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Folders, folders, and more folders. It doesn't matter what you do for work, you are managing files and documents in some type of folder system. It may be directly on your computer or your device, or it could be in a cloud service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

But over time, folders can become very frustrating because folders often lead to subfolders, and then there are subfolders of subfolders, and then even more subfolders of subfolders. And although you may have started out with a particular theme or a particular structure, often things can get very complicated, and long lines and long branches can branch out from your file folder structure.

I'm sure you've had the experience of getting to the bottom of one of those long lines and then being frustrated discovering that the file or the document or the picture you are looking for does not reside there at all. And then you have to back up and go looking elsewhere. Where would I have put this particular file?

Today, I want to show you a simple but very powerful way to structure all of your files in what I call the ABC folder method. What exactly is the ABC folder method?

Let me jump to my folder structure right here. We're actually looking at my actual Dropbox folder. You will notice at the top level, I have 26 file folders, all of them listed A through Z. I've got the entire alphabet here in front of me.

The way that the ABC file folder structure works is that we want to be able to quickly get to the files that we are after and not have to expand and collapse multiple file folders to get to the thing that we're looking for. In fact, we only want to click twice to get to the file that we're looking for.

The reason that we start with the alphabet is that we want to group our subfolders beneath based on the letter in that alphabet. Let me expand my C folder to give you an example.

Within my C folder, I have coaching resources, completed contracts, content outlines, and courses. These really are not related to one another in any way except for the fact that they all begin with C.

So if I'm looking for information about courses, I know it's going to be under my C folder. I don't have to look anywhere else. When I click on my C folder, I have my files right there. Only two clicks: I can click on the C and then the courses, and then directly to the file that I'm looking for.

Let's take a look at another example. Let's expand my P folder. Here we have payment, pictures, pricing, products, and public speaking training. Again, not really related to one another except that they all begin with P.

So I don't need to think about what other subfolders or what other groupings. I can just go to the P folder and find exactly what I'm looking for.

This may take a few minutes or even a little longer for you to convert your existing file folder structure into the ABC method. But you will be amazed at how quickly you can retrieve, how quickly you can find exactly the file that you are looking for.

If I open up my Links folder or my L folder, for example, here you will find my Links. Makes sense, links start with L, that's why I put it there.

I don't have to second guess myself and think, "Did I put links under website because it's web related? Did I put it under Online Resources because that would also be related?" No, links start with L, that's where the folder is, so it's going to be under my L folder.

I would encourage you, whether you manage your files directly on your computer, or use Dropbox, Google Drive, regardless of the application that you're using, consider the ABC folder method. Remember, we are not talking about a website design or menu structure, so it doesn't have to make sense by a particular theme.

What we want to be able to achieve is to get to the information that we're looking for quickly and easily, and in as little as two clicks. If you enjoyed this video, I would encourage you to like, subscribe, and comment below.

What has your experience been with managing different folders? Have you used the ABC folder method before or not? I would love to hear your comments.

Please be sure to subscribe, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Hello, Scot Friesen here at Simpletivity. If you are a longtime viewer or subscriber to the Simpletivity YouTube channel, you know that I recommend Trello as the best way to manage or organize your projects.

Whether you're working with several other individuals, on a team project, or just managing your own personal to-do list, Trello is such a flexible tool. It's an easy tool to use to manage everything you would like to organize and accomplish.

Why use Trello

I often get asked the question, how do I set one of my Trello cards as completed? If I have finished one of these tasks, what do I do once I've completed that task?

Today, I'm going to show you some of the more traditional methods of how to do that and introduce you to a brand new feature. It was just introduced a few days ago, allowing you to set a due date to mark it as completed.

How to archive a Trello card

Let's start off with some of the more traditional ways that people have used to show a card is completed. Probably the most basic one is to just archive the card.

For users who really don't want to see the card on their Trello board anymore, archiving a card in Trello is an option. You can always search it, go back, and bring it back to your main Trello board.

Sometimes the most effective way to show that a card is completed is just to remove it altogether. However, I realize that is not the best solution for everyone, and often people would like to see it on the same screen.

Maybe you get to the end of your day or the end of your week, and you want to be able to review all of the things that you've completed. An alternative option is to create a separate list.

How to create a done list

Here, I've created a Done list. If I've already emailed Jane about this situation, I can just drag it over to my Done list.

If I've gone ahead and booked this flight for my Chicago trip, I can just drag it over to the Done list. This is very much the Kanban method of moving a task through a particular process.

Once I've finished it, I can just drag it over into my Done list and view them there. I can review what I've accomplished and, maybe at the end of the week, archive this entire list or these tasks individually.

How to use labels

The third method, and probably one of the more common methods that people use to indicate that a card is completed, is by using labels. Trello makes different colored labels available, and you can go beyond just having a color.

You can actually put a piece of text on that color as well. I've already gone ahead and put completed on the red shade.

When I add this to this card, it's going to add a little red bar there. When I'm viewing my entire Trello board, if I click to open up that card, you can see I even have the text to tell me what that color means.

This can be very helpful if you just want to manage fewer lists or keep those to-dos in a single list. You can just add that color, letting you know that you've completed that particular task.

How to use the Due Date Checkbox

Just recently, Trello introduced a new way of indicating that a card is completed if you use the due date feature. The key thing is that you need to have a due date associated with a card in order to use this completed feature.

I'm going to first start by adding a due date to this card and hit save. Here, you can see as per usual, we have our due date listed within the card.

You'll see that there's something new. There is now a checkbox just to the left of it.

Before I click that checkbox, I'm just going to click outside of the card. Let's see if anything has changed on the front.

You'll see on the front, it looks exactly the same. If you've added a due date to a card, you have the date and the little clock icon telling you that this particular card is due by December 16th.

Now, if I go ahead and complete this task today, I can check this box. My due date icon area has changed to the color green, indicating that I have completed that task.

Of course, that green shows up on the front of the card as well. Longtime Trello users will notice that green is a new shade for the due date area.

How the Due Date Checkbox works

You could have a yellow shade if you were getting close to the due date or within 24 hours of your selected due date. You may be used to a red shade when it's past due.

When you've set something and passed that due date, selecting this checkbox will change whatever color it is to green, indicating that the task is finished. Now, I can quickly review all of my tasks in this list and see which ones have been completed.

Issues with the Due Date Checkbox

A few things you may want to note: I'm going to open up this card once again. If we scroll down to the bottom here in the Activity Feed, you will notice that it is not keeping track of this checkbox.

If I uncheck or check the due date, it is actually not keeping a record of that action. You can see that I added this card to the to-do list and set the due date to December 16th.

There's no record as of yet as to when I have completed this task. That could be a problem or something you may be disappointed in with this particular feature.

If you've completed this task early or even late, Trello is currently not keeping a record of that action. I'm assuming that this is something that Trello will be adding relatively shortly.

We can see this behavior show up in other areas. Let's take an example of a checklist.

I'm just going to quickly add a checklist to this card. It will say that I just added a checklist.

If I check this first one here, this question's one, you will notice that Scott Friesen completed questions on this card is recorded. I'll check the next one, and it shows Scott Friesen completed review the contract on this card.

The ability to record these individual tasks or checklists here within the card is being kept track of. The capability is there, and I'm going to assume in short time that Trello will start to record this particular action.

Whether it's unchecked or checked, it will record when you've completed that task. As of right now, it is not showing up in the Activity Feed.

Conclusion

With this new feature in Trello, the ability to check a due date off is available only if you've added a due date to a card. Not every task or to-do needs a due date.

Perhaps you are fine with using a color-coded method, moving that card into a Done or Completed list, or using the archive function to get it off your Trello board completely. I would encourage you to test the new completed due date feature, giving you the ability to check things off in Trello.

If you liked this video, I would encourage you to like, subscribe, and comment below. What do you think of this new feature in Trello, and how are you planning to use it?

If you have not checked out the Simpletivity.com website, I would encourage you to do so. You will find many more tips and techniques to help you stay productive there.

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

Hi, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity. I want to thank you for all of your comments and questions on my last video.

It's so great to see people get excited about spending less time with their email. Remember, the average professional currently spends 6.3 hours a day dealing with email, and that's simply way too much time in our inboxes.

It takes us away from our more important work and our most important projects. For nearly a decade, I've been helping people be more effective and efficient with their workday, and dealing with email is such a core part of being more productive.

As a former IT manager, I used to receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of new emails each and every day. I know firsthand what it feels like to suffer from inbox overload.

But over time, I was able to apply a few simple techniques to drastically reduce my relationship with email. So much so that I was able to deal with email as little as three or four times a day.

So how did I do it? How did I drastically reduce the amount of time that I spend with my email?

Well, I want to show you one of those techniques right now, something that you can apply right away to help you reduce the amount of time you spend with email. One of the most frustrating things when it comes to dealing with email is determining which messages need our attention and which messages we can ignore.

It often leads to a lot of stress as we arrive at an inbox overflowing with new messages and determining where should we put our attention. Now, most of us tend to work through our email in some type of chronological or top-down manner.

We start at the top of our list and we determine, does this need my attention, does this need my reply? No, move on to the next one.

But when we do get to a message that does need our attention or does need a reply, we do it immediately. And the longer we spend with that message or subsequent messages, the longer it's going to take us to get to messages later on in the list.

In many cases, there are very important messages waiting for us there as well. So the longer I spend on this message, for example, if I spend a few minutes grabbing an attachment, maybe referring to another email before I can give a complete reply, it means that several minutes have gone by before I get to something which perhaps needs my attention now.

So I want to show you a simple way, something that you can apply to any email client, so you can quickly process through a large number of emails in just a matter of minutes. Now, in this example, I only have about eight emails, but the exact same principle applies whether you have 18, 80, or even 800 emails waiting for you in your inbox.

You will notice on the left-hand side, there is a section that shows my folders. In all caps, I have a folder labeled "needs action."

This is the key folder that we're going to be using for this process. Everything that requires our attention, everything that's important and needs a reply from us, is going to go into this folder.

Everything else is either going to be archived or deleted. Archived if we think we may need to reference it later in the future, deleted if we're pretty sure we will never need to lay eyes on it ever again.

So we're in our inbox. This is how it works.

I get to my first message and I say nope, doesn't need anything here, I'm gonna drag it to my archive. Nope, nothing important here, I don't need to reply, maybe I'll need to reference it again, I'm gonna put it to my archive.

No, just information, let's archive that. Oh, this one does need my attention and it needs a thoughtful reply, I'm going to drag it to my needs action folder.

Next one, no, I can archive that. This one, no, nothing important here, archive.

This one, oh yes, I do need to address this, let's put that in my needs action folder. And the last one is just a receipt, I'm gonna put it in my archive folder.

Now my inbox is cleared. I've gone through everything in my inbox, and I can click on my needs action folder, and there are the only two in that set that I just went through, the only two emails that really need my attention.

Now, with myself outside of my inbox, I can focus exclusively only on those messages that require my attention. I may be receiving new emails as I'm replying to these messages, and that's perfectly okay.

We receive emails throughout the day. The goal is not to keep your inbox at zero, but now I can focus on the messages that require my attention.

Once I'm done, I will again go and archive those messages. So create your own needs action folder, or maybe it could be labeled "needs a reply."

It doesn't matter what you call it, create a separate folder so that you can quickly filter out those messages that you need to reply to from your inbox. In my next video, I'm going to be answering your most frequently asked questions, so please be sure to drop a line in the comment section below.

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about what you have to say. Thanks so much for watching this video, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Did you know that the average person spends 6.3 hours a day checking email?

That’s right, more than 6 hours dealing with email.

That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to work on more important tasks or your very big goals.

Or maybe meeting with your most important people or your most important customers.

Well, today I want to show you a very simple technique to reduce the amount of email that hits your inbox.

Our inbox is usually the primary folder that we spend most of our time in.

This is where all of our new email shows up.

This is where we're responding and replying and dealing with the majority of our email.

But sometimes you receive email that is less important.

And maybe quite frequently you receive email from a particular sender or maybe even something that’s particular to the subject line.

And I'm going to show you how to make that email avoid hitting the inbox and instead have it appear somewhere else that you can check on your own time.

Somewhere else where you can check on your own terms.

So to do this, we want to start by creating a new folder.

At the top of the menu, you'll see the folder option.

We select new folder and I'm going to name this folder “Less Important.”

This isn’t stuff that is junk mail.

This isn’t stuff that I want to get rid of or unsubscribe to.

It’s just things that I don’t need to see immediately as soon as they enter my email client.

I don’t need to see it right away.

I’d like to check it maybe once a day or even some of these things just once a week.

I just want to glance at it, stay on top of it, but I don’t need to see it immediately.

Now, you can create this new folder in any of these areas down below.

I want to actually create it at the top level under my email address.

So I'm going to select that option there.

I'm going to hit OK.

And you can see over here on the left-hand side of the screen I have a “Less Important” folder.

Let me just drag that up here to my favorites area.

This is sort of my primary work area here.

So now I've got a “Less Important” folder.

Something that I can go look at and find an email that is not crucial.

That I need to lay my eyes on it immediately.

Of course, I've got nothing in there just yet.

We’ve just created the folder at this point.

So the second step is to find or identify email that is less important.

Things that you don’t need to see immediately.

And let's say, for example, this one here is a sender that you know I like the stuff they’re sending me.

I enjoy reading it once in a while.

But I certainly don’t need to see it as soon as it hits my inbox.

So to automatically send this message to this folder so it doesn’t appear in my inbox, you simply right-click on the message.

And if you scroll down, you’ve got plenty of options.

We want to go to Rules and at the very top, we see an option “Always move messages from this sender.”

The sender is right there in the name.

I’m going to click on that option.

It’s going to open up a dialogue.

And here we can select where we want to put that email.

Where do you want to send it?

Well, here is the “Less Important” folder that we just created.

I’m going to select that.

I’m going to say OK.

And now it’s already done the work for me.

You can see it actually sent that email.

And if I click on the “Less Important” folder, there it is.

It’s in that “Less Important” folder now.

For this example, we’ve just moved this existing message.

But going forward, any new email that I receive from this sender is going to show up here directly and not hit my inbox.

I will no longer receive messages from that sender here where I’m doing my day-to-day, where I’m doing my most serious work.

The emails and messages that I want to see right away.

Instead, I can come to my “Less Important” folder and see what’s there.

Come back to it once in a while, maybe it’s daily, maybe it’s every couple of days, and check on what has come in that time.

Now one other hint I’ll show you here is that it can be helpful to see how many messages are in my “Less Important” folder.

You’ll see that’s pretty standard in some of the other folders.

Inbox shows three, which indicates messages that I have not read yet.

If there’s a bracket around it, it means that’s the number of total messages that are in that folder.

So we want to right-click on the folder itself.

And if you go all the way down, you’ll see the option is Properties.

Clicking on Properties gives me two radio buttons: “Show the number of unread items” or “Show the total number of items.”

So currently it’s set by “Show number of unread items.”

That’s why there’s no number there.

I’ve already read it.

I’ve already opened up this email.

I’m going to select the second option “Show total number of items.”

I’m going to hit Apply.

I’m going to hit OK.

And now you can see there’s a small bracket with a number one.

So now I can go about my day.

I can spend most of my time in my inbox.

And then I can look over here and say, “Oh, you know what? I’ve received something in my ‘Less Important’ folder.”

Oh, there’s only one; that’s fine.

I’ll go check on it tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon.

But maybe when this number reaches something like 10 or 12, then I’ll want to open it up and start browsing what is in this folder.

And when I’m done with it, I can delete it.

I can archive it.

I can move it somewhere else.

But a great way to move things from your inbox.

Now if you want to move something that is beyond just a sender, of course, you can make that change as well.

Maybe there’s a particular subject line that if it appears in the subject line, you also want to move it to that “Less Important” folder.

This can often be the case of certain newsletters or maybe it’s an application that you work with and they send you automated notifications.

Often those notifications aren’t very urgent.

Things that you might want to browse or you might want to make yourself aware of.

But you certainly don’t need to see them immediately when they hit that.

So let’s take this email as an example.

And let’s say I don’t want to see anything that has “Pumpkin” in it.

I’m just going to use that as my example.

Anything that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, I don’t want to see it.

So again, we’re going to right-click it.

We’re going to select Rules.

But instead of saying “Always move messages from this sender,” that’s not what I want to do.

I still want to receive some messages from this sender in my inbox.

What I want to do is select the “Create Rule” option.

We’re going to get a different dialogue box.

And here we have a few different choices.

On the top half, it says “When I get email with all of the selected conditions.”

You make your selections here.

The second half says “Do the following.”

So if this, then do that.

And then we’re going to say OK.

So in this example, I want to deal with the subject line.

So I’m going to select the “Subject contains” box.

It’s already pre-populated this with the exact subject line for this email.

But that’s much too specific.

I just want things with “Pumpkin” in the subject line.

So I’m going to delete the rest of this subject.

I’ve just got “Pumpkin.”

So when I get an email with all of the selected conditions, all email that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, please move it to the “Less Important” folder.

And you can select a different folder if you need to.

But I’m going to stick with my “Less Important” folder.

I’m going to select OK.

The rule “Pumpkin” has been created.

Now I’ve got a choice: do I want to run this rule now or do I just want to leave everything where it is?

I’m going to select Run for this example and say OK.

And there you see that message has moved as well.

“Less Important” folder now has two items.

There is my message with “Pumpkin” in it.

And now going forward, any email that I receive that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line will no longer appear in my inbox.

It’s going to appear in my “Less Important” folder.

So consider some of the senders that you do want to see their email.

You would like to review their email but you never or rarely need to see it immediately.

Or do you have certain automated or regular emails that have a repetitive subject line?

Again, same circumstance: you don’t need to see it right away.

If you can try to reduce the number of things that hit your inbox, you can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend with your email.

So create a “Less Important” folder.

You can name it to help you stay productive.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it’s very simple.

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It is so important that you have a capturing tool to gather all of your new ideas, all those new requests that you either receive, or those things that just pop up into your mind throughout the day.

A few weeks ago, I created a video asking the question if you should switch from Evernote as your primary capturing tool to Google Keep.

The reason why I asked this question and why I created this video is that I found that I needed something that was quicker, something that was faster and easier than Evernote.

I just found that Evernote was a little sluggish to me as I would whip out my phone or log on to my computer and try and capture that note. I found that Google Keep is actually quite quick, quite efficient in capturing these new thoughts.

It generated a lot of discussion, a lot of great questions, and today I wanted to zero in on one of those questions.

Martin from Northern Ireland asks, "I noticed that you can create a Google Doc from a note, but can you create the link to it, say in Google Drive?"

Great question, Martin. Let's take a closer look.

So if you are an Evernote

Evernote Copy Note Links

You are probably already familiar with this function: at the top of your note, if you select "More," there's a "Copy note link."

You select this, and it's going to copy the link to your clipboard.

Now you can go paste it anywhere.

You can paste it in a document, you can paste it in an email, and then you can come right back to this note.

You can reference that note from other places on the web or in other documents.

Can you do the same in Google Keep?

Google Keep Copy Note Links

You just have to do it a little more traditionally. However, it doesn't take any additional clicks.

If I click on this note, for example, there's a "More" section. I'm looking for "Copy link" or how I can take this link and put it somewhere else.

There's "Make a copy," but that's just going to copy this note within Google Keep.

The last option is "Copy to Google Docs," and this is what Martin was referencing in his question. If I select this, it will actually create this note in Google Docs. Essentially, it's going to replicate it in Google Docs.

If this is a large article or a lot of notes that I want to do some further editing in Google Docs, that's what that function is for.

But where is the ability to copy the link?

Well, all you need to do is look up at your web address or URL. Copy this link, and you can paste that anywhere that you want.

For example, if I go over to my Google document, I've already pasted that link in my document here. If I select it, it's going to open up a new tab, open up Google Keep, and there it is. There's the note that I copied and pasted.

I can reference that note from my Google Doc. If you want to paste it in an email, the same type of example. I'll hit that link, and it's going to automatically open up that note so I can reference it. I can even start editing it if I like.

So yes, you can use that. However, there's one caveat that I discovered.

If you copy that link and paste it somewhere outside of your web browser, here's the example: I need to open up my Word document, and here I have pasted both. I've pasted my Google Keep note link here, the one we've just been using, and I've also pasted my Evernote link as an example.

From within my Word document that is not online—this is not Microsoft online; this is my Microsoft Word application, which is native to my desktop—if I click this to follow that link, let's see what happens. It opens up a new tab. Huh, I gotta sign in.

It's not taking me directly to the notes. So if I say sign-in, it's going to continue to go forward, and it's going to bring me within Google Keep. But then that's it. It's not even going to bring up that note at all.

So it looks like there's a bit of a hiccup with Google Keep and linking your notes outside of your web browser.

If I go back to my Word document, here's the Evernote link. I'm going to Ctrl-click that. Let's see what happens here. It opens up a new tab and brings me straight to the note. There is the note that I wanted.

It didn't ask me to log in. It didn't just bring me to my Evernote screen or my Evernote homepage. I can actually access that note here.

So something to think about: if you're using these links exclusively within the browser, yeah, you can copy and paste these anywhere you want—within an email, within Google Drive, within other areas of the web.

But you may want to be wary if you're pasting that link outside, such as in Microsoft Word or some other document that sits outside of your web browser.

Thank you, Martin, for the question, and thank you for watching. I would encourage you to take either Google Keep or Evernote for a test drive if you haven't already. I recommend this to a lot of people.

If you've used the same application for more than two years, things change. The way you use the application may have changed. So spend some time with something that's new to you or that's unfamiliar. You may actually find a faster or more efficient way to do things.

Remember, to be at your productive best is not that difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

you just have to do it a little more traditionally however it doesn't take any additional clicks so if I click on this note for example there's a more section and I'm looking for you know copy link or you know how can i how can I take this link and put it somewhere else there's make a copy but that's just gonna copy this note within Google cube the last option is copied to Google Doc and this is what Martin was referencing in his question if I select this is actually going to create this note in Google Doc essentially it's going to replicate it in Google Doc you know say this is a large article or you know maybe it's a a lot of notes that I want to do some further editing in in Google Docs that's what that function is for but where is the ability to copy the link well all you need to do is look up at your web address or your URL copy

this link and you can paste that anywhere that you want so for example if I go over here to my Google document I've already pasted that link in my document here if I select it I'm gonna select that link it's going to open up a new tab open up Google keep and there it is there's the note that I copy and paste it I can reference that note from my Google Doc if you want to paste it in an email same same type of example I'm gonna hit that link and it's going to automatically open up that note so I can reference it I can even start editing it if I like so yes you can use that however there's one caveat that I discovered and that is if you copy that link and paste it somewhere outside of your web browser so here's the example I need to open up my word document and here I have pasted both I've I've pasted my Google keep note link here the one we've just been using and I've also pasted my Evernote link as an example so

from within my word document that is not online this is not Microsoft online this is my my Microsoft Word application which is native to my to my desktop if I click this to follow that link let's see what happens it opens up a new tab huh I gotta sign in it's not taking me directly to the notes so if I say sign-in it's gonna continue to go forward it's gonna bring me within Google keep but then that's it it's not even going to bring up that note at all so it looks like there's a bit of a hiccup with Google keep and linking your notes link your notes outside of your web browser now if I go back to my word

document here's the Evernote link I'm gonna ctrl click that let's see what happens here opens up a new tab and it brings me straight to the note there is the note that's the note that I wanted it didn't ask me to log in it didn't just bring me to my ever known-- screen or or my Evernote homepage I can actually access

that note here so something to think about if you're using these links exclusively within the browser yeah you can copy and paste these anywhere you want within an email within Google Drive within other areas of the web but you may want to be wary if you're pasting that link outside such as you know Microsoft Word or some other document that sits outside of your web browser Thank You Martin for the question and thank you for watching I would encourage you to take either Google keep or

Evernote for a test drive if you haven't already I recommend this to a lot of people if you've used the same application for more than two years things change the way you use the application may have changed so spend some time with something that's new to you or that's unfamiliar you may actually find a faster or a more efficient way to do things remember to be at your productive best is not that

difficult in fact it's very simple

Trello is such a powerful tool for collaborating with others when you're managing a team project. When you want to make sure that your entire group is all on the same page, Trello is a fantastic tool for managing those projects or managing various tasks.

One of the great things is that if you attach people or if you assign people to certain cards, the other people on that card will receive notifications. You can set up email notifications within Trello.

That means if I click on this card here and I start to add a due date to this card, anyone else on this card is going to receive a notification as well. If I add or maybe change the label of this card, they will receive an email notification.

If I add a comment, anyone else, any of the members attached to this card, will receive an email notification. However, this can sometimes have a negative effect because suddenly everyone on this card has an awful lot of emails and an awful lot of additional Trello emails notifying them of several things within the same card.

Very quickly, your inbox and the inbox of your teammates may be flooded with Trello notifications. So today, I want to show you how to change the email frequency for your Trello notifications so that you don't receive an email for every single change on your Trello board, but perhaps reduce the frequency to just those things that are most important to you.

To do so, you want to click on your name, your account here at the top, and select settings. You want to scroll down roughly halfway down the page and you'll see an area called notifications.

Here, we see a link that says change notification email frequency. Now, when we click on that, we get three options.

By default, Trello selects instantly, so when you first sign up to Trello, it's going to be set as instantly send emails as soon as possible. I find that this can be really challenging and often a bit of a turnoff to brand new Trello users because suddenly they're getting many, many email notifications even for several small changes on a single card.

So I usually recommend that you select periodically, and here it says it sends emails about once an hour. So what exactly does that mean?

Am I going to receive a Trello email every single hour? No, no, of course not.

Only if changes are made. Essentially, what happens when you select this option, the middle option periodically, Trello is going to take a look at all of the changes that are being made, and at most, it's going to send you an email notification on the hour.

So I'm just going to select this option here. Of course, the third option there is never if you don't want to receive any notifications at all, but I'm going to select periodically.

Then let's go back to my teamwork board. What this means is that I can go into this card and I can make several changes, many of the changes that I made before.

I can add labels, checklists, add comments, add other people, add an attachment, and my other members, my other team members that are attached to this card will only receive one summary email. And not just for this card.

If I make a bunch of changes within the hour, they will only receive one email notification giving them a nice summary of all the changes that were made to cards that affected them, cards that they were assigned to. Now, if I come back into Trello an hour later, right after I made those first changes and I start making other changes, that will count as a second change or a second batch of changes.

Then Trello will send out another email to those people that it affects. But it's a great way to still keep everyone in the loop, keep everyone on top of what's going on and what's being changed within the Trello board, but without flooding their email inbox with dozens and dozens of Trello notifications.

I find this is a really big turnoff for many brand new Trello users. Despite all the advantages of using a Trello board and collaborating with others, a number of people are turned off by the amount of email notifications that they receive because by default, it is set to instantly.

So share this video with your Trello team members. I'd recommend that you share this with people who are brand new to Trello so that they can know how to change their email notification settings.

Of course, if you would like to stay up to date with things relating to Trello or relating to other parts of productivity software or just productivity and time management in general, be sure to subscribe to Simpletivity here on YouTube. And if you haven't had a chance to visit the Simpletivity website, I encourage you to do so as well.

We've got free guides, we've got other tips and other tricks to help you be more productive. Until next time, it's very simple.

There is absolutely no shortage of to-do list apps that are available to you and me. Doing a quick search for productivity or to-do list in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store will give you a very long list of apps and task managers that can help you be more productive, help you be more efficient.

Some of the more popular ones include Wunderlist, Any.do, Clear, and Todoist, and in most cases, they're more than just an app, but they are cloud-based, so you can access them on your desktop as well. A few others that many people use to manage their tasks are Evernote and Google Keep.

Now, these are not really task list managers at their core; they're really more note-taking or note-capturing applications, but many people use the ability to create a checklist and to manage their tasks within such apps. Now, I don't usually recommend any of these apps for managing their to-dos because I find many of them overcomplicate the process of both adding new tasks and editing and managing those tasks.

If you're a longtime fan of Simpletivity, you probably know that I highly recommend Trello as an excellent to-do list. It is a great way to customize the way that you manage your tasks and, more importantly, be able to see your to-dos and your projects or bigger goals on the same screen.

But today, I want to show you an even simpler tool for managing your tasks, and you already have it. In fact, I can almost guarantee that you already use it, and it is your calendar.

That's right, it is your calendar. Whether it's Google Calendar as you see here and what I'll be using for an example today, whether it's Microsoft Outlook as your calendar, whether it's Apple's iCloud calendar, it doesn't matter what you are using; you can use your calendar as a very effective and very simple to-do list.

So as we look at my hypothetical week here, you see that I have a few events that I've listed here throughout the week: a couple of meetings, a couple of phone calls, including an all-day conference on the Tuesday. But way up top, you'll see on the Friday, I have in my all-day event row something called "weekly review."

Now, does that mean that I'm gonna spend the entire day doing a weekly review? No, certainly not.

I will not be spending all day doing my weekly review, but I use this area as an area to capture my to-dos and my tasks. So it doesn't really matter to me if I do my weekly review first thing or later in the day.

If I have a few things and meetings that get scheduled between now and then, I do know that I'm gonna make weekly review a priority. I use this area primarily as a to-do list, and you can too, to help you see the relationship between your to-dos and other things that are going on in your life.

To do so, you just need to click on this area and you can add a new task. So I'm going to put in a few here: "call Kevin regarding the meeting," hit enter, it appears.

I'm going to add another one here: "write the marketing report." And I'm going to "email Julie regarding the conference."

Okay, so there I have a few tasks that I want to be able to accomplish on that Tuesday. And now I can see the relationship between those to-dos and other things that I have on my workday, on my work week, the other things that are happening that are scheduled as a part of my day.

So, for example, I have an all-day conference that I'm going to be attending on Tuesday. The chances of me accomplishing all of these things, particularly writing this marketing report, are quite slim.

So it's so easy for me to simply click and drag, and I'm gonna defer that until Wednesday. I can still see it, I can still see how it relates to the rest of my week, but I've decided to move it from this Tuesday.

So it's really, really simple to be able to move around your tasks and give them an assignment on a specific day. And this can help you be more effective by managing several smaller to-do lists rather than one large giant to-do list.

So for example, you can manage as few as maybe four or five key tasks on a specific day instead of managing one really long list that maybe has 27 or 40 some items on them. You can break out your to-do list by specific days and see how they relate to one another.

So for example, here I have "call Kevin regarding the meeting." I can see that I'm actually meeting with Kevin on Thursday, and maybe that's why I decided to put that task on that Tuesday.

For example, I can see the relationship between my tasks and other things that are going on in my work week. So a few other things that you can benefit from managing your tasks in your calendar.

On the top level or on the front of your task, you can keep things nice and clean. You can keep the description of your to-do very short and sweet, but within it, you can add further details.

Now again, regardless of what calendar app you're using, you are going to have some type of description field or a notes field. So here you can add a URL to a website that you need.

You can add contact information for someone that you're going to call maybe for that particular meeting. You can copy and paste information into this area.

Often what I like to do for a number of my tasks is I'll be putting the next step. Okay, after I've completed writing the marketing report, what am I going to do next?

Sometimes I'll even just abbreviate that to "NS" and I'll say, you know, "send to Julie for review." So I can have all this detailed information within the task itself.

I'm just going to hit save. But of course, when I come back to my main calendar view, I can just see the task at hand.

This can be great when you're calling someone or sending that communication to someone. You can keep the description short and sweet, but you can have all the details in the description below.

Now lastly, you're probably thinking, Scott, isn't a key part of managing a to-do list or managing a task list having the ability to prioritize your list? How can I sort my list or highlight certain things?

Now, if you have followed some of my videos in the past already, you will know that I am not a big fan of prioritizing things by numbers or by letters or by multiple colors. The most important thing, and what's going to make you most effective in getting more done in a single day, is separating the "should do's" from the "could do's," really separating your most important work from everything else.

So what I recommend is that you only highlight your one or two most important tasks. Don't try and sort the entire list.

Now, from a calendar perspective, it can be difficult to reorder these items in the way that we want if we wanted to sort things, you know, top to bottom. We want to prioritize things one through seven.

However, there's a very simple tool, a very simple addition you can use to make sure your most important things appear at the top. So let's say, for example, that "write the marketing report" is the most important thing.

I want to make sure that I do that first or I at least see that first. By clicking on the title of this particular task, all you need to do is add a period or almost any other symbol.

I use a period since it's very small, still very easy to read. If you add a period and hit save, it will automatically bump it and sort it to the top of the list.

And this goes for most applications, including calendar applications. Let's say, you know, emailing Julie about the conference is the least important, just so I can show you in the example.

I go down to "email Julie," again I'm going to add a simple period, and now that is sorted to the top along with "write the marketing report." So as I said before, I think it's a waste of time giving a stack ranking of every single one of your tasks.

But if there are one or two that are most valuable or most important, you can simply add a period or some other symbol so that it will sort to the top of your list. So if you are looking for a very effective way to manage your tasks and to see your tasks in relation to everything else that is going on in your day or going on in your week, I suggest you use the all-day event area as a part of your calendar.

Whether it's Google, whether it's Outlook, whether it's Apple, it doesn't matter. They all have the same type of functionality.

You can manage your to-do lists right within the calendar. Until next time, it's very simple.

I have been a longtime user of Evernote and I have recommended Evernote to hundreds if not thousands of people as their primary note-taking tool.

It is so important that you have an application that you can quickly grab those ideas, grab a new image, maybe you have a quick conversation in the hallway or a quick conversation with someone and you need to grab that information quickly and easily.

However, in the past year, I have grown somewhat frustrated with the Evernote user interface and it's not so much that they've made many changes with Evernote, I'm just finding myself that there's too many clicks I need to take, too many steps in order for me to capture something new or to go find something new.

So recently, I took a test-drive of Google Keep and I have been most impressed.

So today I want to give you a short demo of Google Keep, how you can use it, and where I think it actually has an advantage over an application like Evernote when it comes to capturing notes.

The most important thing is how quickly you can capture those ideas, how quickly can you enter them, whether that's on your mobile device or whether that's on the desktop.

So right from the beginning, I love that it is upfront, right, it's upfront, it's easy to find.

I don't have to click on anything to get to search.

I probably shouldn't be so surprised since this product is from Google.

Also, the ability to take a note is upfront, right.

I don't need to select a plus symbol, I don't need to go find something else.

Very easy to capture a new note.

So let's add a few notes as an example.

I'm gonna call Jenny about dinner plans.

I can either hit done or just click outside of the box and it's gonna capture it there.

Like an email, Ted about the Tuesday meeting.

This time I'm just gonna hit done and you can see it sort of displays the notes in a bit of a post-it note style.

Most of them tend to be in sort of a square shape depending on what you're capturing.

Some other quick ways of capturing notes if you want to add a new list, I think this is a really big advantage over Evernote.

A quick way to create a new checklist.

So let's say I'm creating a grocery list, for example.

I'm just hitting enter, it's gonna grab me my very next item on that list.

So there I've got my quick checklist and not only was it easy to create but I can start interacting with that list without actually opening it up.

So I can just start crossing things off here without actually opening up the list in this view.

So it's very easy to check things off or uncheck things in that list.

The other quick way of capturing would be an image.

Now of course, on your mobile device, you can quickly take a photo but here on the desktop you're going to need to add an attachment.

I'm just gonna double click that, grab an image from my computer.

I can add a note here if I want, not necessary but let me just put that in there, hit done, and you can see it's nice and visual.

I can see the entire image or most of the image here, a great way to visualize my notes.

Now, one disadvantage, especially for those used to the Evernote infrastructure, is that Google Keep does not allow you to sort by creation date or the last day that you edited a note or by alphabetical order.

It's very much a drag-and-drop application, so you sort of need to manage which notes you want to see up front and which ones you want to perhaps group together.

But I'm gonna show you in just a minute how you can filter, how you can create labels, how you can create tags that makes filtering and finding your notes that much easier.

Well, let's go into some of the additional features that you can add or change to a note.

I'm gonna bring this one up here which involves a phone call.

So you can add a reminder time to a phone call.

It gives you a few defaults here which you can change in the settings section here.

So I'm gonna say, let's say tomorrow at 8 a.m. I want to be reminded of this task tomorrow at 8 a.m.

I set it there, it said I can see it listed at the bottom of the note, it's gonna remind me tomorrow at 8 a.m.

But the great thing, the great bonus if you are a Google Calendar user is that this reminder that you've set in Google Keep will also display there.

You see it there, it is in my Google Calendar, will also show up there.

So I love that integration within the Google ecosystem is that you can create a reminder here in your notes very quickly, very easily while you're on the go and it will appear in your Google Calendar.

A few other options, you have the ability to share notes.

This grocery list would probably be a great example of that.

So let's say, you know, you and your spouse or maybe someone else that you live with, the first one in the grocery store, you want them to pick up these items.

Well, I can add one or more email addresses to this particular note and then they can edit that note and interact with it as well.

So a great way to collaborate with others is the ability to share.

Now you can also label your notes in a few different ways.

One is by color.

So let's say I want my grocery list to be red, I want it to stand out a little bit.

Maybe my domestic things, right, things around the house or errands, I want a particular color so I can make that red.

And maybe my phone calls, I want all my phone calls to be blue.

Whatever type of color scheme or whatever makes sense to you, you can very quickly and easily change those colors.

Now by default, it gives you the option to archive, which I highly recommend with any note-taking or note-capturing device just in case you want to go back and retrieve it later.

But if you select the more option, you can actually delete that note altogether.

Now the one additional label or way that you can add a tag to a note is by adding a label.

I've only just created the one so far, here's the work label.

So now you can see if I click on that, it's going to filter anything that has work on it.

Let's maybe add work to this one as well.

So now it's just free, it's quick and easy, I can either select work on the left-hand side or if I go back to all my notes, I can select work on the note itself and it's just gonna filter out everything there.

Let me show you one other way that you can add labels quicker and easier than actually selecting this drop-down menu.

So I'm gonna say change labels, I'm gonna uncheck that so it doesn't have work anymore, and within the note, I'm just gonna add a hashtag.

Right, and there comes up all of my labels.

I've only got one at the moment, but now I can select that, hit done, and now I've got my label in there.

So as I'm typing a new note, let's say, you know, sent out the meeting agenda and I'm gonna say hashtag work.

Okay, there it is, I don't have to select anything, I can just put in the hashtag and now that's gonna be a part of my collection of notes that I want filtered under work.

So last thing I want to show you is the ability to sort of filter and search.

So up here, if you just click the search bar, you'll notice that it starts to categorize a few things already for you.

So you can filter by just reminders, and I only got the one, there's my reminder.

All your lists, I only have a couple, right, only have a few in my Google Keep anyhow, I've only got one list here.

But a quick way to sort of filter out which of your notes have images, if you just want to see the notes that have images, quick easy.

All your labels will show up here.

Here, you can see that Google actually starts to categorize some of the themes, notices that you have some things related to food or groceries and also the different colors that you are using.

But of course, you can just type in text and right away it's gonna show you all of your notes that contain text.

Now one really important thing to keep in mind if you are considering moving from Evernote to Google Keep is that there is no such thing as a notebook in Google Keep.

So there's no such thing as a folder structure within Google Keep.

It's really sort of one main space to collect all of your notes and then either by color, either by label, or this tag formatting you can add these things to your, that's really the only way that you can filter out your notes.

But unless you're an author, unless you're a writer and you're keeping very, very large documents in your notes, Google Keep is an excellent choice for capturing those quick ideas, capturing those quick photos and being able to retrieve them very quickly when you need to go back, see what is to become a project, what needs to be turned into a reminder or a task.

So check out Google Keep, let me know how you find Google Keep or how it compares to Evernote, and make sure that you always have some way of capturing those ideas right away.

It's very simple.

It's just after 6 AM and I'm exactly where I should be: on the ground, doing my crunches, starting my morning exercise routine.

There's a couple of different reasons why I choose to exercise first thing in the morning.

Number one, it's so much harder to defer that exercise when it's the first thing on your list.

You see, in the past, I've had good intentions of hitting the gym or going for that run after work, after 5 PM.

But I often found that my motivation was lacking at that time of day.

After a full day of meetings, phone calls, email, and travel, I often didn't have the energy to hit the gym or go for that workout at that time of day.

As a result, I'd defer it, I'd cancel it, and maybe go several days without missing my workout.

But by fitting in my exercise first thing in the morning, I've made time for it, and therefore it's that much harder for me to ignore it, for me to simply defer my morning routine.

But there's a second reason why I choose to exercise first thing in the morning.

And that's for the mental benefits.

For the mental and productive boost that exercise can give you.

By raising your heart rate, by sweating a little bit, it actually gives you some additional mental power, some additional mental focus as you start your workday.

And if you're already exercising routinely in the morning, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

After exercising for several days in a row and then missing a day, you'll find that you may be missing that mental boost or that mental energy as you begin your day.

So find time for exercise.

Find time for a workout first thing in the morning.

It may require waking up about 30 minutes earlier, but it's worth it.

Especially if you want to have the most productive day possible.

Until next time, it's very simple.