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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So if you want to declutter your inbox or regain all of that email storage, go to sanebox.com/simpletivity1, or click the link in the description down below.

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

Forms Tip 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forms Tip 2

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

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

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

Forms Tip 3

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

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

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

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

Forms Tip 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forms Tip 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

as to how often you use the required fields.

Forms Tip 6

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

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

But what we can do is break things into chunks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but I've preserved my questions down below.

Forms Tip 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 3

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

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

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

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

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

App 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

App 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intro

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

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

Grain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setup

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Library

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qatalog

Are you needing an all-in-one workspace for your team or business? Well, in this video we're taking a look at three applications, at three different price points, to determine what is the best for you. Now, note, all three of these apps have a free

or a free trial version, but we want to compare apples to apples, so we're going to be looking at their pro or business plan. So let's get started. (upbeat music) The very first tool that we're going to be looking at today is called Qatalog. Now, Qatalog is an all-in-one workspace where you can use it to manage your projects, manage clients,

manage your staff, manage almost anything, but in a very clean and very easy to use navigation system. So after signing up for your Qatalog account it'll ask you what are you building it for? And it's given me a few examples here.

Am I an advertising agency? Am I a law firm? Am I a real estate agency? In this case, I'm going to type in that I'm an accounting firm, that's what I am, that's what I want to build Qatalog for.

I'm going to select continue, and what it's going to do is take all of its knowledge of the accounting world, of the bookkeeping world, and build something custom for me.

Now, of course, I have the opportunity to change and tweak, and delete, and add more things as well, but what I'm most impressed with is that it's creating me something that I can use and my team can use right away. And in just a few seconds

it has built something that I can get started with right away. Here you can see that it's going to give me three different modules, reports, projects, and clients. And it also tells me exactly what is going to be listed or included within those modules, including things such as cost, client name, start date, end date. 

And of course, all of this is customizable. So unlike just starting with a template, it has something that is much more detailed. Now, at this point, I could choose to remove any of these modules or change them, but we can also do this after the fact.

So I'm going to come down here and say,Build my Qatalog, and now I'm ready to get started with my clients, projects,

and reporting modules ready for me on the left hand side menu. Now that you've seen how easy it is to set up a Qatalog, let's go into another workspace which already has some content, so I can show you around.

In this case, I have a few additional modules, including Services and Contractors, because perhaps I'm a consulting agency in this particular example. If I click on Projects, for example,

I'm going to see a list of all of my projects, and I'm going to click on this one called Wayne Industries. Now, one of the first things that you're bound to notice is that Qatalog looks a lot more like an off the shelf software product, as opposed to something where you need to build things step by step or page by page.

You may think that the services and the different modules here on the left hand side are hard coded, and I think that that's a great thing, especially as you're bringing on new members to your team, it can be like introducing them to a full-fledged software product rather than something that you or other members of your team are building along the way.

Everything here within Qatalog is very easy to navigate and easy to find, and if you need to search for something, they've got a handy search space

where you can search across the entire interface. Now, one of the great things about Qatalog is that not only have we set up different modules, but all of those different components are integrated. And unlike other all-in-one workspace tools everything is integrated together.

So for example, if I have customers here in the top of my project space here, here is my particular customer for this particular project,. It is integrated directly with the Customers section over here.

I don't have to make those manual connections, I can find them and manage them right here within this particular list. Now, another great feature of Qatalog is that we can change the name of any of our fields and it will change throughout the entire workspace.

So for example, even though I'm looking at Projects here and I have Clients at the top of the screen, maybe that's not a term that we use, maybe this is something that we created, but we're now wanting to use the term customer for all of our clients.

All I need to do is come down here and click on Settings, I'm going to click on my Modules, and then click on Clients. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to change this to Customer as the singular name, and I'm going to say Customers as the plural name and hit Save.

And now when I jump back into my Projects, you can see that it is listed as Customers, and this will carry over to everywhere else within my module. So overall, when all is said and done, Qatalog is perhaps the smoothest all-in-one workspace, and the easiest to navigate.

As for pricing Qatalog is priced at $9 per person per month, to learn more and to start your free trial you can go to qatalog.com.

Notion

(upbeat music) Next up, let's take a look at Notion which proudly presents itself

as an all-in-one workspace. And it's true, you can use Notion for an awful lot, including projects, as a CRM, or for managing staff and other tasks. Now, when it comes to getting started with Notion you have one of two options.

Yes, there are a large number of templates in which you can get started with. If I click on the Templates feature, you can see the long list here, everything from project management to some simple database management as well.

Now, your second method would be to start from scratch, and that can be a little intimidating, and may have a rather steep learning curve here within Notion.

Notion at its core feels an awful lot like a wiki where you can add almost anything, including the ability to embed other websites, and videos, and other pieces of content, but depending on how much work you want to do upfront, it may take you a little longer to get started within Notion.

In this example here, I've got a project page where I've broken things down by a few different phases, Design, Development, and the Research Phase.

Now, in many cases, Notion may feel somewhat spreadsheet like with columns and rows, and that can be very, very comforting and also very, very flexible. You can customize a number of different views.

So if I want to see this exact same information, but only see the things that are assigned to me, I can do that here as well. And of course, you can dive deeper into each of your tasks, or projects, or shall we just say elements, because we're talking about all-in-one.

So if I want to open up this task number one, I can dive into deeper detail, and I can also add an additional page within this task. Now, that last feature there I might say is a bit of a double edged sword, yes, you can go deeper and deeper, and embed, and link pages within one another, but many Notion users, especially first time Notion users will say that that can also be a bit of a downside, it can be somewhat confusing as you're making manual links or manual relations between different pages.

Now, the good news is that Notion has a very active community. So if you're looking for other templates and other support, you'll have a large number of people to rely on, but if you're not so comfortable in building things out one by one, or if you're a little nervous that members of your team may edit or break some elements of your application,

then Notion may not be the ideal tool for you. As for pricing,] Notion Business is $15 per user per month. So that puts us in that sort of middle term of affordability. Again, a very, very flexible tool, but maybe too flexible depending on your needs and your team's comfort level. Now, if you're enjoying this comparison video and you're looking

for more productivity tips, tricks, and how-to tutorials,I would invite you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

Airtable

(upbeat music) Now, the last all-in-one workspace tool that we are looking at is Airtable. Now, Airtable is the oldest of the three that we're discussing today, and there's an awful lot in which you can do within Airtable. Of the three, Airtable is the most database like, or shall we say, database exposed, where you're most likely going to be dealing with many rows and columns, that may be either a pro or a con,

depending on your needs. If you have basic database knowledge and you love spreadsheets, well, Airtable may be the better choice for you. As you can see in my example here, we have many of these same features and similar navigations such as sorting and changing things at the top of rows, and keeping things in a very orderly manner.

But of course, you can do so much more than just a simple spreadsheet by adding attachments, and due dates, and having things trigger

an automation right here within Airtable. And you're also not just restricted to this table or database style view. For example, here I've got a social media calendar,

so I can see things within a real world calendar. Another nice benefit is that you can create your own customized workflows, including the ability to build forms. So in this case, maybe I want to create an intake form that I'm going to post on my website,

and whenever those forms are submitted that information can be brought in directly into my Airtable space. Now, getting started with Airtable needs a little bit of planning, a little bit of forethought in terms of how you are going to structure things together.

It's certainly not as easy as setting up a workspace within Qatalog, but Airtable has an awful lot of flexibility and many many extensions available to you as well. As for pricing, Airtable Pro is $20 per user per month, so certainly the most expensive when it comes to the tools on this list, but you get an awful lot for that price point as well.

But if you're wanting to save money and you want to create your own free mobile app, be sure to click on this video next, where I walk you through the steps of building your own custom app for absolutely no cost.

How to Text on a Computer with Google Messages (PC or Mac)

‍

Would you like to view and reply to your text messages from the convenience of your computer? Well, it's actually a lot easier than you think, and I'm going to show you exactly how to do it.

Now, number one, why would you want to have access to your text messages on your computer or laptop?

Well, number one is convenience. How often have you been working at your desktop or laptop computer, and your phone is binging off to the side, and you're going back and forth, and back and forth, here at the computer, and then here replying to a message, and then back to the computer.

What if you could have it all in the screen in front of you? And then number two, I don't know if you're like me, but I can type a whole lot faster on a full-size keyboard

rather than just my two thumbs. So let me walk you through exactly how to set this up. Within your web browser, do a search for Google Messages or you can go directly to messages.google.com, and you'll come to a screen like this.

Now, if Google Messages is not your default texting app on your phone, you can go ahead and select Download for Android here. But I'm going to assume that you're already using Google Messages for SMS and texting on your device.

So what we want to do is click on Messages for web, and it's going to give us a set of very simple instructions as to how we can pair this with our phone. So first things first, we need to open up our phone. We're going to open up the Messages app. And in the top left-hand corner,

at least on most of your operating systems, you'll see that little hamburger menu.

We're going to open up our Messages menu and down about halfway, we see device pairing. We're going to select Device pairing, and that's going to, again, invite us to go to messages.google.com. But because we're already there, we just need to select QR code scanner. I'm going to select that. And now, all we need to do is aim our phone

at the computer screen. And now, our phone is paired. Now in front of us on our browser, we have access to all of our previous messages, and we can continue those conversations or start a new one.

Now, you'll see that it will prompt us if we want to remember this computer. That means it will keep our phone paired. So if this is your primary computer, I would recommend you select Yes. That means you won't have

to go through this pairing process every single time. And don't forget, this is a perfect pairing between the two, so they will never be out of sync. For example, if I walk away from my computer for 15 minutes and I do some texting away, everything will still be visible here on the Google Messages for my desktop.

So it doesn't matter which device I choose to use, I will always remain perfectly in sync. But what if you don't want to deal with your text messages within your browser because you often are going back and forth between different tabs, or what if you accidentally close this tab?

Well, Google has a solution for that as well. If you use the Chrome Web Browser

and come all the way here to the right-hand corner, we're going to select those three dots. About halfway down, you will see this Install Messages option. Now, this will only be visible when you are on the messages.google.com site.

So if I click Install Messages, it's going to prompt me: Do I want to install this app? I'm going to say Yes, install. Now, I have my own desktop app, which is separate from my web browser.

Here, you can see in my task bar, it will remain down below. So I don't have to keep it within my browser. I don't have to keep it visible. I can just expand it and close it whenever I need to.

But if you want to enjoy even more convenience with your communication and you're a Gmail user, be sure to watch this video next where I show you a little known tip, which may change the way you think about using Gmail filters.

Shortcut 1

I've got a confession to make, I don't use keyboard shortcuts nearly as often as I should. So in the past 30 days, I've been experimenting with discovering a large number of shortcuts, and I've found seven, which I think you'll find helpful too.

So let's dive in. How often have you been wanting to grab something and copy it from the web only to put it into a document, or some other maybe note taking tool? Well, you can come in here and paste it, but oh, wait a minute, I didn't want the different formatting.

I didn't want the underlying for the links. I didn't want any of this. How do I get around it? Well, you could right click with your mouse, and select Paste without formatting. But over here, Ctrl + Shift + V is the much faster way.

Now if I use Ctrl + Shift + V on my keyboard, everything comes over in the style and the formatting of the page that I'm on.

If I go back to this website here, even if I'm grabbing something like these bullet points and they had these funny characters here, I'm going to copy it, but I'm going to come down and do Ctrl + Shift + V. Now everything looks clean and matches the formatting I already have in this particular document.

Shortcut 2

Now another problem I have, especially when I'm browsing the web, is coming across a site where the text is either too large or too small. In this case, this text is just a little too large for my liking. Now within my browser, I could come up here to the top right-hand corner and I could adjust the Zoom.

I'm going to take it down to maybe 90%, but there is a much faster way. If I hold the Ctrl key on my keyboard and then use the scroll wheel on my mouse, I can quickly and easily zoom in and out, either by small increments or by very extreme increments if I need to.

You'll notice in the right-hand corner here that it's actually telling me 150%, 110, now I'm back to a 100%,

now I'm back to 90% where exactly I am. But that is certainly the fastest way to zoom in and out. But keep in mind that this also works for other applications. Here I am within my Word document, and let's say that I want to zoom in down below where I'm going to enter in my next paragraph.

Again, holding down Ctrl on my keyboard and then using the Scroll Wheel, it will zoom in. Now the nice thing about the Ctrl zoom shortcut is that it will zoom in on the text cursor which makes the most sense when I'm working with a document here.

You will find if you're using your browser, it will simply zoom in on wherever your mouse cursor is, which is not always the most helpful but you'll get the hang of it, especially depending on the website you're on.

Shortcut 3

Now if you're anything like me, you probably have a number of applications open

at any given time. And you may be used to minimizing or maximizing certain windows, or coming down here to your taskbar and getting to the place that you want to go.

But there's a faster way by using Alt + Tab on your keyboard, you'll be brought up with sort of a mini menu which will show you all of your open applications. Now you can do a couple of different things here.

Number one, you can click on the application you want to go to immediately. So even if I can't exactly see what is Alt open, I can hit Alt + Tab and I can go directly to this picture, for example.

But there's an added benefit. Within this window, I can also close applications. So maybe I don't need my calculator right now and maybe I don't need to see my desktop view here either. So I can go quickly and easily to the applications that I want

and also close others. In addition, when you have the Alt + Tab menu open, keep Alt held down with your thumb, and then you can tap the Tab key and cycle through those different applications. Wherever you release, that will open up that program.

So this can be a quick and easy way to toggle between two or three open applications. Now before we continue with our next shortcut key, I'd love to hear from you, what are some of your favorite shortcuts? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Shortcut 4

Speaking of the Tab key, this next keyboard shortcut is very applicable, especially if you have a number of tabs open within your browser. If you select Ctrl + Tab on your keyboard, it will cycle through to the next tab within your browser.

This can be especially helpful if you just want to jump to the next place without having to use your mouse. I also use this when I am in full screen mode, and I don't want to have to go back and forth between full screen mode.

I find this especially helpful when I'm giving a full screen presentation and I want to move to the next tab on my web browser, but I don't want to show everything on my screen. I want to stay in that full screen mode. So the next time you need to jump to the next one over, just hit Ctrl + Tab on your keyboard.

Shortcut 5

Now I will admit this next keyboard shortcut is not new to me, but I use it so often.

I wanted to make sure that I included it in this list, and that is when you're looking or finding a keyword on any page and in almost any application. Here, I've opened up this article which is talking about a number of things which might drop in price in the the coming year. But maybe I'm only interested in car prices or car related topics.

All I need to do is select Ctrl + F on my keyboard, that's F for find .And in the top right-hand corner, I will have this input dialogue. Now I can type in anything. In this case, I'm going to search for the word car, and it's immediately going to tell me that there are 23 instances of the word car. Now, I can come over here and cycle through.

It's going to show me where that appears next and it will highlight that word as well.

But what might be even more helpful within your web browser are these little highlighted dashes here on the scroll bar. So here you can see, I can scroll directly to this section where the word car is mentioned a number of different times and maybe ignore the rest of the article.

But if I want to go to any other section, I can either use that scroll bar or use the up and down arrow. But remember, you're not limited to using this just within your browser. Here I am within Word, and I'm going to select Ctrl + F. This time, it's going to appear on the left hand side of the screen.

I'm going to type in the word team, and I can see that that appears twice in this document.

So I can go and review, I can replace these words as well if I need to as a next step, a helpful and easy way, especially if you find yourself in an application or a web browser that does not have a search feature.

Shortcut 6

Next, is a shortcut key, especially for Windows users. Now when you have so many different applications and tabs open on the screen, sometimes it can be a challenge

just to go back to the desktop. You may know that you can take your mouse cursor

and drag it all the way down to the bottom and click, and that will return you to the desktop. If I go all the way back to the bottom and click, it will return me to where I was before. But there's a much faster way, if you select the Windows key plus the D key, that will collapse everything on screen and bring you back to your desktop.

If you hit it again, it will return you where you last left off. This has really made me think differently about how I use my desktop rather than using it as just a repository

of different files. I can make this a much more productive space if I make it that much easier for myself to get to. So Windows + D to open or collapse the desktop.

Shortcut 7

Last but not least,

and this is perhaps most important for Windows users, what happens when a program freezes or you can't close it, or you get that not responding message? Well, make sure you know about Ctrl + Alt + Delete. And what that is going to do is going to allow you to access your task manager.

By opening up the task manager, you are going to see every single application and every single background process that is going on at a given time. So for example, if I need to come up here and I need to shut down Microsoft Word, all I need to do is right click and I can select End task.

This is the quickest and easiest way, and sometimes your only resort enforcing a certain application or program to shut down. And don't forget, your task manager is also the place to see what is taking up so much CPU and memory.

And if you want to save even more time while using the Chrome web browser, be sure to click on this video next. It's free, easy to use, and just might change the way you work. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Tip 1

ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful AI tool but how can you use it to be more productive and save time both in your work life and in your personal life? Well, in this video, I've got seven different ways in which we can get the most out of this tool.

Now, first things first, if you haven't yet used ChatGPT all you need to do is go to chat.openai.com. Number one, creating a schedule whether you want to try something new and create a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Or you can use ChatGPT to prepare for a launch or a project timeline.

In my example here I've asked it to create a daily work schedule for a YouTube content creator where I wake up at 6:30 and want to enjoy a 45 minute lunch. All I need to do is tell it to go and do its magical thing, and in a matter of seconds here's the answer that is given me.

Yes, waking up at 6:30, my morning routine begin filming here is my 45 minute lunch

but checking my emails is at 4:00 PM but I want to move that to the morning. So all I need to do is come down here and say now move the email checking to the morning.

In this revised version here you can see that it has moved my email checking to 8:00 AM in the morning, which is great because that's when I'd like to deal with email and then not have to deal with it ever again. Now, in our second example, we're going to be looking at a schedule which is much longer in duration.

In this case, I've asked it create a launch schedule for a membership site that will be released on April 1st, 2023. Include all aspects of the project including product development, testing, and promotion.

What are the results? Well, here is the sample schedule that it has given me starting the product development and assigning those deadlines in January beginning the building of the membership site and testing in February, finalizing and promoting in March ready for launch on April 1st.

And what I really appreciate about this brief sample schedule, it's even included some tasks that I didn't think about after the April 1st launch. But what if this isn't quite detailed enough for me? Well, I'm going to come down here and say, now break it down into week intervals.

I want to look at this at a somewhat more granular level. Maybe I'm happy with the schedule, which it produced but now I want to break it down week by week. And as you can see, it's going to break everything down by the year and the date that we're in, the timeframe that I'm looking at. So this can be a fantastic way

to break down a much larger project, something that can seem very daunting or intimidating, and get some great examples as to how you can approach this particular task.

Tip 2

Tip number two, let's see how ChatGPT can make us look a lot smarter and a lot more efficient when it comes to writing messages. In particular, when it comes to writing emails.

Here I've asked it to write an email that encourages the potential client to reply to my message and book a pet grooming appointment for their dog. Let's see what it comes up with.

Now, what I love about this answer is not only has it given me a subject line and a professionally formatted email, but even with giving it such little details as a pet grooming business, look at all the language look at all the descriptive words it's used including the different breeds and sizes well groomed and healthy pet basic grooming, spa grooming.

We know how important it is for your pet and their environment. It has taken limited knowledge and produce something fantastic, which I can now massage make some edits and fill in the blanks and then be ready to go.

Think of how easy it will be to create an email sequence either for your email newsletter or next up for emails where you maybe don't deal with those types of questions or those types of answers on a regular basis. In this case, I've told it to reply

to this email from a frustrated client and encourage them to continue with our services. Now, in this case, I've just given an example but you can cut and paste any email that you receive and put it after these instructions.

Let's see what it comes up with. So here we have a complete email which starts with a simple apology and then asking to understand a little bit more about what they have experienced.

And by the time we get to the end of the email we are gently inviting them to try us one more time so we can regain their trust. Now, one of the great things about using ChatGPT  is that we can make additional modifications.

So if I don't typically respond to an email in this level of detail, I can come down here and say, now write it in less than 50 words. So this time around, it's taken that entire email and condensed it into just three sentences.

This might be a lot more appropriate if I'm responding to someone via Google ratings or maybe on a social media platform. All of the key points are still there, but in a much more condensed format. So whether you need to expand, reduce, or change the tone you can do so in just a few simple instructions.

Tip 3

Now, a third way to get the most out of ChatGPT and to save a lot of time is to summarize a lengthy article or meeting notes. How often have you been sent a long document and you need to preview it or summarize it in just a few moments.

For example, here I've landed on an article which seems to be a complete guide to setting up a membership website, and I can tell by the scroll bar on the right hand side that this is indeed a very, very lengthy article.

But what if I just want to get the gist of this article or just share some of the key points with a potential client? Well, all I need to do is give it some instructions such as summarize this article in less than 200 words and then paste in the link of that article.

Now, in just a few seconds, it's going to scan and only pull out the key points or the key ideas from this particular article. In this example, it's taken thousands of words and broken it down into four key paragraphs.

But what if I want something even a little more digestible? Well, let's give it some additional instructions. I'm going to tell it to now break it down into four actionable steps, and in just a few seconds I have the four key points listed in order

something that I can now share maybe in a presentation or deliver as a part of a training. This makes it so much more easy to digest and to retain that information.

Of course, you may always want to go back to the original article to find the details

and find out other pieces of information, but this can be a fantastic way to summarize meeting notes, articles or anything else that you come across. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this video so far and are wanting to learn more ways to save time be sure to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

Tip 4

Next up, let's take a look at how Simpletivity can actually solve many of our technical challenges including helping us with our software.

For example, many people ask me questions about Gmail and other Google products, and although I try to read every single comment right here on the Simpletivity channel I simply can't respond to every single question.

Well, let's see if ChatGPT can do a good job in my absence. So in this example, I've asked it to create a filter in Gmail that will automatically move messages from my inbox that are more than 30 days old to a new label called Moved After 30.

And in just a few moments, it's given us a very easy 12 step process to follow/ Everything from where we need to click to find our filters what exactly we need to enter into that search bar and how to skip the inbox and apply the new label.

What about something else? Maybe like a Spreadsheet or an Excel formula? I don't know about you, but I often forget certain formulas or how to structure them within a Spreadsheet.

In this case, I've asked it to create a combined sum of two columns in Excel where the first column is weighted 1.7 times more than the second column. All I need to do is hit enter on my keyboard and it's going to come up with that answer in just a few seconds.

Often it will start with an opening paragraph just briefly describing what it's going to do. But what I especially like with its answer is that it's going to explain what is happening and how this function is working.

Now, I've got this Excel formula that I can simply copy and paste and use to my liking within my Excel Spreadsheet or Google Sheet.

Tip 5

Speaking of complex, no one likes to feel stupid. So what if you struggle to understand a complicated topic? Well, here within ChatGPT we can use things such as explain to me like I'm five or 10 or 20 or whatever age you think is appropriate and then give it something that you don't fully understand.

n this case, I'm asking it a question about cryptocurrency. No, I think it's done a very good job of explaining

this to a small child, but maybe I want to present this and add a little more detail, but also a little more fun. So what I've done is I've said explain it to me like I'm 10 but use terms and analogies in the style of a Western movie. Let's see what it comes up with.

And just like that, I've got this same basic description but I've got everything else that I wanted. Just like in the Wild West, people used to mine for gold. Now people use computers to mine for Bitcoin. So whatever you are looking for, this can be especially

helpful if you are sharing information or wanting to make something a little more creative for your audience or your team.

Tip 6

Next up, let's take a look at how we can create agreements or contracts based on our needs.

Now, of course, there's a caveat here. You should always rely on professional legal help before issuing or using agreements and contracts but this can be a great place to start to flesh out the details of your agreement.

In this example, I've said, create a simple coaching agreement where the client will receive four coaching sessions for $995. Now, what's so great about the results is that not only does it include all of the details including some additional ones, such as my cancellation policy, but it has formatted it in the right way.

It's got everything listed here, including the client's name and what they will be referred to hereafter. But even if we scroll down to the bottom, it's even included a client's signature and date.

So this can be a great starting place, especially if you're worried about forgetting something as you're putting your agreements or contracts together. Now, I've got one more great way to get the most out of ChatGPT. But just before I share that tip,

I'd love to hear from you what are some of your favorite ChatGPT prompts? Be sure to let me know and share it with others in the comments down below.

Tip 7

Now, so far, we've talked mostly about getting ChatGPT to generate new content for us but perhaps one of the most powerful ways to use this tool is to enhance our own,

make it better or maybe make it geared towards a particular audience. Think about all of your marketing material. Think about your biography think about your website, your email anything else that you use on a day-to-day basis. How can you refine it

or gear it towards a particular audience? In this case, I've said make the following more exciting and geared towards busy professionals.

And all I've done is cut and paste some content from my own website, and in just seconds I certainly have a much more exciting description here including a "Slay the Dragon" reference in the opening sentence.

Of course, I may want to revise and change this but think of the possibilities that this opens up. And don't forget, you can continue to refine your prompts so you can get closer to what you're looking for.

I'm going to take this same piece of text but now I'm going to tell it make the reader fear that they will miss out if they don't contact me today. Of course, this can be a very powerful marketing tool.

It may not be relevant for everything that you're doing or every product or service

but see how it can change things and make it closer to what you're wanting. And if you're wanting to save even more time as a part of your day, be sure to watch this video next where I show you a free Chrome extension which just might change the way you work.

Intro

Love it or hate it, Zoom meetings are here to stay, so why not look and sound your very best? In this video, I'm going to show you seven settings that you're going to want to review right away. So, let's dive in. (bright music) Now, one of the most embarrassing things that can happen to us is if our video or our audio turns on

without us expecting it. So we want to double-check our default settings when first joining a meeting. (bright music)

CHECK YOUR DEFAULT JOIN SETTINGS

First off, how do we get to our settings? Well, if you open up your Zoom client and come all the way up here to the top right-hand corner and click on Settings, that will open up the Settings dialogue.

And we're going to start in our video settings. And right under Video, if we scroll down to this second section here, you can see that there is a checkbox that says turn off my video when joining a meeting.

I want to be the one who decides when my video starts when I join any meeting whether I'm the host or whether I'm a participant. So that's why I have this check box selected.

If you're okay with having your video starting immediately, you can leave this unchecked but you may want to double check this particular setting.

(screen rolls) Next, we're going to click on our audio settings and we're going to scroll all the way down to the bottom and you can see that the second option here says mute my microphone when joining a meeting.

Now, I'm okay with my microphone being on

as soon as I jump into a meeting,  that's why mine is unchecked. But if you want to make sure that something is not distracting others in the background if you want to make sure that you are ready to go and you are the one to initiate when people can hear you or see you, you may want to select this checkbox as well. (bright music)

INCREASE AUDIO QUALITY

Now, the second group of settings we want to pay special attention to are also here under Audio, because if you don't sound great, you probably aren't coming across as your best self when it comes to your Zoom meetings.

Now you're probably already familiar with coming in here and selecting the correct speaker or the correct microphone, but where we want to pay special attention to is our Audio Profile.

Now, by default, this first option Zoom optimized audio is going to be selected,

but it's the next two sections I want us to pay special attention to. First off, Zoom will do its best to automatically suppress background noises but everyone's situation is a little different.

So for example, if you are in a noisy coffee shop, perhaps you want a high background noise suppression. If you have dogs in the background that are whimpering or growling or barking, again, you may also want high or medium. And sometimes auto is too much. So you may want to adjust this to a low profile as well.

But there's one other setting which is going to allow you to have even better audio,

especially if you have a good quality microphone. And that is original sound for musicians. Now, don't let this name fool you. If you are not a musician and if you are not playing any type of music through your input devices or your microphone,

this still may be the correct setting for you. If you have a high quality microphone

and if you don't want extra compression reducing the quality of your sound, this may be the option for you. I recommend that you experiment with this option to see if it's right for you, but make sure to try this setting out for yourself.

By selecting it, it will disable the noise suppression and also remove high pass filtering and automatic gain control. So if you want the best quality audio, this might be the right selection for you. (bright music)

TOUCH UP YOUR VIDEO APPEARANCE

Now with our audio and microphones sounding great, let's jump back to our video settings to make sure that we look the best that we can. Under the My Video section,

there are two settings we want to pay special attention to. The first one is mirror my video. Now, I find for most people it's most natural if it mirrors their video, very much like if you raise your left hand or your right hand, it's going to be appropriate to what you see on screen.

However, if you tend to show things on screen, especially if you are an educator or a teacher, you may want to uncheck this box. Why? Well, if I hold up my water bottle here can you read the name or where this was made? No, because I have it on mirror my video.

But if I uncheck that box, now you can read exactly what I am holding up in front of the camera. So this may come down to both personal preference, but also depending if you're ever needing to show things that people will need to see on camera. The next one here is touch up my appearance.

And I want to warn you, be careful with this slider. If we slide this all the way over to the right, Zoom is going to try and touch up our appearances in particular our skin tone and skin color. But if you take this all the way to the right, it almost looks like I'm wearing a lot of foundation on my face. It's almost washed out much of my tones.

And yes, it may have removed some of my wrinkles as well but I don't feel that it looks that natural. So I'd suggest that you'd start maybe somewhere in the middle. And in my case, I tend to bring it back to about maybe a quarter of the way along. It's going to smooth out a few of my lines on my face but not so much that I don't look authentic. (bright music)

BEWARE OF BLURRED BACKGROUNDS

Now, sticking with how we look on screen, let's jump down to background and effects.

Now, Zoom gives us many options when it comes to selecting virtual backgrounds

or even uploading backgrounds of our own. But what's become most popular recently is the blurred effect, which can be great if you want to mask any activity that's going on in the background, especially if you perhaps have a messy room

in the background as well. But in a recent poll, it found that the majority of Zoom users actually prefer a natural background. As long as there's nothing distracting

or moving too often in the background, a natural background is the preference.

Why? If you choose a virtual background or a blurred background as you can see here, it's doing some funny things with my face. If you have a chair or a headrest, which is relatively high sometimes that will look funny as well.

So my recommendation is try to create an environment where you can use your default natural webcam and don't feel that you have to defaultto that blurred effect just because you see it with others. Like I said, in a recent poll, most people actually prefer the natural background. (bright music)

POWERPOINT AS A VIRTUAL BACKGROUND

Now, although using a virtual background can be very distracting, there is one situation where it may actually be enhanced and that's if you are sharing a PowerPoint slide. If I come down here within my Zoom meeting and select Share,

be sure to select the Advanced tab and this will allow you to show and share a PowerPoint slide as a virtual background. I'm going to select that option and select Share. And then all I need to do is come in here and select the particular file.

So I'm going to select this PowerPoint file and select Open. Now it's going to open up that PowerPoint to share, but if I start my video, it's going to add me directly on top of these slides themselves.

So this can be a great way if you want to make sure that you stay visible as you share your slides. If I move to the next slide, in this particular instance, I can still be on screen and if I want, all I need to do is click on the image

and I can reduce the size of my image on screen but I can also click and drag. So if I want to bring myself to a different portion of the screen, or if I want to make sure that I get out of the way of perhaps some of the text on screen, I can always do that as well.

So if you want to make sure that you stay visible, especially for those participants who may be watching on a mobile device, using PowerPoint as a virtual background can be an engaging way to stay on top. (bright music)

IMMERSIVE VIEWS FOR GROUPS

Now, the next tip can be a great way to spice up your meetings and get away from the standard grid view here within Zoom. If we come up to the top right of any Zoom meeting and select View, you may be familiar with the speaker and the default gallery view. But if we select Immersive, we have an opportunity to put ourselves

and all of our participants into a virtual immersive view. So, for example, I'm going to select this one here and then select Start. And I am placed at a seat in front of a table. So this would be great for any group of maybe three to six people.

We get to see one another in a slightly different perspective and maybe that brings a different feel or a different energy to the meeting. Now, if we go back and click on View and select Change Immersive View, you can see that there is a number of different defaults that we can choose.

I love to ski, so maybe this is the one that I'm going to select for my very next meeting. You can both have a lot of fun, but also see people in a different light by experimenting with an immersive view. (bright music)

ENABLE LIVE CLOSED CAPTIONS

Now, the last tip that I have for you today has to do with enabling captions for your Zoom meetings. There may be instances where people have to mute your Zoom meeting but they still want to be able to see what is being said. Or maybe there's someone who is just more comfortable seeing the words on screen as we speak.

So if you come into your Zoom meetings and select More, you should see the option here for captions. If you don't, I recommend you click on this video where I walk you through the steps for enabling those captions.

Once captions is enabled, you can select this option and say show captions and even change the speaking language.

So I'm going to select Show Captions, and here you can see that it is recording

everything that I say in real time, so others who are participating or who are involved in this meeting can follow along. The added bonus is that these captions are recorded. So if you would like a full transcript of your meeting, you can do that right here with Zoom closed captioning.

(screen rolls) And if you're looking for even more ways to get the most out of your Zoom meeting experience, be sure to click on this playlist next. Thank you so much for watching, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple. (bright music)