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Are you really impressing anyone by sending them a slide deck or a PDF? What if instead you could send them a page like this? Not only does it look a lot more professional and like a website, but it has a handy navigation menu so they can quickly jump to certain areas that you'd like them to focus on.

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to set this up without having to create a website.   

How to Impress your Clients

So in order to make this happen, I'm using a tool called Walling. And best of all, it's not only free,but you don't need any coding experience or knowledge of HTML. Walling allows us to drag and drop or copy and paste virtually anything that we want, including images, including embedding videos.

We can even have complete timelines, like in this example, where I am creating an event page and embed maps and other elements. We can even include buttons.

So this could become a landing page if you wanted to or you could simply just be sharing your work. And when I'm ready to publish, all I need to do is come up to the top, hit Publish, and I can copy this link.

Now, when I send it to anyone on the web, they don't need a password. They don't need a login. They can come to this event page and see everything I've put together. And yes, they can interact with the elements on the screen.

They can go and click this button and jump to my registration page. They can see our sponsors,

but they can also quickly and easily navigate the entire screen, the entire page here on the left-hand side.

And you know as well as I that when you share something with someone else, typically via email, we are opening those links on email. Well, best of all, it is dynamic. So as the screen changes, whether they're viewing it on a tablet,

whether they're viewing it on their phone, everything here is responsive. So no matter what you design here, it's going to look great to that end user.

Creating your own Wall

So let's jump back into Walling and get started with creating a new wall of our own.

On the left-hand side here, I'm going to select New Wall.

And we can either start with a blank space or we can start with a number of many templates. So these can be a great place to get started whether you want to share a project plan, you want to share meeting notes and invoice, number of different reasons and great examples

that can get us started in just a matter of seconds. But for our example, we're going to start with a blank wall just to show you how easy it is to get started. So perhaps in this case, I want to send a project proposal. So I'm going to give it a simple title here.

Now, Walling divides its screen into sections. So after our title, let's get started with a bit of a heading section here. I'm going to Select Template, and I've got a number

of different layouts to choose from. I think I'm going to start with this one here, this sort of Heading template. Now, just so we can see how things look, it's always going to input some sample text here, but we can easily copy and paste and revise this as we go.

And if I come over here and want to choose an image, I can quickly search for something from Unsplash. So I don't even have to upload or prepare my images in advance. In this case, let's say, I am designing a workshop for this company.

So I'm going to select this image here. And of course, I can come and copy and paste information either directly from my website or some other document into this space below. Don't forget that everything you see here is customizable.

If I want to make this heading stand out a little bit more, maybe I'm going to come down here and choose a different color such as this blue just so it stands out that much more.

Next, I want to jump into the three options

Adding new sections

which I'm going to give them. So I'm going to come down here and select New Section. And once again, I'm going to select template. Now, one of these first two are going to be ideal. Since I already have some images here on the front of the screen,

I'm going to select this one here and I'm going to give them options one, options two, and options three. But in order to make them a little more distinct, let's go ahead and change their colors as well. So all I need to do is right-click on them. I'm going to give this one sort of a green shade. I'm going to give this one more of a yellowish shade.

And over here, let's choose this shade as well just so they can really zero in on the differences between those options. But of course, whenever you're sharing information with someone, you typically want them to take action. And that's another great thing about Walling is that we can actually add clickable buttons if we need to.

Here under Option 1, I'm going to select Insert. And here's just a sample of the number of things which we can insert within our wall. I'm going to select Button in this case.

First, let's change the button text. I'm going to say Select for the button.

And then down below, all we need to do is paste in where we want them to go. So do we have a registration page? Do we have a sales page? Do we want them to book some time with us? Whatever that next step is, you can paste it in here as a part of that clickable button.

Now, here, I can see that that button is transparent so it's not really going to stand out. So let's go ahead and edit this button and let's give it a different shade,

something that will stand out across all three of these colors. So I'm going to select that one here. If I want, I could just go and duplicate this button two more times.

And then at this stage, I can simply click and drag these buttons to where I want them to go. So yes, I want that button to go over here and I'm going to put this at the bottom of Option 3.

The only additional step I'll need to do is to change the link, making sure that they are going to the appropriate place. But already in just a few minutes, we've got something that is much more colorful, much more engaging than a PowerPoint, a PDF, or some other static document which you have to attach to an email.

Now, we've got something living, breathing, and something that is a lot more inspiring

Sharing project progress

to share with our clients. Lastly, let's create another section which is really going to wow our clients by adding something which is a little more dynamic.

Now, in this case, I want to show the progress of this plan and where we are going because this can serve a dual purpose, not only an opportunity to sell or to communicate, but this could also be a place where I update the status of this project.

So here within my template, I'm going to select tasks board which is going to give me a very simple Kanban style board. Of course, I can edit any element here. I'm going to start by giving it a section title called What's Going On so they can always stay up-to-date.

And then here, I can give as many or as little details as I want. So maybe we need to find a workshop site.

That's something that we need to be doing. Maybe we need to interview the customers who are a part of this workshop, but there are some things we're already engaged in such as reviewing the initial survey, something like that.

And maybe we've already completed something at this stage as well such as selecting the date, something along those lines. Now remember, I can come back in here and edit this and update this as often as I choose.

But when I'm ready to share, all I need to do is come up to the top and select Publish. Here, I am given my unique link. I'm going to say copy that link. Now, when I share this link with others, this is exactly what they will see.

It's colorful, it's beautiful, it's easy to navigate. And they can also use the navigation screen hereon the left-hand side. So if you'd like to share your work with your clients or others in a matter of seconds and wow them without sending a PowerPoint, be sure to check out Walling.

To learn more and to sign up for free, go to Walling.app. And if you have any other questions, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

- [Scott] Would you like to make it easier for people to book time with you and to not have to spend extra money on a separate calendar scheduling tool? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up and use Google Calendar's free appointment schedule feature.

(machine rasps) (air whooshes) To get started with creating a number of slots

Creating an Appointment Schedule

in which people can book you, all we need to do is click on Google Calendar. Now, although we could add a title right off the bat, I'm going to come down here and select Set Up The Schedule, and on the left-hand side of our screen, we are going to be given all of the options that we need.

Now, when it comes to adding a title, you want to remember that this is what others will be seeing on their calendar as well. So, in this example, I'm going to call this a one-on-one with Scott so they know exactly who they're meeting with and what type of meeting it going to be.

Next up, we need to decide what is the appointment duration. So, for example, is this going to be a 30-minute meeting, a full hour, or some other custom length? In this case, I am going to leave it at one hour. And then we have our general availability section. Now, this is arguably

the most important step in the process, deciding when we are going to make ourselves available. Now, because I selected 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. on this Tuesday, that is going to be selected here, but we don't have to keep that.

You can click anywhere on your calendar just to get started. You'll notice that there is a plus button beside every day of the week, so let's say I want to make myself available on Wednesday afternoons.

All I would need to do is hit the plus button beside Wednesday, and now, I can adjust the time. You'll see that by default, it's going to add 9:00 to 5:00 p.m, but I've got other commitments, and maybe I only want to make myself available in the afternoon.

So, I'm going to come over here and I'm going to select 12:30, and I'm going to say I'm going to make myself available till 3:00 p.m.

So, this is the timeslot. This is where others will be able to choose an appointment time for themselves. And once you've created a slot, you'll notice that there's some other options available to us as well.

The first is this little no sign, meaning unavailable all day. I would select this if I wanted to remove this option. So, let's say I no longer want to keep the Tuesday option.

I'm going to select that, and now it is removed. But you'll also notice if you have a minimum of two days selected, let me go back and select a time period here on Tuesday, I then have an option to copy this time to all available slots.

Now, this doesn't mean it's going to copy this time to every day of the week, but let's say I want to make myself available 12:30 to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday as well. Here, I would select Copy Time to All, and now the exact same block has been entered here.

Let's say I want to do that again for Friday. First, I would need to hit the plus button just to enter some time there,

and then I could come up here to Wednesday, say Copy Time to All, and once again, we have the exact same timeslot. Keep in mind, you cannot adjust these times by clicking or dragging on the calendar itself.

You do need to make these adjustments here within the Appointment Schedule panel. In addition, keep in mind that you're not limited to just one time period per weekday. Here, you can see I've created a timeslot for Tuesday morning, but I'd also like to make myself available later in the afternoon.

All I need to do is come here and select the plus button again, and now I have an additional timeslot for that day. So, I'm going to come down and select 3:00 p.m, and no, it cannot finish at 1:00 p.m.

I'm going to make myself available to 5:00 p.m. So now, I have two different timeslots for the same day, and I can continue to customize this as much as I like. Note you do not have to have your schedule repeat weekly.

At the top of General Availability, you can select this dropdown and say Does Not Repeat, and then this schedule would only be applied to the specific dates, so you do have that option available.

Lastly, when it comes to this section, you may want to double check that it is in your correct time zone when it comes to scheduling these times. Now, below this section, we have some very important options available to us.

The first is the scheduling window, and by default, it is set to 60 days in advance to four hours before meaning that someone can book me out two months,

60 full days in advance, but they cannot book me any sooner than four hours from now. Now of course, if I select this dropdown, I can change these options. The first option we have available

is if this scheduling window, if the settings within this section are available immediately, or if you only want to apply them to a certain date range. If that is the case, you would select this radial button here, but down below, we can adjust our maximum time in advance.

So, maybe I don't want people to book me out 60 days in advance. Maybe 30 days in advance is good enough for me, and four hours is maybe too soon. I may not check my email that frequently, so therefore, I want to make sure that I have enough time to prepare for the call.

So, I'm going to say the earliest they can book is eight hours from selecting my schedule. Now, you'll notice that you can actually turn off either of these options, but I would caution you ever to do so.

By unchecking this first option here, they could essentially book you any time into the future, yes, even six or seven years from now, so I would recommend keeping this on, and if you unchecked this option,

this means they could book you literally minutes from now depending on your availability.

So, keep these two checkboxes checked, and then set the days and hours to your desire. When you're finished with the scheduling window, you can minimize this and you can still see what it is set at here.

Now, below the scheduling window, we have the adjusted availability, and this means if you'd like to make yourself available or not available on a specific date.

Adjusting Availability

By selecting Change a Date's Availability, we are presented with a small calendar, and let's say on September 20th, I know I'm not going to be available. So, here is my standard time, which is dictated by what we selected up above, but I'm going to come over here and select Unavailable All Day, and by selecting that option, you can see that everything has been removed from the 20th. T

he rest of my schedule will remain the same, but because I'm planning to take this day off, I don't want someone to book me on that date. But we can also add other additional dates as well. Let's say on that particular Monday I want to make up for lost time, so I'm going to create a one-off availability.

Here, I'm going to select Change a Date's Availability once again, and I'm going to select the 18th, and instead of saying unavailable, I'm going to hit the plus button, and I'm going to say I want to make myself available from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Now, this is only going to make me available for that particular day, and not on any other Monday, because up above, I've selected Unavailable.

Next, we have a section called Booked Appointment Settings, and this can be really helpful when it comes to making sure that you don't go over time or leave someone waiting. This gives us the ability to add some buffer time in between our appointments.

So, for example, how confident are you that you will be able to wrap up this meeting exactly by the top of the hour and not leave someone waiting who has booked you next? In this case, we can select a buffer time and adjust the minute duration, so visually, we can see the difference as well.

I can be booked from 2:00 to 3:00, but my next booking won't be available until 3:30. This gives me a little extra time if I need to prepare for that next meeting or if I feel that my meeting may run a little late.

We can also check the box down below, which is Maximum Bookings Per Day, meaning that you could make yourself available for an entire day,

but only limit yourself to perhaps two bookings at a time. For example, here you can see that I have four booking slots available on Tuesday the 19th but if I select the number two and have this checkbox selected, as soon as any two of these slots have been booked, the other two will no longer be available.

They will no longer be shown to those who have access to my booking page.

Next, we have the option to check which calendars will it check for availability, and this is where we are limited. By default, it is only going to check my primary calendar for any conflicts,

meaning if I create an event for this Tuesday morning, it will be blocked off and no one will be able to book me at that particular time. However, if I am using multiple Google calendars, it will not be checking any of those additional calendars.

If I want that functionality, I would need to upgrade to Google One Premium in order to add additional calendars.

Lastly, if we want to change the color, we can do so, and maybe I want these to stand out, so I'm going to choose this yellowish color so I can see that it differentiates from everything else on my calendar.

Adding Details

When we're happy with these settings, we can select the Next button, and now we are presented with options that both the user will either need to fill out or details that we will include in the event itself.

So, number one, we still have the option to change the title of this booking if we like. Down below, we have the booking page photo and name. Now, your booking calendar will show both the image and your name as listed within your Google account.

You don't have the ability to change this otherwise, so if you'd like to change either of these, you'll need to go into your Google account to adjust or edit your photo and name.

Down below is the location and conference information. So, for example, is it going to be a Google Meet video? If you select this option, it will automatically create a Meet link after the booking, but you can also choose an in-person meeting.

Here, you would be required to add a location, such as an address or if you're wanting someone to meet you at your office. Our third option is a phone call, where, no, you don't have to include your number, but those who are booking will be required to provide their phone number.

And then lastly, we can select None or To Be Specified Later.

This would be your best choice if you are using a video conferencing software outside of Google Meet. So, for example, if you are using Zoom, here in the description is where you would add that Zoom link,

or any other information that you like, and of course, we have some basic formatting available to us here as well, but here, you can include other details that perhaps they need to prepare for or what they can expect from the meeting.

Next, we have a booking form in terms of what is the required information that someone will need to fill in.

Now, the first three options will always be required, first name, last name, and email address, but the phone number, although included here by default, does not have to be included. So, for example, I'm going to remove it, and instead, I'm going to come down here and add an item.

Now, we are still given a phone number dropdown as an option. I'm going to come here and select Custom Item, and I'm going to say website address.

Maybe I'm looking to help people with their websites or providing them with some SEO consultation, so that's what I would like them to fill in as a part of the form.

I don't have to make it required, but if I want to, I can select this checkbox and say Add Item, and here, we can see it is listed beside the other required fields. You can add as many additional items as you like, some required and some not, depending on your needs.

And lastly is the booking confirmations and reminders, where once again, we are limited if you are simply using a free Google account. If you would like to customize your reminders and calendar invitations,

you will need to upgrade to the Google One Premium plan, but by default, those who book with you will get a confirmation email with a calendar invitation. Once we're fine with this page, we can hit Save,

Sharing Your Schedule

and now our bookable appointment schedule has been created. Now, it's all right if we close off from this menu, because anytime that we select any one of our available booking slots, that same menu will be available to us.

Now, the first thing that we're going to want to check is to open our booking page. By selecting this option in a new tab, it will show us our booking screen.

Now, because we are logged into our own account, we're viewing it as ourselves, so you may want to select this option, and here, we see a very similar view, but you can see exactly what others will see.

So, we can see that my first available date isn't till next Tuesday, so they could go ahead and select one of these timeslots, or they could use the mini calendar and go to a future week, and say maybe they want to select the 3:00 p.m. timeslot. And after selecting a specific time, they are asked to include their first, last, and email address,

and as I had asked, to also include their website address. If they select Book, anything that is a required field will prompt them at this time, but once all required fields are satisfied, they can select Book and their booking has been confirmed.

And if we return to our Google Calendar, here, you can see that I have been booked for 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday the 19th. So, what are some of the ways in which we can share our booking calendar with others? Well, as long as we select any of our available booking slots, here, you can see that there is a share button.

By selecting this option, we are presented with a few different ways in which we can share.

The first and perhaps the easiest is just to share the link itself.

So, we can copy this link and include it in an email, or we could post it somewhere within our website, but we also have the opportunity to embed our booking page as well.

The first option here is to create a button with a popup, and this can make it look very, very sleek. So, for example, by expanding this option, we can change the button text. So, instead of "Book an appointment," maybe I'm going to change this to "Book Scott Now. Something along those lines.

And maybe I use a green color on most of my website, so I can change the color, and if I want to, I can add a custom color as well. Now, all I need to do

is copy and paste this HTML code here down below. I can select Copy Code and paste it where I need to, either on my website or any application that will accept HTML code, and if you want to test it out yourself, you can do so from this dialogue.

So, if I select Book Scott Now, this is exactly what people will be presented with.

My website will still remain in the background, but they can come here and use the booking screen. The second option we have here is if we want to embed it directly into a website. So, no popup. Just on the screen itself. By expanding this option,

again, we are given that embed code. We can select copy that code, and then paste it where we need it to be. Lastly, what if we want to delete our schedule or just certain components? Well, once again, we are going to open up our booking appointment schedule, and in this case, we are going to select the Delete Appointment Schedule.

Now don't worry, it's not going to delete everything. It's going to give us a few options. By selecting the trash can, we are presented with three different options.

The first one is this week only, meaning it is only going this particular timeframe, Tuesday, September 19th, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. If I go ahead and select OK, you can see that this Tuesday has been removed, but if I go back or forward, those Tuesdays will remain.

If I click on this again and select the trash can, the second option is all weeks,

meaning if I select this, every Tuesday from 9:00 to 11:00 will be deleted. Last but not least, if I want to remove my entire appointment schedule, I would choose the third option here, but don't worry, anyone that has booked with you up until this point,

nothing will change with their appointment. It will not be deleted or removed. Any existing appointments will remain. So, now that you know how to create your own bookable appointment schedule, I'd love to hear from you next.

What questions do you have about this new feature, and what would you like to see next? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

Benefits of using a dashboard

- [Instructor] Trello doesn't make it easy for us to get a high-level picture of everything that is going on within our Trello accounts. But what if you could create a customized dashboard, like the one you see here, where you can show the key information that you want across all of your boards.

And best of all, you can dive down into it and get access directly to each and every individual card. Well, it only took me about 10 minutes to create this dashboard, and I think you can do so as well.

So let me show you how. (high-pitched hiss) This video is sponsored by Crumble. If you want to use your Trello board as a CRM system, don't, unless you use Crumble.

Crumble allows you to manage your entire sales pipeline by turning your Trello board into a powerful yet easy-to-use CRM. You can store all of your contact details and history in Trello cards and get more advanced reporting and details on how things are performing with your sales and all of your clients.

Not sure if Crumble CRM is right for you? You can get started with a 21-day free trial at crumble.com, or click the link in the description down below. Creating a helpful dashboard within Trello, which gives you the information that you're looking for, is a lot easier than you think.

And in fact, anyone can create a dashboard just like the one you see here without spending any additional money. Yes, we are using a Trello Power-Up, but it is completely free. In fact, the Power-Up is designed by Trello themselves.

So just before I show you how to create this dashboard, let's show you the example and how powerful creating something like this can be. Here you can see at the top, I have four different lists:

Projects, Assigned to Me, Team Tasks and Overdue. And what is so important here is that all of the information that is being displayed is coming from across multiple boards, not just a single board, not just one or two.

No matter how large your Trello workspace is, you can bring in information from everywhere.

So starting with my projects, you can see I have some key numbers showing me all of the tasks which are due on these three boards No longer do I need to be jumping back and forth between my browser tabs or coming up here and finding the board I want to look at.

I can see at a glance what is due right now. And if I click on one of these cards, I can dive down deeper into what those tasks actually are.

And, yes, I can click on these and go directly to that card. In my second list, I want to get a high-level view of all of the tasks that are assigned to me across all of my Trello boards.

And right now it's about 14. But better than just having that number, once again, I can click on this card and go directly to any of those tasks. It'll even show me the due date here within the card itself. Next, I have a list called Team Tasks which can be fantastic if you are either managing other members of your team or just want to see what do they have on their plate right now.

Here I can see that both Jessica and Tiffany have three team tasks assigned, while Sam has two. And just like the other cards that I've shown you,

you can dive deep into what those are. Last but not least, I've created a list called Overdue.

I want to know exactly how many cards are currently overdue across all of our boards.

And so this can be a great starting place that I begin in my morning or maybe at the end of the day, gives me a great high-level view of everything that's going on, and I can dive in deeper whenever I want to.

Adding the Dashcards power-up

So in order to build your own dashboard, like what you see here, we are going to make use of a free Power-Up called Dashcards.

If you come up here to the Power-Up icon and then select Add Power-Ups here, within the Power-Up search bar, I'm just going to type in the word dash, and you'll see a number of other tools which also provide dashboard capability, but we want this one here called Dashcards.

Now, once you've installed this Power-Up, it's actually going to be listed as Track in your browser.

I think they've chosen that just so it's a smaller word than Dashcards. But here with the dashboards Power-Up installed, we can select this option and start to add any type of Dashcard that we like. Now, when you first select the Dashcards Power-Up, you'll be presented with this menu.

And it will give us a number of templates, a number of defaults, which we can get started with right away.

Now we can either select the Track option which will add it directly to our board, or we can select Customize, which means we can edit those particular settings.

Of course, in the lower right-hand corner, you can start with a fresh Dashcard without any filters assigned. But for this first example let's start with one of the defaults.

So perhaps I'm going to select this one, Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. All I need to do is select Track, and it will input it in the top left of my board. If I close this dialog, here you can see this 14 Assigned to me on all Workspace boards.

And just like any other Trello card, I can move it wherever I want to. I can put it in any list,

and I can sort it in any way that I like. But let's keep it up here just for our example.

Now, if I go and click on this card, here with inside the Trello card, you can see under the description area, here is where we have all of the Dashcard information.

So regardless of how many cards matches this criteria, it will show a maximum of 10 right here.

Editing your Dashcards

And yes, we can click on them and go directly to that card. But at the end of that list,

if we want to see everything, here we can see we have 14, or if we want to edit this Dashcard, we can select the Explore and edit button. This will bring up the full view of the Dashcard where we can see everything that is contained, and we can work within this mode as well.

So for example, if I want to sort it by the create date, I can do so very easily here. If I want to sort it by the due date, I can do so as well. So this can be a very powerful way to sort and filter and view everything that is related to this criteria.

But let's go in and edit this particular Dashcard, because you are going to have some specific needs and some specific numbers that you want to keep track of. Here if I select on Edit filters, it will show me what is currently applied:

Assigned, Includes any of, and here is my username. But let's go one step further and add some more filters because I already have a Dashcard that is showing me all of the things that I'm assigned to across my Workspace boards.

So if I select More filters, here you can see I have a full list of all the criteria I can use, including any of my Trello custom fields. Yes, if you've created custom fields you can create a Dashcard based on that criteria as well. But let's keep things fairly simple in this example.

Maybe I want to see all of the cards that I'm assigned but also have a specific label. So I'm going to select Labels in this case.

I'm going to come down to this dropdown, and I'm going to say Includes any of and then it's going to give me an additional dropdown.

Now, this dropdown may be quite large depending on how many different Trello boards you have. Because remember, it's going to bring in every single label across all of your boards. Maybe I only want to see the things that are assigned to me and have the label New project.

So I'm going to select that checkbox there. I could of course select as many additional labels if I want to, but in this example, I'm just going to select this single one. When I'm happy with that, I can hit Save.

And you'll notice that down below, but also the number up above will change dynamically. So now this Dashcard is ready to go. If I come back to my Trello board, here Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. But wait, that title isn't exactly accurate anymore, is it?

No, so in order to change the title you'll just go into the title of the card itself, just like you would with any other regular Trello board, and change it to your needs. I'm going to say Assign to me, and then maybe in parentheses I'll say New project, just so I know that that is what it's showing to me.

But wait, maybe I want to change the look of this card as well.

Well, if we click on this and, again, come down to Explore and edit, here in the top right-hand corner, we can change the tile background. Now I can do one of two things. I can either choose from one of the standard colors that they have here, or I can search for a stock free photo.

So in this case, it's a new project. What if I type in the word new? What does that come up with here? Hmm, maybe something like this, the open road. I'm going to choose that. All I need to do is now close that Dashcard.

And when I'm returned to my Trello board, I have the new background image.

So if you want things to be distinct, maybe from my team members here, which I've chosen to use just a solid color, versus a more dynamic or maybe a more visually pleasing background color, you can do so here as well.

So if you want a better way to view all of your Trello information across all of your boards or just some specific boards, be sure to build your very own dashboard by using Dashcards.

And if you have any questions on how to build or maintain such a dashboard, be sure to let me know in the comments down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

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

- [Scott] Are you looking for an easy way to start selling online? Do you want something that's simple to use for you and your customers? And how about free?

Do you like the idea of using a trusted free tool so you can keep more of your profits?

 Well in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up your online store so you can start making money today. (air whooshing Get Started To get started, we want to go to jotform.com and we're going to come over here to products and select Store Builder.

Now, Jotform is the leader in online forms and that's important, because when it comes to creating a store, you want to make sure that you have all the right information and that you can trust the system that you're using not only for collecting payments but for getting all of those orders right. And the best thing of all,

about Jotform store builder is that it's absolutely free.

So let's get going and say Get Started. We are going to be brought to this screen where we have two options. We can either start from scratch, this is going to take you a little more times because you'll be starting from a blank space, or we can start with a template.

And I would typically recommend this option. Not only are there over 300 templates for us to choose from but remember, whatever you start with here you can customize for your own needs.

It doesn't mean that just because this is a ticket selling template that I have to be selling tickets, I can use it for anything I want, whether I'm selling a product or whether I'm selling a service Keywords And instead of just browsing up and down you can also type in some key words.

So let's say that I am wanting to create a store for my massage therapy clinic. Well, if I just type in the words massage, I've got some three great examples right here. And you can also see on the left hand side that we have all these other categories that we can browse as well.

Now, one of the great things about these templates is that if I click on the preview button here, it's going to give me a full preview of this store, not just a screenshot,

it's actually something that I can browse up and down. So if I click on Schedule your Booking, it's going to bring me to this page, I can see what it's going to look and feel like.

Hmm, that's not exactly what I'm looking for, let me try this one out here. And yes, we can even try this preview out between our phone, tablet, and desktop views, so you can be confident in terms of the layout and what this will look and feel like.

Here, if I select book session, here I can say Add cart. Yeah, I like what this is looking like,

I like the workflow, I like how smooth this is. So I'm going to select use template at this stage. Store Builder And in just a few seconds, we are brought to the Store Builder editing page where we can customize every single element that we see.

Now, the first thing you may notice is that there is a difference between the home screen the first place that users will see, and our listings of the different services that we will offer.

You can create your store just like you would any other webpage. And down below you can see that distinction as well, between the homepage and then the area where they will be able to book a session.

Of course, you can change this. Maybe you only want to show the cart available items and you can do so as well. But now it's time to customize the look and feel and almost everything is clickable and ready for us to change.

Customization So obviously this is not the name of my massage therapy clinic, so I'm going to click on it and I can easily change the name of the title.

I can also, of course, come up here and add my own logo and change these style as well. So if I have a custom background color that I want to use, or a specific background image I can change anything that I want on this page.

Paint Roller But I can also click on this paint roller icon and change any of the colors and themes for my entire store. So maybe I want a brighter color, hmm, maybe that's a little too bright. Let's try this pink. Hmm, I maybe prefer this darker purple.

I can even of course add my own colors if I have custom branding that I want to apply. And remember, none of this requires any code at all. On the left hand side of the screen we can add further elements.

So if we want to add our own images or additional buttons we can do so here on the left hand side, so you truly have the ability to add anything that you want Edit Offerings as a part of your store.

Next, let's make sure that we go and edit some of these offerings. So if I double click on this item here I can bring up the edit screen and maybe I don't offer a hot stone massage, maybe I offer a cold stone massage. I know, that's not really a thing, I don't think. Let me know in the comments

if you've had a cold stone massage and maybe my pricing for this is only 9.95 so I can come here and change my pricing, change my descriptions, all at the click of a button. If needed, we can also come up here to the options tab and add a quantity selector.

Now, in my example here, since I'm providing a service, I am not going to be offering more than one at a time. But if you are selling a product, this makes a lot of sense allowing people to have multiple items.

But perhaps the most important thing to pay attention to when it comes to selling online is making sure that you get paid. And Jotform Store Builder makes that very easy as well.

Get Paid Here you can see this little payment card called Store Properties, and if I click on this, it's going to give us the ability to integrate with a number of payment processors.

Now I'm just going to delete this Stripe option here so I can show you all of the different payment gateways that are available. Whether you use Square, PayPal, Stripe, Venmo or almost anything else, you can make sure that you get paid and you get paid today.

So whichever payment option you would like, let's just select Square in this example

and it will walk you through how you can connect it to your payment provider. Now, once we're happy with how our store looks let's come up to the top and select settings. Now, there's a few different options that we want to pay attention here.

Number one, is this store going to be open? You can choose if it's enabled or disabled, or if you're wanting to run a very special sale or a special promotion,

you can choose to disable it on a specific date. But where we really want to pay attention is to the app, name and icon. Within this menu, we have the option

of giving it a specific name for those users who choose to add it to their home screen. Yes, the bonus of using the Jotform Store Builder is that they have the ability to add this directly to their phone or mobile device.

So in this example, I'm just going to call it something simple like book massage, because maybe I want them thinking more about booking the massage than necessarily my name. And then I can come over here and edit the icon to whatever I like.

Now I can come over here and upload my own image, such as my own logo, which would probably make the most sense

but I can also come over here and choose an icon. So I'm going to type in the word relax and see what comes up. And although this is really for meditation I think that works well with book massage.

In fact, it almost looks like someone is on a massage table. So, I'm going to use that for my icon in this case.

Lastly, we want to come over here to the publish button so we can look at the various ways in which we can connect our store to our website or simply share it directly with our customers.

So number one, here is your direct link. So you can copy this link and put it or share it anywhere that you like. You can also generate your own unique QR code.

So if you'd like to share this on existing materials or maybe you do have a brick and mortar store, you can add this QR code there as well. Lastly, on the left hand side, we can choose the embed option. So if you don't want to send them to a separate page

you can choose to embed your store within your existing website. So if you want to create your own online store in a matter of minutes, do it for free and get paid today.

Be sure to check out Jotform Store Builder. To get started, go to jotform.com or click the link in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

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

- [Scott] Sharing your work with your clients is never easy. Spreadsheets are often confusing,

slideshows take way too long to create and giving clients access to your project management tool is a recipe for disaster. But what if you could share a single page that tells the whole story,

looks amazing on any device, and doesn't require your clients to create an account? In this video, I'm going to show you how to do all of this for free. Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And what we are looking at here may look like a webpage. It may look like I quickly designed a simple webpage to share

with my client, but it's not a webpage at all. In fact, this is a part of a tool I'm using that not only can I share with others, but I can actually use it to manage my work and manage the research,

manage the concept, and manage the execution all at the same time. So what am I using and how am I doing this for free? Well, I'm using an application called Walling. Walling has been described in a number of different ways.

I've heard some people describe Walling as Google Keep on steroids. I've heard others say that Walling is what they'd hoped Notion would be, that it's a much more intuitive and much easier to use tool than Notion.

But no matter how you describe Walling, it is an incredibly intuitive system where you can add images, you can add text, you can share, you can collaborate, you can manage databases. Almost anything that you would like, but in a much more user friendly interface.

So let me give you a quick tour of the example that we are in. I'm pretending to be a chair designer and I'm designing a new chair for a client. Here's the title, New Chair Design.

But down below, not only have I outlined things in terms of the brief and what we are going to measure our success on but everything here is easily drag and drop. So for example, maybe I want this image on the left hand side.

I can simply drag the text over here. And if I want these goals to stand out a bit more, I'm going to give it this sort of light blue shade in the background So in just a matter of seconds, I can really customize the look and feel of what the information is here on the page.

But unlike a PowerPoint presentation or a standalone webpage, we're not limited to just images. For example, here I have a section called Budget because I want to keep my client informed as to where we are within this project.

And I've even got an approved checkbox here on the right hand side. So as we go through, I can check things off letting them know where we are at with this particular budget. And yes, even simple calculations can be performed right here from within this wall.

Further down below, I have an entire Kanban board. So if I want to manage all of my tasks

or manage all of my deliverables just like I would within other tool such as Trello, Asana, or Monday.com I can do so down below here as well. But perhaps one of the best features of Walling is that I don't have to share every single section or every single component with my client. Maybe this Kanban list at the very bottom is something that I do not want to share

with my end client. So how do we go about and share this with just a single link? Here at the top of the screen, you can see that we are in editing mode, which is going to be the default mode when you log into Walling.

But we can toggle this into publish mode over here. Immediately, we are given a unique link which we can share either by selecting this copy link code or we can also create our own QR code.

But over here to the right, we get to choose which sections we would like to share. Now, by default, it is going to be set to all sections but if I click on this dropdown, I can come down here and say, you know, I don't really want to share the tasks

and maybe I don't want to share the budget either. I'm going to uncheck those two sections.

Now when I hit that copy link, I can now proceed to share that link with my client and they will view the following page. Now, it looks very similar to what we saw earlier.

But if I scroll down, you'll see that that budget information is not displayed and that task information is not displayed either. So I can share exactly the components that I want to with my client and keep hidden the specific details or specific tasks within my wall.

The other thing that I really like about this view is that it makes it very easy for the client to browse through the different sections. So if they want to jump down to the design section, they've got this easy menu here on the left hand side that's really going to impress your clients rather than giving them some static PDF document, or slideshow or long spreadsheet, which is going to be confusing to look at.

And as mentioned before, don't even think about sharing your project management tool. That's going to require them to create an account to log in and then learn how to use that tool as well. Now, jumping back to our Walling account, let's take a look at another example. In this case, I'm working

on a project called Employee Engagement and Productivity, and my intent is to share my work to share a lot of the things that you see on the screen here. But I am going to keep other components hidden as well.

Unlike other tools that we might consider to share our work, Walling makes it super easy for us to add information. So for example, maybe I want to share this mock-up with my client. I'm just going to drag it over. It appears here, and maybe I want to share this video.

Immediately, they are brought into this particular section. Best of all, when I go to publish this and share it with my client, they can access it in full screen mode. No longer do they have to fumble around with email attachments or small previews.

Here, if they want to look at this image in full screen, they can do so right here. They even have other options such as seeing the entire color palette or if I want to give them the ability to add comments.

Here, this video, they're not going to be sent somewhere else. They can start to play this video directly

from within their wall. To learn more and to get started with Walling absolutely for free, go to Walling.app or click the link in the description down below. And if you have further questions,

be sure to let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Intro

- [Scott] Creating labels within Google Contacts can be very helpful, but did you know there's an alternative way to create email groups, which gives you a lot more flexibility?

In this video, I'm going to show you how to use Google Groups, so you can contact many people with just a single email address. (machine screeches) This video is sponsored by SaneBox, the email inbox lifesaver.

With AI technology, SaneBox prioritizes essential messages, saving you hours of time each week, and by learning from your behavior, SaneBox will clean up your inbox, get rid of spam, and organize your emails into relevant folders. Best of all, SaneBox works with any email provider.

To get started, click the link in the description to get your free 14-day trial.

Contact Labels

Within Google Contacts, we have the ability to create labels, which is really another way of saying we can create groups. So, for example here, I have a label called "Client Team," where I have a collection of six different individuals.

Now, not only can I organize them here within Google Contacts, but what is most helpful is that I can then use that label within my Gmail account. So, if I start to type in "client," as in client team, there is my group.

I can select that, and now, all six email addresses have been input into my to field, and I can go ahead and send this email. But there are a couple of problems when it comes to using labels.

Problems with Labels

Number one, it's going to be much harder for me to determine, did I send this to the team, or did I just individually add these email addresses? I won't be able to filter by client team here within my Gmail account.

And number two, you may notice that if you try to access your labels within the Gmail mobile app, most often, it will not be displayed, meaning that you will not be able to access these labels from your mobile device.

But what if instead, you could create a custom email address like the one you see here, and have as many people within that group? Not only do you not have to share that information with others, but more importantly, you can now filter, and you can do special things with this new email address, which will contain other members.

So, let me show you how to set this up. To make this happen, I am using a free service called Google Groups, and to access your Google Groups account, all you need to do is go to groups.google.com,

Google Groups Interface

and you'll see an interface like what you see here. Now, in my example, I just have the one group here. You can see I have that custom email address. If I click on this group,

I can see the members of this group.

Here, you can see I have those three different members, including myself here, and this gives me a lot more flexibility in not only managing this group, but as I mentioned before, I can now have a single email address to manage, which gives me a lot more flexibility within my Gmail account when it comes to labels, when it comes to filters, when it comes to managing this group as a whole.

Create a New Group

So, let's go ahead and create a new group. In the top left-hand corner, you can see that there is this Create Group button. I'm going to select that, and we'll be prompted with a new dialogue box. Now, you can call your group anything that you want.

I'm going to call this my test group in this example. But where we need to pay special attention is the group email, because this must be a unique email address. Remember, the domain at the end will always be googlegroups.com.

That means the front end must be unique. Now, I'm going to assume that test-group is already taken.

If I attempt to say Next, oh, this is already taken.

So, let me try something a little more unique. I'm going to call this orthoplessimeter. Let's see if simpletestgroup is taken in this case, and I'm going to say Next. Mm, that's taken as well. Maybe I'll add a number at the end just to make it that much more unique.

Who Can Access

Keep in mind, this unique email address is not something that you're going to be sharing publicly, so it's all right if it has a few numbers or if it's not the easiest to read.

The important thing is that it is unique. Now, in the second step, we have a number of options here, in terms of who can access or who can be a member. So, who can search for this group?

Well, I would recommend that you leave it at group members only. Otherwise, you can make it available to anyone on the web, but that would be if you are wanting to create some type of mailing list.

So, I'm going to keep this at group members. Next, who can join the group? Well, I'm going to say only invited members, but you do have the options to allow people to request to join, or anyone can join. Again, these options would be if you are creating some type of mailing list,

so I'm going to keep it at only invited users. And then, down below, we have three other important options to consider. Who can view conversations, who can post,

and who can view members. Now, these first two options are referring to the ability to see these conversations within Google Groups. I would recommend you keep these at the group member level.

But in terms of who can view the members, you may want to adjust this to group managers or group owners. This is especially important if you do not want to share others' email addresses with others when you're sending out to these particular groups.

Adding Members

I'm going to hit Next, and last but not least, we have the opportunity to start adding our members. Now, of course, we can always add our members, but I'm going to come down here and select Directly Add Members.

I don't want to send out a bunch of invitations. Again, this might be appropriate if you're wanting to create a mailing list, but I'm going to say Directly Add Members. And here, I can simply copy and paste

the members I would like to add to my group. So, let me add a few sample email addresses here. Let's say this one here. We're going to add those two email addresses.

I can distinguish if they're going to be a member, or if I want to give them other abilities, such as being a manager or a group owner. I don't have to include a welcome message. And lastly, we want to take a look at the subscription level.

Now, each email is what we are going to keep for our purposes, but it does give us a few other options. Again, these are more in line if you are using this as a mailing list.

We're going to keep that at the default of each email, and I'm going to say Create Group. It's going to ask me for my CAPTCHA. No, I am not a robot. And in just a matter of seconds, we are now brought back to the My Groups section, and here, we can see we have our test group created with our unique email address.

Starting a Conversation

Now, if I click on this test group, the first area it's going to bring me to is to Conversations, because I can start to have a conversation right here within Google Groups.

I don't actually need to go to my Gmail account to start conversing and start sending a message. If I click this Start a Conversation link, it will prompt me with a dialogue box, which looks very, very similar to a Gmail account. I can start to add a subject and add my message down below. But I'm going to cancel this for now,

and I want to come over here to the People section. Here, you can see our full list of all of the contacts,all of the email addresses included in this group. I can see when they joined, I can change their permissions.

I've got a lot more flexibility here, and of course, I can add new members whenever I like. But the last thing that we want to stop at is the About section here. This is probably the easiest place we can go to.

Simply copy the email address itself, because this is what we want to start using

within our Gmail account, or you can really use it within any email account, and start sending messages out to this group.

Sending a Message

Now, jumping back to our Gmail account, here, you can see that we have been notified that our group, Test Group, has been created and ready to use, so it will give us a notification.

But now, if I go to compose a new message, all I'm going to do is paste in that single email address here. Remember, it's going to contain these different members down below. If you hover over it, it'll show you which members are included, but there is only one email address here. It's not going to load my to line

with 27 or 38 different email addresses. And then, I will also not know if I sent them as a group, or if it's just part of the group. Here, I know that everyone within this group will be sent this message. In this example, I'll just ask if we can meet later this week,

and to send me a quick reply to confirm. So, a single email address, a fairly simple message, and I'm going to hit Send Now, let's see what it looks like for people who receive that email.

So, here I am within one of my recipient's account, and the first thing you may notice

is that people who have been added to your group will be notified.

Here, you can see the first message they received is, "You have been added to Test Group." So, you may want to reserve this Google Groups functionality for people that you know well, since they will be notified that they've been added to that group. But up above, here, you can see they've received your message from your email account, and if we open up this email, we can see that they do not have access to the other email addresses.

They can see that it was sent to this group email, which they are a part of, but the messaging, the formatting, everything else is the same. The other thing to note is that there is some additional information at the very bottom of the email.

This is below your signature line. Things such as, "You received this message because you are subscribed to this Google group." They will also have the opportunity to unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails in the future.

This type of language, of course, is more common when we are receiving newsletters or marketing information, but the Google Groups functionality

is based on allowing people the opportunity to leave if they choose to. So, some of these things to keep in mind when you're creating your Google groups, or when to see when it is most appropriate to use this functionality. Lastly, if they hit Reply,

their reply will go to you because you are the sender, but if they hit Reply All, you will see that they still do not have access to the other email addresses in this group.

Everyone else within this group will still receive this message, so they can safely reply all and continue a group thread, but they too only have to manage a single email address, rather than replying all, or maybe being hesitant to reply all if they see that there are seven or more people within this particular group.

Last but not least, keep in mind, as we return to the Google Groups interface, you can manage and see all of your group conversations here within Google Groups. Here is the message that I just sent out.

I can click on this, and I can continue to respond. Either Reply All, Reply to Author, or Forward. But you don't ever have to come back in here unless you want to manage the people within this group, because otherwise, all you need to know is to use this unique email address, and you have your own custom and very flexible group.

Now, if you're wanting to learn even more ways to simplify your software and get more done, join me at simpletivity.com, where you can access my free guides

and additional software tutorials. Thank you so much for watching, and remember,

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

- [Scott] Trello does not make it easy for us to export the information within our boards. I could come up here to menu. I could select export as a CSV file but when I open up this file, is this really helpful? I mean, I guess this is my entire board but I don't know what to do with this.

Well, what if you could not only export your Trello board into a spreadsheet, but also have it sync both ways? Well, in this video I'm going to show you how to set up this type of sync and also why you should consider adding this as a part of your workflow.

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

First things first, why would you want to set up a two-way sync between your Trello board and a spreadsheet? Well, depending on the way that you or members of your team work, you may just be more comfortable viewing this information within a spreadsheet.

And of course, it's especially helpful if you want to apply some formulas or other data when it comes to the information here within your Trello board.

But perhaps the most helpful reason for setting up this two-way sync is to be able to share certain pieces information with others without having to add them to your Trello board.

As a Trello user, you recognize that anyone that you add to your board has access to every single card. You can't limit a particular list or a particular card by criteria. But by setting up such a sync, I can share this information with anyone that I want.

They are up to date with what's going on within that Trello board. And in addition, they can come in here and change cards themselves if they want to change a due date or change a time estimate or change really any other field that I include here, and it will automatically be synced back to my Trello board.

So what is going on and how can you set this up for your needs? Well, to make this happen, we are using a power up from Unito. To add this Unito power up, all you need to do is select power ups, go to add power ups and search for sheets as in Google Sheets.

And the very first result here is Google Sheets plus Trello. Two way sync. Once you've installed this power up, you will see the Unito sync option here amongst your other power ups.

Now by selecting this option, you can open up the Unito sync menu without having to leave your Trello board. But once you've set up your unido account, I would recommend that you access this screen from a separate tab.

You can log in directly from Unito and have access to the exact same screen. I find this is a little more convenient so I can toggle back and forth between these tabs. Let me close that menu here.

And so here I can adjust and use my settings and here I can see what is going on within my Trello board. Now, Unito is a leader in connecting productivity and project management tools together.

When I select on connect a new tool here you can see the full list of all of the tools in which you can connect together. So whether it's from a project management tool to a CRM or syncing your calendar to other database tools you can do all of it here within Unito, but in our example we're going to keep it between our Trello board and within a Google sheet.

So here is the sync that I have set up. Here is the example board cards and I have set up a two-way sync with my sheet. Now if I click on this, we can go under the hood and see exactly what is going on.

So here, if I select edit tools, you can see that I can choose any of the boards that I want on the left hand side and on the right hand side I can choose which ones I want to sync to. Next up, we can choose if we want to sync in just one direction or in both directions. So there may be a use case where you just want to

feed your spreadsheets certain information but in this example, I find it's most helpful

if we have information going back and forth. So no matter where you update that card whether it's within Trello or within your spreadsheet everything will stay up to date. Now the third step that we need to select are the rules created.

And what this means is which cards are going to be synced which ones are going to be sent to our Google spreadsheet. So here we have a combination of if and and commands.

So if a card in this board is open, meaning it's not archived and the member is myself, we want to then create a matching row in Google Sheets. So this is very important.

I can add as many rules as I like. This is exactly where we can filter out certain cards and I can only share certain cards with others. If I want, I can select to add a new rule, and I can say and the label is, let's say, medium priority.

So I can add and layer on as many rules as I want so that the things that appear within my sheet are only a fraction of what is going on in the board. And then down below we have a rule for the other direction meaning that if a row in Google sheet, and I haven't added any rules here, we want to create a matching card in Trello and keep them in sync.

And if I'm creating brand new cards from the Google sheet side, I want them to appear in my ideas list. This is a list which is located within my Trello board. So with these rules set up, I have the freedom to create and also edit that information wherever I am.

Lastly, and perhaps the most important step is mapping our fields together. So let's select this icon. In this example, I have mapped six out of a total of 23 fields, meaning there are 23 total fields within Trello in which I could map to my Google sheet but I've only decided to map six.

Remember that first example, that huge dump of CS information? That's not useful to anyone here. You can choose exactly what you want

and only what you want on the Google Sheets side. So down below here, you can see everything from the title, description, label, due date. The link to card is just one way, and this is referring to the link directly to that Trello card. So it only makes sense

that it's going to be displayed on the Google Sheets side. And then here is my estimated time in minutes. And yes, this sync works with all of your custom fields

so you can include all of that quantitative data and have it match over on the same side. And if I need to go ahead and add any new mapping, I can just come up here and select the add mapping button.

It will give me two new dropdowns so I can select which in my Trello side will be mapped to that on the sheet side. Now the only other thing that we need in order to make this work is to add two special columns here on the Google Sheets side. And Unito has made it super easy for us to do so.

Here you can see my first column is Unito id and my last column is called Last Modified. Now, no, I didn't have to add these manually here Within my Google Sheets extension, I can select the Unito extension and select getting started. And with just a single click, it will insert those two columns in this sheet or any other sheet where

you want this synced to occur automatically. You must have the rest of your information in between these two. This is required, so Unito knows which rows to back to Trello. With our setup now complete, let's take a look at a few real world examples.

So first, to make sure that our sync is working let's take a look at how many items we have here. You can see that the last row is row number 13. I want to see if we can populate this next row by adding a new card on Trello.

So here within my Trello account, I'm going to come up here to the task list. I'm going to add a new card, and this is a new task created in Trello.  So I'm going to hit enter. And at this case, nothing is going to sync over until I am assigned to that card.

Remember, we told Unito that we only want to have cards where I'm assigned to appear within our Google Sheets.

Now, when we jump back into our Google sheet here you can see on row number 14 is our new card complete with the title, the due date, and the label, which is assigned to it.

And remember, you'll always have access to that direct link at just a single click here in this link to card row. But let's see if our sync is working in both directions.

You can see that there is no description for this card and I have not given it a time estimate. So I'm going to give it a time estimate of 60. In this case, in the description, I'm going to say let's do this in August.

And then as a result of this description I'm going to come here to the due date and I'm going to choose the August 31st, 2023

as the new due date. Let's jump back to Trello and see if everything is working. Here at the bottom of my task list, we have that same card but now the due date is August 31st. And if I open it, here's the description and the estimated time is added as well.

So a perfect sync between my Trello board and the specific cards that I want to see within my spreadsheet. So if you want to export your Trello boards in a more meaningful way or share information without having to add someone to your boards,

Unito may be the best solution for you, to get started, simply add the power up to your boards or go to unito.io. And if you enjoyed this tutorial, you'll probably like the video which is being recommended to you right now.

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

Make your tasks repeat

- [Scott] Whether you're brand new to Google Tasks or you've been crossing things off for years, I can guarantee in this video, I'm going to show you something new because we're looking at seven must know tips and tricks that every Google Tasks user needs to know.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. Number one on our list has to do with using recurring tasks, probably one of the most powerful yet simple features of any task manager.

You probably have a number of tasks that you need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, or some other interval. And rather than clicking on that task

and updating the due date manually, it is so much easier if we make it a repeating or recurring task. So here I have something called "Send out a weekly newsletter", and if I come over here and select Repeat, I can choose how often I want to repeat this task.

Well, it is a weekly newsletter, so yes, I'm going to send it out once a week and maybe Tuesday is the day that I've set aside for it. I can change that here within my screen,

and if I want, I can give it a specific time. Now this can be very valuable because if I leave this alone, it will appear up here within my Google Calendar as an all day task,

but if I choose a specific time, it will place it here within the calendar itself. In this case, I'm going to say it ends never and I'm going to select OK.

And so, now, every Tuesday, and I can see if I go ahead here on my Google Calendar, it is always going to show up. Now, one important note, when it comes to repeating tasks within Google Tasks, is that we can always come here and change the repeating interval if we need to.

If I select on this, I can come in here and change whatever I like.

However, if I want to stop repeating this task, I will not be able to add a repeat in the future. You can see here, if I click this X, it's actually going to give me a warning, do I want to remove all future occurrences?

Yes, but I won't be able to make this task repeating again. So if I hit stop repeating, it will cross it out but I don't have the option to add it again.

Add sub-tasks to your tasks

Tip number two is all about creating subtasks for existing tasks. So here, for example, you can see I have a task called "Write copy for my website homepage," and down below, I have two indented tasks.

These are subtasks which are related to this task above. And even if we change our view, in this case, I'm viewing all of my tasks in my preferred order. But if I come up here to the list options and select by date, it will mix it in depending on the due date of that task, but you can see if I come over and hover over the check mark, it will show me what other tasks will be completed at the same time.

So I can easily see what will be changed if I choose to select this one. So how can you add your own subtasks? Well, this task called "Review Q4 marketing report", I'm going to select it, and then here on the More Options, I'm going to select Add a Subtask. And here I can say this is going to be Task 1, if I hit Enter on my keyboard,

I can continue to add as many subtasks as I like, so I've added three subtasks in this case and some may have due dates, some may not, that's completely up to you.

Now in this view, by due date, you can see that the tasks are nested nice and cleanly,

they are indented below the master task. However, if you change your view to the date view, that will not necessarily be the case, here you can see we have Task 1 and Task 2 under the no date section, Task 3 is under Wednesday, June 28th, and then the master task itself is down here at July 12th. Now, once again, we could hover over

to see which tasks are related to this task. So as I hover over the master task, it's going to show me what else is related, but make note of the different ways in which subtasks are displayed, depending on which sort order you choose.

‍Using multiple task lists

Now speaking of grouping our tasks together, tip number three is all about using and adding new lists. Far too often, I see people use just the first My Tasks or default list

for all of the work that they want to accomplish. But remember, you have the option

to add as many additional lists as you like. In this case, maybe I want to create a list called Work so I can separate things from my personal life and my professional life.

So here, within this list, I can keep things separate and add things related to my work.

Moving tasks between lists

But that also leads us to tip number four, where we can move tasks in between our lists. So for example, here I am within my task list and I notice that this Email Tom

is actually a work-related activity. All I need to do is select the task options, and then I can choose down below which of my three lists I would like to put it in. I'm going to select Work, and now it will move over to my Work task.

And you can change things and move things back and forth as often as you like. This can also be a great way if you want to move things through different phases or stages.

Any of you who may be familiar with the Kanban method of working could set up multiple lists as you move things through different stages or different phases.

Converting email to a task

Now, of course, we can access Google Tasks from a variety of different Google products, including Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Gmail. And this last one makes it very easy for us to follow up on particular messages. Not only can we access our task list here on the right hand side, but if I open up this email

and determine that I need to follow up on this, rather than adding a note manually,

I can add a connection to this note in just a single click. Here at the top of the message, you will notice this Google Tasks icon, and if I hover over it, it tells me it will immediately add it to My Tasks.

So here on the right hand side, it will use the email subject line as the name of the task. Now, I don't need to keep it at that, maybe I want to rename this "Review RoboForm email", something along those lines.

And of course, I can add further details and add a due date. But what's most important is that you can see it has added a direct link down below. So whenever I need to go back to this email, I can do so in one click.

Let me go back to my inbox, and let's say I notice that I need to review this email. All I need to do is click on this special link and it will bring me back directly to this email. And I don't have to be within Gmail in order to do this.

Wherever I have access to Google Tasks, I can immediately open up that email in a single click.

Link tasks to Google Drive

Next, let's take a look at a special feature within Google Drive, which brings our task list together but also makes it that much easier for us to collaborate with others.

Here I am within a Google document and I have started to write out a few ideas here

but maybe I want to remind myself of what else I need to do with this document. I could start adding those tasks here within my task list but it might be more helpful

to add the list itself right here. So here within my document, I'm going to leave my cursor here at the bottom, and I'm going to come up here and add a checklist.

So here you might think that this is just a standard checklist, I'm going to say "Review the intro" for example, and maybe I'm going to add another task such as "Send to Karen for review".

But you'll note that there is a Google Tasks icon here to the left of each checkbox. If I select that here, I can assign it to someone else within my organization or I can select myself, and I can add a date at the same time if I want to, and select assign the task.

Now on the right hand side of the screen, within my standard tasks view, you can see that that task has been added to my task list. And down below, it has given me a direct link to that document as well.

Let's go ahead and assign the second task to myself as well, and I'm going to say assign. In just a second,it also will be added here to my task list. Now the great thing is, is that I can either check these off or access the document directly from my task list but either way, it will remain perfectly synced.

For example, if I've already reviewed the intro, I can check off this task here and you will notice that it has been completed here and removed from my task list.

Keep in mind you are not limited to just assigning tasks to yourself, and anyone else within your Google Workspace, you can assign them tasks directly from within Docs, Sheets, and Google Slides.

And if you want to separate out between your task list and what is only kept within the document, all you need to do is come up to Tools, and then select Tasks. This will give you a different viewshowing you only the completed or remaining tasks

Mobile widgets

for this specific document. Last but not least, let's end with a mobile tip for Tasks. Here within your mobile device, we have an option to add widgets for our tasks.

So if I click and hold on the Tasks icon, I can come up and select widgets. And Tasks gives us two very helpful options. Let's start with the one below called New Task.

Again, if we click and hold, we can put it anywhere on our home screen, and now we are just one click away from adding a new task. So when I have that new idea, I can select it and immediately start to enter in that new task.

But the second widget may be even more valuable to us and make sure that we don't let anything slip through the cracks. Here, if I select this three by three list, again, I can put it anywhere within my home screen

and we can change the size at any time. So if I want to drag these out to the right

so I can see a little more, I can do so. Now I can scroll and see all of my tasks, I can easily go through the different lists and I'm still just one click away from adding a new task from my home screen.

Checking things off and managing all of my tasks couldn't be easier with the Google Tasks widget.

Now, I would love to hear from you next, what questions do you have about Google Tasks or what are some of your favorite features? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below. And if you enjoyed this Simpletivity video, you're going to love this video next.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember, being productive doesn't need to be difficult,

in fact, it's very simple.

Why you need and SMS Marketing

Have you thought about adding text messaging marketing to your business? If not, here's something to think about. Emails have an open rate of 20%.

Text messages have an open rate of 98%, and on top of that, 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of receiving them.

So in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to get started with text messaging marketing and give you tips and tricks along the way. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you are wanting to engage

with your customers that much more directly and increase your sales, text messaging marketing might be the best solution for you. Whether you want to have a two-way conversation or if you want to communicate with thousands of people at once, text messaging may be the best solution for you.

Text messaging software is easier than you think

In this example, we are using a tool called SimpleTexting which, as the name suggests, keeps things nice and easy for those of us who may not be so technically inclined, but still want to take advantage of the most recent technology including SMS marketing.

So here within my SimpleTexting interface, you can see I can manage all of my conversations here on the left hand side. Here in the middle of the screen, you can see an example of a conversation that I'm in right now between a potential customer.

And then on the right hand side, I can easily view all of that contact's information and include additional details, including notes, birthday, and other vital details.

So here, from the comfort of my own desk, I can text an communicate directly back either with an individual customer or with customers on mass. "Yes, you can come in tomorrow and pick these up."

So I can send my text whenever I need to and keep a complete history of that conversation right here on my desktop. How to acquire your text messaging audience But before we go any further with the specific features, the very first question we need to answer is

"How do we start communicating with our contacts?' And this is very, very important when it comes to text messaging. You must receive consent, or in other words, you must ensure that the people that you're communicating with have opted to communicate with you via text messaging.

And for that, we're going to make use of a keyword. Now, you've probably texted a keyword before, or at the very least you've seen other businesses invite you to text a certain word to their number.

The reason for this is that this is the most common way to opt-in to a text messaging service. So let me show you how easy it is to set this up. In this case, I'm going to select a new keyword. And because my business is all about being simple, I'm going to choose that word "simple."

Anyone who text the word "simple" to this number above will be added to my list. Now I can either choose to add it to a new list or to an existing list, and in this case, I'm going to choose to add it to a new list called Subscribers.

So anyone who texts the word "simple" will be added to this list, and then I'll be able to send them campaigns or specific messages in the future. Now down below, here is going to be

the Auto confirmation message. So what do I want them to receive after they've texted this word to me? And an added benefit of using SimpleTexting is that yes,

they have AI built in. So if I don't want to write the message myself, I can always come up here to Generate message. And so I'm going to give the AI assistant the following prompt, "Thank them for joining the list and stay tuned for special offers."

I can next select Generate a message, and then down below in just a few seconds, it will generate several messages for me to choose from.

Now as I scroll through the selections here, I like this sound of exclusive, it makes people feel special, so I'm going to select that one and say Select message. And of course, I can always continue to edit it or add more details down below.

Remember, you can always add links to your messages. So if you want to direct them to a certain landing page on your website or to another resource, you can do that here as well. But I'm going to keep it rather simple in this particular message. Now, I'm not going to add any further details.

I'm going to select Save this keyword in this case, and here you can see it has been added to my list. Anyone who texts this word to this number will be added to my subscriber list. So let's go and test it out. I'm going to go back to my inbox here,

and on my phone, I'm going to text the word "simple" to this number. Here you can see what I texted, and instantly I received this message back, "Thanks for joining,

stay tuned for exclusive offers and more." And now when I come over here to my contacts, I can take a look at my Subscribers list, and look at that, we have one new subscriber, which would be me and my test account.

So that's how easy it is to both set up a keyword and invite people to join your list.

And don't forget, you can add as many keywords as you want and have them trigger new things, either trigger specific responses So maybe in this case, I have a keyword of "apply" or "jobs", and these are people who are seeking to apply for a position within my organization, something very different than maybe just a general marketing list Getting consent to send text messages Now, adding a keyword is not the only way to have people opt-in to your text messaging list. Another common method is to include it on a form.

So if you're already collecting phone numbers, you can include an opt-in checkbox so that they give you permission to text with them. But here, within SimpleTexting, you can also create your own web signup forms.

So for example, I've created a form called New Customer Form where I can include as many details as I want including first and last name, their email address, maybe I want to capture their birthday.

If I want to send them a special birthday message via text messaging, I can do it all here. I can then send them directly to my form where they can fill out the required information

and then select Subscribe now.And here you can see we have that policy built in

that by selecting this, they agree to receive promotional messages. Remember, in order to keep your number and more importantly your brand in good faith, make sure that you have some way for them to explicitly agree to receive SMS messages from you Creating SMS marketing campaigns But enough about consent, let's move on to one of the most powerful features when it comes to using text messaging marketing and that is creating your own campaigns.

This gives you the opportunity to communicate with thousands of your clients exactly when you want to and have them act on those requests in a matter of minutes. So here I have a number of campaigns set up already, including this 25% Off Sale. So I can see when it was sent,

I can see what the message was, but I can also keep track of that history in terms of how many people received it, I can also keep track of the link that was used and how many people actually clicked that link. But let's go ahead and create a new campaign from scratch.

All I need to do is select this New button here and let's give it a campaign name. I'm going to say "Buy 1 G One", that's going to be the name of the campaign. This is just for my own reference here.

Once again, we can use AI to assist us, but in this case, I'm going to put in my own messaging. So in this example, I've said the following, "This weekend only, Buy 1 course and Get a 2nd course for FREE!

Make your picks now." And then I've included a link to the landing page. Now here on the right hand side of the screen, it's going to give me a helpful preview of what that message will look like. And the first thing that you will notice is that this big, long link

is going to look rather ugly and maybe a little intimidating, and actually maybe take away from the rest of the message. Well, SimpleTexting has a feature called Shorten URL. So all I need to do is select the URL, and I'm going to select that Shorten URL.

And here's an example of what it will now look like to the recipient. Nice and short, the focus is on the message, and they are still just one click away from making their selection.

Now, immediately down below, you will see that there's a section called Unsubscribe message, and this is also a best practice, reminding those whom you are communicating with that they have an opportunity to unsubscribe or stop receiving messages from you.

In this case, the word is "stop", so as long as they text the word "stop" in reply, they will be removed from this list and no longer receive messages. I'm going to come down here and just hit Enter on my keyboard just so there's some separation between that message and the link that I want them to click.

Next, I need to select which group I want to send this campaign to. So I'm going to select this and come down and choose Subscribers. Now, I can choose multiple groups if I want to, but in this example, we're going to stick with just subscribers.

Lastly, I can choose if I want to send this campaign immediately, if I want to schedule it for the future, or if I want to set up a recurring schedule for this particular campaign. In this example, I'm going to stay with Immediately and hit Next.

I am then brought to the summary screen where I can review one last time what this message will look like, and when, I'm happy I can hit Send now, and then brought back to the campaign screen. And if I go back to my inbox, I can see with this test user account

that yes, this campaign has been sent, including this very nice and short and very clickable link rather than the very long and intimidating link that I first pasted in.

Free resources & pricing options Now, if you're still not sure if text messaging is right for your business, SimpleTexting has provided a vast library of guides for each and every industry. So no matter what type of business you are running, you can get started and see best practice examples. For example, maybe I run an accounting firm

and I want to see what others are doing and how they are using text messaging

within their particular business, this is a great resource and will get you off and running in a matter of minutes. In addition, if you are worried about pricing and how much this will cost you, SimpleTexting makes it easy. All you need to do is figure out how many messages you will be sending per month so you'll know exactly how much

you'll be spending in the future. I particularly like their Build a Plan screen where you can type in exactly how many contacts you plan to message, whether you're going to be messaging consistently or maybe just seasonally, and how often per month

you'll be messaging that client as well. This will give you a very accurate number,

so you can eliminate any future surprises. So to learn more and to get started for free, go to SimpleTexting.com or select the link in the description down below.

And if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Why you need to consider SMS marketing Have you thought about adding text messaging marketing to your business? If not, here's something to think about.

Emails have an open rate of 20%. Text messages have an open rate of 98%,

and on top of that, 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of receiving them. So in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to get started with text messaging marketing and give you tips and tricks along the way.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you are wanting to engage with your customers that much more directly and increase your sales, text messaging marketing might be the best solution for you.

Whether you want to have a two-way conversation or if you want to communicate with thousands of people at once, text messaging may be the best solution for you.

Text messaging software is easier than you think

In this example, we are using a tool called SimpleTexting which, as the name suggests, keeps things nice and easy for those of us who may not be so technically inclined, but still want to take advantage of the most recent technology including SMS marketing.

So here within my SimpleTexting interface, you can see I can manage all of my conversations here on the left hand side. Here in the middle of the screen,

you can see an example of a conversation that I'm in right now between a potential customer.

And then on the right hand side, I can easily view all of that contact's information and include additional details, including notes, birthday, and other vital details.

So here, from the comfort of my own desk, I can text and communicate directly back either with an individual customer or with customers on mass. "Yes, you can come in tomorrow and pick these up." So I can send my text whenever I need to

and keep a complete history of that conversation right here on my desktop.

How to acquire your text messaging audience

But before we go any further with the specific features, the very first question we need to answer is "How do we start communicating with our contacts?' And this is very, very important when it comes to text messaging. You must receive consent, or in other words, you must ensure that the people that you're communicating with

have opted to communicate with you via text messaging. And for that, we're going to make use of a keyword. Now, you've probably texted a keyword before, or at the very least you've seen other businesses invite you to text a certain word to their number.

The reason for this is that this is the most common way to opt-in to a text messaging service. So let me show you how easy it is to set this up. In this case, I'm going to select a new keyword.

And because my business is all about being simple, I'm going to choose that word "simple." Anyone who text the word "simple" to this number above will be added to my list.

Now I can either choose to add it to a new list or to an existing list, and in this case, I'm going to choose to add it to a new list called Subscribers. So anyone who texts the word "simple"will be added to this list,

and then I'll be able to send them campaigns or specific messages in the future.

Now down below, here is going to be the Auto confirmation message. So what do I want them to receive after they've texted this word to me? And an added benefit of using SimpleTexting is that yes, they have AI built in.

So if I don't want to write the message myself, I can always come up here to Generate message. And so I'm going to give the AI assistant the following prompt, "Thank them for joining the list and stay tuned for special offers." I can next select Generate a message, and then down below in just a few seconds, it will generate several messages for me to choose from.

Now as I scroll through the selections here, I like this sound of exclusive, it makes people feel special, so I'm going to select that one and say Select message. And of course, I can always continue to edit it or add more details down below.

Remember, you can always add links to your messages. So if you want to direct them to a certain landing page on your website or to another resource, you can do that here as well.

But I'm going to keep it rather simple in this particular message. Now, I'm not going to add any further details. I'm going to select Save this keyword in this case, and here you can see it has been added to my list. Anyone who texts this word to this number

will be added to my subscriber list. So let's go and test it out. I'm going to go back to my inbox here, and on my phone, I'm going to text the word "simple" to this number.

Here you can see what I texted, and instantly I received this message back, "Thanks for joining, stay tuned for exclusive offers and more." And now when I come over here to my contacts, I can take a look at my Subscribers list, and look at that, we have one new subscriber, which would be me and my test account.

So that's how easy it is to both set up a keyword and invite people to join your list. And don't forget, you can add as many keywords as you want and have them trigger new things, either trigger specific responses or have them added to a particular list. So maybe in this case,

I have a keyword of "apply" or "jobs", and these are people who are seeking to apply for a position within my organization, something very different than maybe just a general marketing list.

Getting consent to send text messages

Now, adding a keyword is not the only way to have people opt-in to your text messaging list. Another common method is to include it on a form. So if you're already collecting phone numbers, you can include an opt-in checkbox so that they give you permission to text with them.

But here, within SimpleTexting, you can also create your own web signup forms. So for example, I've created a form called New Customer Form where I can include as many details as I want including first and last name, their email address, maybe I want to capture their birthday.

If I want to send them a special birthday message via text messaging, I can do it all here. I can then send them directly to my form where they can fill out the required information

and then select Subscribe now. And here you can see we have that policy built in

that by selecting this, they agree to receive promotional messages. Remember, in order to keep your number and more importantly your brand in good faith,

make sure that you have some way for them to explicitly agree to receive SMS messages from you.

Creating SMS marketing campaigns

But enough about consent, let's move on to one of the most powerful features

when it comes to using text messaging marketing and that is creating your own campaigns. This gives you the opportunity to communicate with thousands of your clients exactly when you want to and have them act on those requests in a matter of minutes.

So here I have a number of campaigns set up already, including this 25% Off Sale. So I can see when it was sent, I can see what the message was, but I can also keep track of that history in terms of how many people received it, I can also keep track of the link that was used and how many people actually clicked that link.

But let's go ahead and create a new campaign from scratch. All I need to do is select this New button here and let's give it a campaign name. I'm going to say "Buy 1 G One",

that's going to be the name of the campaign. This is just for my own reference here.

Once again, we can use AI to assist us, but in this case, I'm going to put in my own messaging. So in this example, I've said the following, "This weekend only, Buy 1 course and Get a 2nd course for FREE! Make your picks now." And then I've included a link to the landing page.

Now here on the right hand side of the screen, it's going to give me a helpful preview of what that message will look like.

And the first thing that you will notice is that this big, long link is going to look rather ugly and maybe a little intimidating, and actually maybe take away from the rest of the message. Well, SimpleTexting has a feature called Shorten URL. So all I need to do is select the URL,

and I'm going to select that Shorten URL. And here's an example of what it will now look like to the recipient. Nice and short, the focus is on the message, and they are still just one click away from making their selection.

Now, immediately down below,you will see that there's a section called Unsubscribe message, and this is also a best practice, reminding those whom you are communicating with that they have an opportunity to unsubscribe or stop receiving messages from you.

In this case, the word is "stop", so as long as they text the word "stop" in reply, they will be removed from this list and no longer receive messages. I'm going to come down here and just hit Enter on my keyboard just so there's some separation between that message

and the link that I want them to click. Next, I need to select which group I want to send this campaign to. So I'm going to select this and come down and choose Subscribers. Now, I can choose multiple groups if I want to, but in this example,

we're going to stick with just subscribers. Lastly, I can choose if I want to send this campaign immediately, if I want to schedule it for the future, or if I want to set up a recurring schedule for this particular campaign. In this example, I'm going to stay

with Immediately and hit Next. I am then brought to the summary screen where I can review one last time what this message will look like, and when, I'm happy I can hit Send now, and then brought back to the campaign screen. And if I go back to my inbox, I can see with this test user account that yes, this campaign has been sent,

including this very nice and short and very clickable link rather than the very long and intimidating link hat I first pasted in.

Free resources & pricing options

Now, if you're still not sure if text messaging is right for your business, SimpleTexting has provided a vast library of guides for each and every industry. So no matter what type of business you are running, you can get started and see best practice examples.

For example, maybe I run an accounting firm and I want to see what others are doing and how they are using text messaging within their particular business, this is a great resource and will get you off and running in a matter of minutes.

In addition, if you are worried about pricing and how much this will cost you,

SimpleTexting makes it easy. All you need to do is figure out how many messages

you will be sending per month so you'll know exactly how much you'll be spending in the future. I particularly like their Build a Plan screen where you can type in exactly

how many contacts you plan to message, whether you're going to be messaging consistently or maybe just seasonally, and how often per month you'll be messaging that client as well.

This will give you a very accurate number, so you can eliminate any future surprises. So to learn more and to get started for free, go to SimpleTexting.com or select the link in the description down below. And if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comments.

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

One of the most challenging things with using a mind mapping tool is just getting started. Okay, I'm going to grab this shape here, and I'm going to call this my new idea. And then I'm going to go over here, and I'm going to say that this is step one of that new idea.

This is going to take a long time. Well, what if instead you could create a full mind map, like the one you see here, in a matter of seconds? Let me show you how. (light ting) Hello, everyone.

Scott Friesen, here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And, as we take a quick glance at this mind map,

you would probably assume that this took me a full hour, if not longer, to brainstorm.

And maybe I had to collaborate with others and rethink how I was going to group everything together, but I didn't do any of that. In fact, I created this mind map in just a few seconds. So let me show you how.

Create a mind map in seconds

Here, within Miro, I can come up to the Settings icon and select the Command palette. And here I have a variety of AI-assisted prompts that I can get started with.

Now I can do an awful lot, but for right now let's look at generating our mind map.

And so, in this example, I want to generate a mind map for a new pet grooming business and what areas I should be focused on. All I need to do is hit Enter on my keyboard, and in just a few seconds, I have a complete mind map, which is going to give me a variety of different areas, including ones that perhaps I didn't think about,

where I can continue to brainstorm or to edit and group things together.

So, in this example, I've got everything from location to what services am I going to offer,  supplies, finances, legal, staffing, marketing, and target market. A number of things that maybe I wasn't going to consider.

Now, just like with any other mind map, I can group things the way I want. If I want some things on this side together, if I want to perhaps make a connection between ear cleaning and shampoo and conditioning,

I can do all of the editing features that I'm used to here within Miro.

Expand your ideas with AI

But our assistance from AI doesn't stop here. Let's come up here to target market. And I want to think a little more deeply about the different types of pet owners.

So I'm going to select this, and you'll notice that we still have this AI icon available to us. If I select this, I can expand and continue down this path. I can either expand with questions, expand with ideas or expand with topics.

Because I'm still in brainstorming mode, I'd like to think of some questions I should be considering as I'm exploring different pet owners. So I'm going to select that option here.

And, again, in just a few seconds, it's going to spit out a number of different questions that maybe I will want to include on an intake form. Maybe it's some questions that I want to ask myself when it comes to marketing and who I am going to be targeting.

These are fantastic questions, and they're very specific to pet owners and things that are related to a pet grooming business. Now, of course, I can come up here and maybe remove some of the ones that I don't think are as relevant, but just look at how quickly I've gone from a very simple idea, a simple set of instructions, into a variety of things that is going to help me set up my business for success.

Beyond mind maps with AI

But, of course, because Miro is such a flexible tool, we are not limited to just mind maps and drawing things with shapes and connecting them with lines and dots.

In fact, one of my favorite features of Miro is using their sticky note feature. So let's see how AI can help us in this context. So, in this way, I want to maybe generate some questions for an upcoming workshop.

So, in this example, I'm asking, "Give me 25 icebreaker questions for a business budgeting workshop." Let's see what it comes up with. And, again, in just a few seconds, it's given me exactly what I'm after.

And, unlike ChatGPT or some more text-based AI tools, it's so much easier for me to group these things together. What I love about sticky notes is that, in just a matter of seconds,

I can group maybe some like-minded questions together. I can, of course, color code them as well if I want to maybe make things that are related to financial lessons in pink. And I can still make those connections as we would come to expect when it comes to any type of mind mapping tool.

Summarize ideas fast

But it gets better than that because, remember, we have AI tools at our disposal.

So, in this example, I'm going to select all of those sticky notes, and I'm going to come up here to our AI tool. I can choose to summarize all of these Post-It Notes, which may be very useful if you are collecting user data  or maybe this is feedback from your clients. I can cluster them by keywords or I can cluster them by sentiment;

meaning are they more positive or negative or neutral. In this case, I'm going to choose cluster by keywords because I want to see what some of the themes are

amongst these questions, and maybe I want to make sure that I spread them out

or have a nice mix of these icebreaker questions available. So, by selecting this option, you can see it's grouped it by more expenses, budget and process.

Here is a little more lesson, philosophical. This one is related more to tools or apps.

So maybe, for my upcoming training, I'm going to select one from each of these categories, or maybe for a certain part of my meeting, I'll just focus on all six of these

if we're talking about goals.

Cluster ideas by theme

Now, in this next example, I'm sticking with my sticky notes. And here I've collected

a variety of feedback from actual users who have been customers of a pool company. So I've got a mix of feedback here, which is probably going to take me some time to sift through or go through one at a time.

But, why don't we use AI to make it that much easier? Here, I'm going to use that option again. And this time I'm going to say Cluster by sentiment. Now it has broken out all of those comments

into three categories: positive, neutral, and negative. So let's say I just want to focus

on these negative comments here. What I'm going to do is select five of these comments, and I'm going to say, "Summarize it for me," rather than going through each and every comment.

What is the theme here?Well, "Good customer service but a high price. Excellent recommendations but delivery and installation issues or damage." So think about how much more time consuming it would be if I had a hundred or maybe a thousand pieces of feedback.

Now I can summarize it and share it with my team or act on what I see here. So, if you want to generate ideas and strategies that much faster and with the assistance of AI, be sure to check out Miro.

Miro AI is currently in beta, but available for all users. To find out more and to get started, click the link in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching.

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