minute weekly review. Remember, being productive doesn't need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Download File

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Keep

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

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

Trello

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

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

Asana

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

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

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

Boomerang

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

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

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

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

Assistant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grammarly

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

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

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

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

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

Take a Break

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timer

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

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

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

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

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

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

CardStar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you to do so.

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

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

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

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

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

very visually appealing so let's start

Traditional Method

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

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

Alternative Method

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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