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Intro

If you want to achieve more in 2023 you need a frictionless way to organize and manage all of your ideas, and Walling may just be the best solution for that purpose.

So in this video, I'm going to share with you five different ways in which Walling provides a seamless experience so you can spend less time playing with your software and more time doing.

Idea Capture

First up is idea capture, because we know those thoughts come and go rather quickly. And here within Walling, we can double click anywhere and start to capture that new idea. So maybe I want to start a new service here in 2023.

Maybe something else that I'm thinking of doing is writing a book in 2023. I can double click anywhere on this screen, I can also click and drag to move or group things together. But if I want to add files from my computer, well, that's super easy, too. I can click and drag.

If I want to add perhaps a link to a website, I want to grab this, I'm going to drag it over here to this tab, and I'm going to release it here. So I can grab that information in a matter of seconds, stay within that brainstorming mode, and not be restricted by the software itself.

Organizing Ideas

Number two, organizing those ideas. We know that brainstorming and ideation is only half the battle, but what's really valuable is grouping those things together.

And again, Walling makes it super easy. If I want to drag things together,  I can do so here within this particular section. If I want to add a particular color, maybe to one of these notes, or if I want to add a custom tag, or a tag that's already been used before, I can do that here as well.

But Walling also allows us to create multiple sections so we don't have to be opening and closing or traveling between multiple pages. So for example, in this section up above maybe I'm going to call this Ideas,

but I'm going to come down to this second section down below, and maybe these are things that we're going to plan to accomplish in Q2. Now I can stay on the exact same screen and start to drag things down below in between these different sections.

Things are nice and clean, but I don't have to be jumping around from place to place. In addition, within each section we can customize how we want to visualize all of these different bricks.

So in the top right hand corner, you can see that by default we will be set to our visual look and feel. But if I click this dropdown, I can quickly and easily convert this into a Kanban setup.

So for example, maybe these first ones are going to be our ideas. Maybe these are things that we're actually going to do. And then maybe I'll add a third column, which is going to be called Complete.

Something along those lines. So now I can drag these things as a part of a Kanban board, but still always go back to my visual board whenever I need to. Some of the other views include a list view, which can be great if you want to see everything on an even keel.

This is especially helpful if you have a mix of links and images in the same place. We can also view a calendar view. And no, you don't have to create this for yourself. I have the next few days lined up here, so if I want to drag things down into a certain timeframe, I can do so at the click of a button. Lastly, we can take a look at the table view. So if you want to add specific due dates, maybe a status

and a complete checkbox, you can do that here as well and easily go back and forth between these various views.

Sharing Ideas

Number three is sharing your ideas with others. Now, whether you work with a team

or perhaps you want to share your wall with clients, Walling makes it super easy for you to do so. At the top of every wall, you'll find this share button. And if I click on this,

I can easily input any email address that I want. So maybe I want to make sure that Diana has access to this. I can simply invite her here  and change her editing permissions without having to go into some type of admin or system settings.

Maybe I only want Diana to be able to comment, so I can click that here, and now she can comment on anything within this wall. But what if I'm working with someone and I don't want them to set up an account and I don't need them to have these types of permissions either?

Well, you can quickly create a shareable link by toggling this button at the top of the screen. Now I can copy this link, share it via Slack or email

or any other means, and they will have read-only access to this particular wall.

This can be a great way to share all of your ideas or notes with external clients without forcing them to sign up for an account or give them abilities that you don't want them to have here within the Walling system.

And because Walling keeps your workspace on the same page, it can be fantastic for sharing via video calls. Rather than opening and closing different tabs and going back and forth, you can have one wall to share all of your ideas or all of your notes and keep everyone on the same page.

Adding Comments

Number four, adding comments. Now, adding comments is nothing new

for most collaboration tools. However, in many cases there will only be one comment section either for the entire workspace or for the entire item itself.

So for example, in this particular note I have five different bullet points here, but maybe I only want to ask a question or provide a comment for this one down here. I don't want to have to waste my time by explaining that I'm only referring to this particular bullet point.

So what I can do is click and say Add a Comment, and now my comment is going to be attached specifically to this point. If I want to call out someone in particular, I can do so. And now will not only Diana be notified directly, but we can have a specific conversation about a specific element around this idea.

Linking to Specific Sections

Number five, linking to specific sections. Again, one of the big benefits within Walling

is that you can have as many sections within a single workspace. It keeps everything centralized and on one screen.

However, if I want to share something regarding this Goals section, all I need to do is select Copy Link to this particular section. And now when I share this link with others, they will be brought specifically just to this section.

They will still have access to other parts of this workspace, but you will notice that Walling automatically minimizes everything else, so that they can focus on this section as well and whatever I was referring to as a part of my message.

So if you're wanting a more frictionless way to gather all of those ideas and to share them with others Walling may be the best tool for you this year. You can get started with Walling with up to 100 bricks absolutely free.

And if you need more, you can go unlimited for just $5 a month. To learn more be sure to click the link in the description down below. And if you have any questions about Walling, 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.

For years, I've been teaching people how to get the most out of Gmail filters so that you can spend less time in a busy inbox like you see here and create custom filters, so things can skip your inbox and be applied to a label here on the left hand side.

But recently I've discovered a hack which makes this so much simpler and allows you to have fewer filters. So I'm going to show you how to set it up and why it's going to make your day so much easier.

Within your Gmail settings, you can come up to Filters and Blocked Addresses and see all of the filters that you have applied. And this first filter that I have here is a classic example where I want to make sure that a particular label is either applied to incoming messages or maybe, in this case, that it is never sent to spam. But there's a problem.

I never want something from cloudhq to be sent to spam. But like many organizations, they are using multiple email addresses to send out information, whether that's marketing or updates or other things that come my way.

So I've had to modify this filter over time to include things from cloudhq.net, cloudhq.us  and cloudhq-mkt11.us. Not only is this time consuming but I have to make sure that I get the exact domain name or email sender correct  when setting up this filter.

In addition, what if you would like everything related to finance to be going into a certain filter? Every time you sign up for a new financial newsletter or a new financial service, do you really want to come into your Gmail account and set up a new filter just for that one organization?

So to make this so much simpler, we're going to make use of the plus hack right here within Gmail so that we don't have to set up so many filters. What exactly is the plus hack?

Well, for any Gmail account, including those that do not have a Gmail domain, you can add the + symbol just before the @ symbol and then add anything that you like. So for example, maybe I'm going to call this one not spam.

My actual email address is ScottFriesen@Simpletivity.com. But if I sign up for a new service or a newsletter I can give them this email address, ScottFriesen+notspam, or I can include anything

that I want there, @Simpletivity.com. And everything that I receive will go to my standard email address, ScottFriesen@Simpletivity.com. And I can use this as many times as I like. Maybe I'll give another service something like ScottFriesen+money@Simpletivity.com for everything that is financial or money related.

Maybe I'll give another one +newsletter@Simpletivity.com for all of the newsletters I set up. You're probably already thinking one step ahead of me. I will only have to create one filter for incoming mail for that particular email address, and then everything, new or old, will go into and be treated by that filter.

So returning to our Gmail main screen, I'm going to come up here and select Show Search Options. And what I'm going to do is create a new filter, but I want to pay special attention to the To line.

So here I'm going to type in ScottFriesen+notspam@Simpletivity.com, meaning Gmail is going to be looking for any messages that are sent to that email address, and now I can do whatever I want with them.

I'm going to come over here and I'm going to say Create Filter. I'm next brought to our second step where I can choose from many of the options here, including skipping the inbox, applying a particular label or categorizing it in some other way. Now, here I can say Never send it to Spam.

In this case, that would be most appropriate, because of the way that I've titled this email address.

And now I can say, Create This Filter. Now going forward, I can use that special email address ScottFriesen+notspam@Simpletivity.com for all of the newsletters or for really anyone that I want to make sure never get sent to my spam folder.

And don't forget, you don't just get to use this for new services that you sign up for. You can now go back into other services or applications that you use and change that email address based on the filters you have set up

right here within Gmail. This may reduce the number of filters that you have, which I've seen from many users upwards of 100 all the way down to maybe half a dozen filters based on the email addresses that they use. S

o whether you use Gmail to manage a traditional gmail.com address or a custom domain, you can use the plus filter hack.

And for even more tips and tricks on how to get the most out of Gmail filters and labels, be sure to watch this video next. Have any questions? Let me know in the comments down below. And don't forget, being productive doesn't have to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Creating your form in Google Forms It's hard to stress just how important a good intake form is for your business. So in this video I'm going to show you how you can use Google Forms to create a custom lead intake form and have it sync directly with your CRM system.

So whether you use HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Crmble, Zoho CRM, or a number of other tools you can have that information directly input into your system. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

So in this example, I'm pretending that I'm a commercial bakery and I'm wanting other smaller bakeries to fill in a form so I can sell them baked goods in large quantities. And I've titled this form, Let's Get Started.

This is something that I'm going to either link to or embed directly on my website or maybe I'll send it to them via email or however they first get in contact with me. Now, a couple of key things to keep in mind with creating a great intake form.

Number one, try to keep it relatively short. In my example here, I've kept it to only five questions.

The longer your intake form is, the less likely that people will fill it in at all or fill in many of those fields. And tip number two, be very specific with which fields are required and which are not. You can see that my first three questions of name,

email and phone number are all required. And within Google Forms, all you need to do is make sure that the required slider is over. But I haven't made the last two questions required because even if they don't tell me what they are looking for,

even if they don't add any additional comments I at least have their contact information so I can reach out to them. Lastly, you're going to want to make sure that at least one of your questions is asking something very specific.

In my example here, I'm asking them which product or products they are wanting to distribute and I've given them four options, cakes, pies, muffins, and cookies. When it comes to your business, it may be what type of service or other products are they seeking.

What kind of help are they looking for? This helps you greatly so that when you reach out to them you already have an idea of what they are looking for.

Adjusting your Google Form settings

Lastly, finishing up here within Google Forms we want to come up to settings.

And there's two I want you to take particular attention to. Number one, when it comes to responses make sure that you have limit to one response turned off. You want your customers and potential customers to come back here as often as needed.

You certainly do not want them to require to sign into their Google account. And under presentation, I also recommend that you come down to the confirmation message

and add something a little more custom. By default, Google Forms is going to say something like thanks for submitting this form. But in this case I want to make sure that they know I'm going to get back to them with a quote within the next 48 hours.

The last thing that we need to do when it comes to Google Forms before we jump into our CRM system is come up here to responses. And in the top right hand corner

you will see this Google Sheets icon. By clicking on this icon it is going to create a Google sheet for you. This is actually what your CRM system is going to be looking at

when it comes to sending information over. You can always come in here and review the data yourself but this is exactly what we are going to be syncing with our CRM tool.

Making the connection within your CRM

Now that we have everything set up within our Google form let's jump into our CRM system. Now for this example, I'm using Crmble, C-R-M-B-L-E. And within your CRM system things may look a little bit different, but essentially the steps are exactly the same.

First things first, we're going to want to look at our integrations. Now here within Crmble, they refer to them as toppings. And under those integrations, you're going to want to look for something that says Google Forms] or intake forms sync, something where you can set up these settings.

Here I'm going to select on Google Forms, and it's going to open up a screen where I have an opportunity to link my account. I've already done so, but you may be prompted to link your Google account.] Wherever you created that Google form, you're going to need to link that account to your CRM.

Since I've already done so, the very next step is to add a new Google form. And the good news is is that you can usually create multiple forms that will sync with your CRM system.So I'm going to select this option here.

I'm going to choose the correct account because maybe I've synced multiple accounts. I'm going to select this account. Now that I've selected that, I can select a specific Google form spreadsheet.

Remember, we're not actually linking it to the form we're linking it to the spreadsheet

where the form is displaying those results. I can see all of the form spreadsheets

for that particular account, but the one that we want is the one at the very top, CRM intake form. The last step is going to ask us if we want to select a specific sheet in that form, because you may have different sheets or multiple sheets within a single form. We only have the one, so I just need to select Form Responses 1.

Mapping Form answers to CRM fields

And with that, now we move on to the step of mapping where those fields will end up

within our CRM system. So here under card details, this is where we have the opportunity to match those different columns and those different questions to fields within our CRM.

So when it comes to the name of my card, when it comes to the name of the deal, So here you can see not only the five questions but it's also included the timestamp which we're going to add a little later on. So I want the name

of my deal to be the name of the customer. And under the card description I'm going to add two different things. First I want to add if they answer that question about which products they're interested in, I want that to be displayed here, and I also want their comments to be displayed here as well. Remember, these are not required,

so maybe not every single submission will have them, but if they do, they'll show up here in the description. Keep in mind, you don't need to map everything. We only have a possible six items for us to map in this particular example, so you only need to map the things you need.

Next up, we have our contact fields and these are perhaps the most important. So name yes, we want to match with our name.m We want to match the phone number with the phone number and we want to match the email with the email, so that I have all of that information here within my CRM.

And in this case the only other thing I'm going to add is down under the deal fields where where under creation date I want that to be tied to the timestamp. So when that form was submitted is going to be the creation date here within my form. With everything mapped the way I want all I need to do is come down here and select update,

and now my form is ready to go.

Testing the form to CRM connection

So let's go ahead and fill in a sample form and see how it is displayed right here within my CRM. So here is how my Google form will look like to my potential customers. So let's get started. I'm going to enter in a name. I'm going to say that we are filling this in for Wendy Bakersfield. That sounds like a bit of a baker's name.

And we're going to enter in Wendy's email address here. I'm going to say that that is her email address. Phone number 555… And then what products are we wanting to distribute? Well, let's say in this case we're interested in cakes and cookies.

So I'm going to tick off both of those boxes. And down below maybe I'm going to say I need 100 of each before February 1st. Last but not least, I'm going to hit submit and there is my custom message so that the potential customer can feel confident that I've received it and will respond in a timely manner.

Now, jumping back into my Crmble CRM system under my very first stage called New Deals, here you can see at the bottom we have Wendy Bakersfield. And it's even telling me on the front of the card that the source is Google Forms.

I'm going to open up this card and we're going to see all of those details that were just submitted via the form. So right away under the description we have cakes and cookies, and we have her comments. I need 100 of each before February the 1st.

But perhaps most importantly I have all of her contact information right here her full name, her work number and her email all available to me at the click of a button. And the great thing about Crmble and most CRM systems

is that you can email them directly from here. More on that in just a moment. Now down below, here you can see we also have our source, Google Forms,

Using form data to add client value

and the creation date which is based on when they submitted that form.

Now that we have all of this valuable information which was submitted through the form we can update this entry with other details. So for example, Wendy has told me exactly what she is looking for and also the quantity. So I want to be able to quickly

and easily generate a quote for her. Well under products, I can click on my products

and start to add these items to build out that quote. So for example, I'm going to say

that she is looking for a cake. I'm going to add that as a item. I'm also going to update the quantity. She's looking for 100. I'm going to hit save. But she's also looking for cookies as well, so I'm going to add that item here.

Let me select cookie as the other product and let me update the quantity, also wanting 100 and save. Now here within my CRM system I have a total just a little over $2,200, so I can update the deal value which is going to update this entire entry. And now I have this at my fingertips,

so I can reference it, I can report on it, I can project what my earnings will be at the end of this month but I can also send this quote directly to the customer. Here, all I need to do is click on this Gmail icon and now I can input that information and email it directly to Wendy without having to leave my CRM.

Adding multiple contacts to CRM deals

One other bonus of using a CRM tool such as Crmble is that not only can you manage all of your products and services right here within the CRM system

but you can also add multiple contacts. So for example, maybe I'm used to dealing with Wendy's husband but Wendy was the one who submitted this request, even though I know I could reach out and communicate with either of them.

So what I'm going to do is select this add contact option here and in this case, I believe his name is John, that's right, John Bakersfield. So I'm going to add John to this entry as well so I can keep him in the loop.

If I don't get in touch with one of them I can always reach out to the other and I can have their contact information available to me immediately. Now, if you're looking for an easy to use CRM system that integrates seamlessly with Google Forms and Gmail be sure to check out Crmble at Crmble.com or click the link in the description down below.

And if you're really wanting to customize your Google forms and make them look amazing be sure to watch this video next. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Before you record with Loom

Do you want to record your screen,quickly, easily, and for free?  Well then Loom is probably the best option for you. So in this video I'm going to show you everything

you need to know to get started with Loom. (upbeat music) (air whooshing) Now, first things first, Loom is absolutely free for up to five minutes of video recording, and a total of 25 saved videos. And you can use Loom on any of your devices, including iOS and Android. For today's example, we're going to be looking at the desktop version,

but the features and functionality is essentially the same across the different systems. (air whooshing) So once Loom has been installed on your machine and you launch the Zoom app, you'll be presented with this dialogue.

You'll also noticed here in the left-hand corner of the screen you can see my webcam, and I also have some controls which are creeping out from the side of my screen. Now, first things first,

we need to decide what we want to record. By default, you typically will want to record both your screen and your camera, but that's not the only available options to us. By selecting this dropdown we can choose to only record the screen, which will make my webcam go away, or we can also choose to record just our webcam

if you simply want to record a video. But in this case, I do want to record both my screen and my camera, so I'm going to keep that selection here. Next up, we can choose if we want to record the entire screen or if we just want to record a particular window on our computer. If you want to customize the recording window, you will need to upgrade to their paid plan. Within this dialogue, the only other two settings

we want to pay careful attention to is our camera and our microphone.

Many of us may have multiple webcams or multiple microphones available to us,

so make sure you select the correct ones here.

Recording your screen and camera

(gentle percussion) After hitting the recording button, you will receive a brief countdown, three, two, one, and now we are recording my screen along with my video. So maybe I want to discuss this spreadsheet with one of my colleagues,

and I'm going to come in here and I can do whatever I want. I can change cells, I can go through a demo of a product, I can go to a web browser, whatever I want to.

You'll notice on the left-hand side of the screen I have my countdown because the free version gives us a maximum of five minutes, it's counting down from five minutes. And the little red square lets me know that we are recording.

If I hover my mouse over this area, I can choose to stop the recording or I can choose to restart, pause the video, or cancel the recording altogether. Now, if you do choose cancel, it will give us a prompt, are you sure you want to cancel or do you want to resume?

In this case, I'm going to select resume, but if you do choose stop it will stop the recording immediately. What can be very helpful is to use this pause button

because maybe I need to set something up on a new tab or a new application.

I can come over here, select pause on my screen, and now I can maybe come up here and select a filter or sort the screen by some other means before I go back to recording what I'm doing.

When I'm ready, all I need to do is come down here and select resume, and now I'm back to recording my screen. Now, whether you're in recording mode or in a pause mode, you can click and drag your webcam

and move it to a different part of the screen. This can be most helpful if you want to make sure that your webcam is not in the way of something that you are showing

as a part of your recording. When you're happy with your recording, all you need to do is come over here

Viewing your completed recording

and select stop recording. (gentle percussion) Once you have finished your Loom recording, Loom will open up that recording in a new browser tab. So here you can see we have a preview of our video recording. Now, perhaps the first thing you will want to do is give your recording a different name than the default up above.

As you can see, Recording Region Indicator and today's date is maybe not so helpful.

So I can click my cursor up here and maybe I'm going to say this is a Sheets Tips and Tricks video, something along those lines. I can click anywhere else and now that title has been saved.

It's going to indicate who made the recording, so all of your viewers will know when this recording was made. Within this screen, we can of course play back the recording, to make sure that this is something that we want to share, and we can also choose to watch it at a faster speed if we want to save some time.

Now, before we share this video with anyone, we may want to cut out a few different clips or shorten the video as a whole.

Trim and edit your recording

To do that, we want to come over here to the right-hand side and select trim and add clips. (gentle percussion) By selecting this option, we can take the total duration of the video and maybe I want to cut out the ending. So I'm going to click and drag my cursor, so now this is a minute and 30 in total rather than the nearly two minutes

that I have originally recorded. But in many cases, you don't want to just reduce the beginning or the end, maybe I want to take out this middle section. All I need to do is drag my cursor and find the place where I want to cut out.

So maybe I need to hit play just to make sure that I want to cut out this part here when I'm talking about the recording console. I'm going to select Split to Trim, and what that's going to do is going to cut a point right there.

Next up, I just need to find the place that I want to return to and I'm going to select Split to Trim here. Now you can see I have three distinct sections for my video, All I need to do is select this middle section here

and I'm going to select Delete that clip. It'll still be visible here, but you can see

that there is a lightly shaded area behind it. So if I start playing this clip here,

it will immediately jump to the very next section, so people who are viewing this video

will not see this component down below. While in this editing screen, you always have the option to undo or redo, or if I want to I can also revert to the original.

When I'm happy with my changes,

Sharing your video with others

all I need to do is select Save changes. (gentle percussion) Now that we're happy with our finished video, we can come up to the top right-hand corner and select the copy link, the link being copied to our clipboard. We can now share this video with anyone.

But if you want to adjust some of your sharing settings, you'll want to select the Share button. Here within the Share Dialogue, I can invite certain members of my team or input certain email addresses that I would like to share this video with.

Pay special attention to this bottom dropdown menu, you can see that by default,

anyone with the link can view it, but perhaps I only want to share this with members of my Loom Workspace, or only people that I've added up above. if that's the case, I can select these options down below. I can also make some tweaks such as sharing this video at a certain timeframe, this can be very helpful if you don't have time

to edit or trim your overall video, and you just want to start sharing the videoat a particular timestamp. We can click anywhere else on the screen and then be returned to our video editing options. Now, an additional benefit of using the Loom Screen Recording Service

Managing your video recordings

is that we can keep track of how often our videos have been watched, and also allow viewers to comment and also record their comments within the Loom Player.

On the left-hand side of the screen, all we need to do is select the My library section, and here we will see all of the videos which we have recorded within Loom. You will notice in the top right-hand corner of the screen, it lets me know that I have used 6 of my 25 free videos.

You can have a total of 25 videos, before you may need to delete some of these videos if you choose to stay within the free plan. So here on this video,

I can see that it has already been viewed, and someone has commented and reacted to it. So if I click on this video, I can go into those details, I can scroll down to the bottom and see exactly when they watched this video, 55 minutes ago.

I can see what comment they've added, and perhaps they've added their comment at a certain time. This can be especially beneficial if you want to see what people are commenting on, or if they're addressing something specifically in that video.

(air whooshing) Returning to the My library screen, we can also take some bulk actions on our videos. So if I select these three videos, for example, I can come down to the bottom, and I can either share them with specific people, or edit their settings as a whole.

I can choose to move them to a different folder, I can archive or delete those videos all with just a single click. And when I'm ready to record my next video, I can either launch it from my desktop, or I can select this record a video button here

in the lower left hand portion of my screen. (air whooshing) Now, if you have questions about how to use Loom for screen recording, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

And if you're interested in more free tools to make your life that much easier, be sure to watch this video next. Thank you so much for watching.

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

(upbeat music)

Intro

(upbeat ambient music) - It can be very difficult to get things done if your team isn't working together effectively. And if members of your team don't like the tools that you're using, well, good luck. But there's a reason why many teams consider walling

the best collaborative tool on the market, and I would tend to agree with them.

So in this video, I'm going to share five problems that walling solves so you and your team can focus more time on the work and less time on your tools. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And the first problem we want to address is getting your team involved

GETTING TEAM BUY-IN

and excited about the tools that you're using. Now if you've used another project management system, you know how complicated it can be to invite, and especially invite those who may be outside of your team, but you also wish to collaborate with.

Here at the top of my screen, I can see that there are three members who are assigned as a part of this wall. Yes, that's right,] workspaces within walling are referred to as walls and then each task or idea is referred to as a brick. If I want to add a new member to this wall, all I need to do is to type in their email address.

So maybe I'm going to invite my coworker, Diana. Now just before I hit invite, I can choose at what level I want to give her access. Do I want her to be able to edit everything on this wall, maybe only provide comments or just have view only access?

I can make that selection here and then select "Invite".] Of course, I can always come back and change that ability whenever I like, but it's a good idea to make that selection off the top. But what I really love about this is that I can also create a shareable link.

So let's say for example, I'm collaborating with an outside client. I don't want to invite them as a member, I just want to be able to give them a link because I think most of us understand the hassle of having to create a new account in a new system, which we have never used before.

So in this case, I'm going to enable the shareable link and now all I need to do is copy this link and I can send it via an email and they will have view only access to this wall. Easy, simple, straight to the point.

And perhaps when I'm finished working with that particular client, I can always come up here and disable that ability as well. So quick and easy ways to share things with teams and outside collaborators. The second problem that walling solves is a lack of visibility

EASY VISIBILITY & ASSIGNMENT

and the inability to assign specific things to members of your team. Here in this goal section, I have four different bricks and I've got a combination of notes and bullet points listed here.

Now in most project management tools, I would need to dive in deep to see who wrote what and who is the author of each of these notes. But in this case, walling keeps it front and center, so I can quickly and easily see who is the author of each and every one of these bricks.

But it goes one step further, let's say that I want to add somethingto this particular note. I'm going to come down here

and I'm going to say insert a bulleted list. And immediately you can see that my profile picture is attached to it. So if I start adding in some text as a note, people will see the difference between what my teammate has input and what I have shared as a part of this note.

Another difference with walling is the ability to assign tasks or assign things at a specific level. Too many project management systems force you to assign the entire task, or in this case the entire brick. Now I could come down here

and select "Assign To" and assign this to myself or someone else on my team, but what if I'm only going to take on this display testimonials? Well, I can do so here as well.

I'm going to select myself, and now everyone knows that I'm assigned only to that specific bullet point and I don't have to add additional notes, letting them know which one I'm going to take care of. A third problem that walling solves is keeping everything at the forefront

EASY ACCESS TO INFORMATION

so that users don't have to click in and out or dive deeper in to see the information that they're looking for. In this example here, I've got a combination of some checklists, but also some content that is linked to another article.

And rather than having to open up this particular task to dive in to see all of those details, I can see that on the front of each and every one of these bricks. Not only does that save an awful lot of time, but it prevents users from bypassing important information.

Now if you prefer, you can always minimize any of your bricks. So if I think that this checklist is a little too lengthy, I can come up here and collapse it. And if I don't want to see this article preview, I can collapse that as well.

So now I'm just limited to the title of each of these bricks, but you can expand them in just a click rather than having to open up

or expand something in a entire new dialogue, walling keeps it simple and straight to the point so you can see exactly what you're looking for. Now when you're collaborating with a team, it's of great importance, the ability to highlight

GROUPING AND ORGANIZATION

or to make certain ideas or tasks stand out. In this example, you can see that I've made this particular brick a shade of blue, and maybe anything that has this preferred in the title, I'd like it to stand out by having a similar shade.

And you can choose from a wide variety of colors as you can see here. But in addition to color shading, of course, we can also use tags. So in this case, I'm going to come up to the top left hand corner, select "Add Tags" and I can choose one of the predefined options, which I've created in advance, or I can create my own.

So if I need to highlight something as urgent and also be able to search on this tag, I can quickly and easily do that right here within walling. Now when it comes to true team collaboration, it really all revolves around communication. And with that, walling has this covered

FLEXIBLE COMMUNICATION

in a number of different ways. In most project management systems, you're only permitted to comment on each individual item. So for example, I might have to add a general comment, even though I'm only talking about one aspect here. But just like

with assigning ourselves to individual components, we can do the same thing with comments. So maybe I want to ask my teammate, "What exactly does she mean

by making the website designed trustworthy?" I can come in here and add a comment specifically just to that line item, and I can assign them if I want to as well.

And in addition to just being specific as to where you add your comments, you can also resolve those comments as well.

So you don't always have to have a long list of a discussion, especially if something has been completed. But if you also want to communicate with your team at a workspace level, walling has you covered here as well.

Here near the top of the screen, I can select on the wall discussion, and here I can have a broad conversation with my entire team, not just on a specific task, but maybe something in general. And if I need to address certain people directly, I can do that here as well.

Now you can get started with walling for absolutely nothing. The free plan gives you up to 100 bricks and unlimited walls, but if you need more, you can upgrade to premium at only $5 a month, which is really a fraction of what most other tools are charging.

To learn more and to get started, go to walling.app or click the link in the description down below. And if you have suggestions for other tools and apps I should cover here on the Simpletivity channel, be sure to let me know in the comments.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember, (upbeat ambient music) being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.

Time blocking is one of the most effective ways to ensure that you can get everything done. So for example, if I want to make sure that I'm prepared for this meeting, maybe I'm going to block out some time in advance to review the budget

so I can assign a specific time and make sure I accomplish that task. But there's a problem, I don't work exclusively out of my calendar and neither do you. You're probably using a combination of project management tools, a to-do list app

and especially communication tools such as your email account or Slack. So what if there was a tool that brought all of these apps together so you could work in just one place? (gentle music) Well, there is, and it's called Akiflow.

Here I am within my Akiflow account and I already have my calendar synced. So no matter what I do here, either within Akiflow or within my calendar, it will stay perfectly synced. But more importantly, here on the left hand side, I have some specific tasks from a variety

of different other apps that I can access here. But better yet, I can click and drag and bring them directly onto my calendar. So for example, maybe I work with my team using Trello.

I obviously get a lot of requests and tasks through my email account, I also use Todoist for my personal tasks and maybe I'd like to take notes and do more detailed brainstorming within Notion.

Well, now I have access to all of those apps right here and then I can drag them and block time off on my calendar automatically. But it's better than just dragging and putting things on my calendar.

Anything that I do here will remain synced with those other applications. So let's take a look at Todoist as an example. So for example here, I have a task called Proofread This Marketing Book, this specific chapter.

Well, I want to make sure that I get this accomplished before I have this breakfast with Kelly. So I've got a little bit of time tomorrow afternoon. All I need to do is click and drag it and bring it onto my calendar.

And maybe it's going to take a little more than an hour. So I'm going to give myself a full 90 minutes to accomplish this task. But you know what? I also need to change this a little bit because I need to review chapter seven and chapter eight.

So I'm going to include that here in the title. The best thing is, is that everything

is going to stay perfectly synced. So now when I jump over to my Todoist account,

not only has the task been updated with that new chapter but the due date is also updated tomorrow at 1:00 PM. What if I want to make a change on this side? No problem. I got to hit the the edit icon here and I'm going to change that due date

to maybe later this week on Wednesday, I'm going to hit save. And now let's jump back to our Akiflow screen. And now you can see everything remains in the right place. So no matter where you edit this particular task, it will always remain in sync.

Now, one of your questions is probably, why aren't you seeing all of your emails

or perhaps all of your tasks for a particular Trello board? Well, the great thing with Akiflow is that you can choose what you see and what will be imported into your Akiflow account.

If I jump into my settings, here you can see the five different apps in which I have connected, but you can add a variety of additional apps and almost anything via Zapier.

So if I open up my Trello account, for example, here you can see I've only chosen to sync my team tasks board and I only want to see the tasks that are assigned to me. So maybe this particular board has a number of different tasks, but I don't want to see all of them.

I only want to see the ones that are assigned to me. And if I want to bring in other boards, I can enable them here and have different import settings depending on my needs.

If I jump over here to my Notion account, for example, I can choose to add multiple workspaces and configure how they are synced. So for example, there is a variety of details which we can choose based on completion and based on other custom import filters.

Lastly, within my Gmail account, I can either choose to add a new label within Gmail called Akiflow. So anything where that is applied will be synced or you can simply have every email that is starred to sync and import to your Akiflow account.

And that's what I've chosen here. With these settings configured to my liking, I can now start to drag these different tasks onto my calendar. So for example, maybe I'm going to make this phone call or later today maybe there's an email that I need to review.

I'm going to tuck that one down here in the afternoon but it's not going to take me a full hour. I'm just going to give myself 30 minutes for that and maybe I'm going to drag this Notion task to tomorrow afternoon.

So now I've blocked out time within a relatively busy schedule, but I can make sure that I can accomplish these other tasks, even though they reside in other applications.

And if you want to look at more details, remember you're always one click away from going directly to that task. So in this case, if I want to review what this Gmail Security Alert is all about, all I need to do is select it and it will automatically bring me to that application so I can review the details of that particular task Another added bonus is that Akiflow will give you a gentle notification reminder for all of your upcoming events and tasks.

So for example, here you can see, no matter what screen that I'm on,] I'm going to receive this notification in the top right hand corner. And because Akiflow is a desktop app, you'll be able to see this wherever you are.

You don't need to be just in your browser. Now keep in mind, not all of your tasks need to originate from an outside app. You can add tasks and events directly from within Akiflow, at the top of your screen, you can launch the command bar or select alt space on your keyboard.

And the best thing here is you can input your tasks using a natural language. So maybe I need to call Brian tomorrow at 10:00 AM. Why don't I just type it in the way that I want to, hit enter, and now immediately that task is added to my calendar. So a very quick and easy way to block out time

on your calendar without needing to use your mouse at all. So if you're a busy individual and want an easier way to bring all of your apps together and block out time, check out Akiflow.

To get started, go to Akiflow.com or click the link in the description down below. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple. (gentle music)

Add a series in seconds

[Scott] Do you want to save time while using Google Sheets? Well, in this video,

I'm sharing with you seven tips and tricks so you can get in, get out, and get on with the rest of your day. (gentle upbeat music) Tip number one, let's take advantage of series.

And what do I mean by series? Often you may need to create a long list of numbers or maybe things such as the days of the week, months, or year. And rather than coming up here and typing in the numbers by two, let's say I want to have a list here of even numbers.

Better yet, all I need to do is select those numbers, come down here, and then drag this little, blue box as far down as I need to and let go, and now I have that full list of numbers here.

Days of the week, for example, maybe I'm going to start by typing in Monday, and then the day Tuesday, all you need is a minimum of two. And now all I need to do is come here and drag it down, and once again, I've got every single day of the week in order.

Now, when it comes to months, I'm going to do something a little bit different here, because let's say I want each month at the start of the quarter. So I can start off with the first month of the year, which is January, but I'm going to put in the month of April, because that's the start of Q2.

Now what I can do is drag over these two and then start to drag down, and you will see that it is doing the math for me, it's taking the month from the beginning of each quarter

and has just repeated it down below.

Clean up your sheet

Tip number two, let's clean up our data and remove any duplicates. When you have a long list of data, sometimes it can be very difficult to see if you have any duplicate entries. But on top of that, as you can see in my example, I've got a few cells here where things are unevenly spaced.

It looks like there's a few too many space characters here where this pencil, for example, should be aligned, and this name of Jones shouldn't be sticking out like this either. Well, all we need to do is come up to Data, and then come down here to Data Cleanup.

Now we can either select Remove Duplicates or Trim the Whitespace, but I'm going to suggest that you do Cleanup Suggestions 'cause that's going to allow us to look at everything on this sheet.

So for example, it's telling me that I do have duplicate rows, that row 21 and 45 are the exact same. And you can see if I hover over it with my mouse, it's going to show me where those rows are located. I can either choose to ignore this, or I can select Remove and it will remove the duplicate for me. Next up, it's identified a few cells

where there is some additional white space here. We can see that Jones, and if I hover over it, it's going to show me what it's going to do by removing that white space, and then a few other places as well.

At this point, I can either choose this check mark to accept all of these suggestions or I can choose them by each individual column. So first starting with column C, and then I could come down here

and select Trim All for column D.

Quickly filter your data

Tip number three, let's make better sense of all of this information by filtering our data. The easiest way to filter our information is to come up here to the top-left hand corner, select it, which is going to select every cell on the sheet, and then come over here and select Create a Filter.

You'll now see that we have this little Filter icon at the top of each of our headers. So for example, maybe I only want to see units sold that are above 50. I'm going to come up here, I'm going to select that filter, and in this case I'm going to say Filter by Condition.

So I'm going to select this dropdown and I'm going to say, greater than or equal to, and I'm going to type in the number 50. I'm going to select OK, and immediately my data set is reduced. Now I am only seeing the rows which have units with 50 or more, but maybe I want to go one step further.

I want to continue to see this, but I also want to see the things that only cost more than $10. So I'm going to come over here to the unit cost. Again, in this case I'm going to choose Filter by Condition. 

You can choose to sort it if you like or maybe just zero in on a particular price point, but I want to be a little more granular. So I'm going to say greater than, and in this case I'm going to type in my value, which is going to be 10.

I'm going to say OK, and perfect. Now I only have the items that have sold more than 50 units and that cost more than $10. Now the great thing is, is that you can save your filters.

o if I want to save this as a filter view, so maybe I want to call it something like 50+ units, something along those lines, and then I can quickly and easily come back to it. Now another great way to save time within Google Sheets is by sharing your sheets with others.

But if you're a part of a remote team, there may be an even better way, and that is by using a virtual workspace. Here I am within SpatialChat, and not only do I have one, but two of my Google Sheets visible to me.

And not only are they visible, but they're editable as well, so I can work in real time with members of my team. But in addition to bringing in as many Google Docs or Sheets, you can bring in any application into your virtual workspace.

Want to edit your Miro board or review that video? No problem. Need to access Notion or share code with your team? You got it. SpatialChat is the ideal solution for teams who need to collaborate in real time. To learn more about SpatialChat and to get started with their free plan, click the link in the description below.

Make columns freeze in place

Tip number four, let's freeze certain columns so that we can keep relevant information in front of us. When working with sheets, it is very common to have many different columns, which is going to force you to scroll to the right-hand side of the screen.

But what if I want to make sure that I can align this information with my particular sales reps? Well, here you can see the sales rep information is in column C.

All I need to do is come over here and hover my cursor right over here, and then drag this bar until it's between column C and D. Now, these first three columns will remain frozen.

With these three columns frozen into view, I can scroll as far as I like to the right-hand side and see the association between these cells and these particular sales reps.

Now, if I only care about the date, again, I can come up and hover over this thick, gray line and drag it to, let's say, the first column, and now only that first column will be frozen as I analyze and make use of this sheet.

Make your sheets easier to read

Tip number five, let's make our data that much easier to read. When you're working with a spreadsheet, especially with a long list, it can be hard to differentiate the different rows and columns.

But all we need to do is apply alternating colors to make each row stand out that much more. So in order to have our rows and columns stand out, the first step is to select where you would like these alternating colors to appear.

So I'm going to select these first columns here. Then, I'm going to come up to Format, and I'm going to select Alternating Colors. Here on the right-hand side, we have a menu which is going to pop up with a number of defaults.

Now the very first default here is just sort of a gray scale, so we have a darker shade for our header, and then sort of an alternating between a white and a light gray just so it's that much easier to read these numbers. But there's a number of different color schemes which we can choose from.

Maybe I'm going to select this orange shade here, and if I like, I can tweak the different colors here as well. I can select Done, and now we have this alternating pattern in front of us which is going to make it a lot easier for us to pick out a particular row and find that information.

Create drop-down menus

Tip number six, let's add a dropdown menu so we don't have to manually enter in everything, and also make sure that we have the correct formatting. Here you can see I've added a column called a product line. And what I'm going to do is first off

is I'm going to select where I would like that dropdown to be. So I'm going to select that area, and then I'm going to come up here to Data and I'm going to come down here and select Data Validation. So I've already selected the area. If I need to adjust that, I can select the data range again. Now, I can either choose a list from a range in my sheet, so maybe I have a list of the things that I'd like to include in that dropdown menu, I could select them here. But I haven't created that yet, so I'm going to select this dropdown and I'm going to come down and select a list of items. So here I can type in what I want available within that dropdown. So maybe I have a consumer product line, I'm going to enter in a comma to space between the options. Maybe I have a small business product line, and then I also have an enterprise product line as well. So I'm going to type that in here as well. At the end of entering in my options,

I'm going to select Save. And now you can see I have a small dropdown arrow within the selected cells. So I can select that, and I have those three options now available to me. Maybe this is for small business, this is for consumer, and this one here is also for consumer.

Visualize your data

Number seven, column stats. When you're dealing with a large quantity of information, it can be hard to see any particular themes. But if you select any of your columns, then come up to Data, and then come down to Column Stats, a new window will open in the right-hand side of your screen.

Within this view, I can quickly see the count or distribution of the different items in that column. Now, pay special attention. You may wish to ignore the first row, because that's my header in this case,

but now I can quickly see that I have more binders in this column and only three desks in total. If I scroll down a little bit further, I can actually hover over these different values and see exactly where they are listed within that particular column,

along with their specific number. And if you'd like to see the stats of other columns,

all you need to do is come up to the very top and select the left or right arrow.

So here I can quickly see my regions, for example. And if you want to save even more time within Google Sheets, make sure that you get familiar with pivot tables. Don't know how to use a pivot table? Then watch this video next where I show you everything you need to know.

And remember being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple. (gentle upbeat music)

Let participants see what's coming next

Are you an online trainer, workshop facilitator, or perhaps a coach? Well, if you do any type of virtual training, this video is for you because I'm going to share with you five key elements which is going to make your next training so much more memorable.

So let's dive in. Tip number one, use an agenda. But wait, it's probably not what you're thinking. I don't mean just add something to your slide deck or send out a document in advance. I mean, use an agenda within your session.

Now in this example, I'm using a virtual meeting tool called Butter, which is great because not only can I create an agenda in advance, but I can add facilitator notes so I know exactly where I am and what I need to remember along the way.

But better yet, I can create an agenda which is visible to my participants so they can see where we are going and what is going to be happening next. So, for example, I've broken my agenda out into several different components and I've even given them an estimated time.

So if I'm going to get started with my welcome all I need to do is hit this play button. And you can see that this timer has now started. I've estimated that this is going to take me about five minutes, but what's even better is at the very bottom of the screen, I can see my estimated end time that my entire workshop should finish at about 10:18.

And then on the right-hand side, it's going to give me a status update. So for the time being, I'm on time, which is great. But most importantly, you want to know if you can keep things on track.

So, for example, if I finish my welcome a little early and I'm going to move onto my next area, which is called check-in, it now says that I'm ahead by four minutes so I can see at a glance where I am, making sure  that I can keep everything on time.

Get your participants involved early

Tip number two, get your participants involved and contributing as early as possible.

And I recommend using a quick poll to do so. Here, again, within Butter, I can set up my polls in advance. So you can see that I have an activity here during the check-in phase. All I need to do is hit start. And now that poll is open and available for everyone to contribute.

In this case, I've asked them a very simple one word answer

which I can display in either a word cloud or in a standard list view. And, of course, you can choose if you'd like to make those answers anonymous, so people may feel

a little more comfortable in contributing. But it's so important to get your participants involved interacting with your meeting application and interacting as a group so you can spark further discussion within your workshop.

Don't be afraid to share a timer

Now, tip number three is about using a timer not just to keep yourself on task

but to make sure to keep your participants on task as well. Here we can see we've moved onto another section within my training, and I'd like to spend a little bit of time discussing with my participants, but in order to make sure that we have enough time

for the other elements and the other activities, I've included a three minute timer.

So I'm going to select start in this case. And at the very bottom of the screen you can see that a timer is now visible to everyone not just myself as a facilitator. And you can also see that there is a nice visual indicator so that people can see when we are nearing the end.

Having a visible timer can encourage participants who perhaps have not contributed to the discussion to get their comments in before the timer is up.

This can also be a great way to help reduce those very chatty or perhaps overly talkative participants from wrapping up their comments so that, again, we can all stay on track within the training.

Now, Butter makes it very easy for us if I need to add an additional minute. Perhaps the discussion is very fruitful and we want to keep things going or I can always pause the timer or stop it at any time.

But adding a timer to certain elements to your training can be a great way to keep everyone on track.

Share content the right way

Number four, include video and other dynamic content as a part of your training. Now, of course, some facilitators are often hesitant to share video during an online meeting. It forces them to have to have another tab open to queue up that video.

And often the experience is rather poor for participants on the other side, but Butter makes it super easy. Here you can see that I've added this YouTube video in advance, so I don't need to remember anything.

In fact, I don't even need to open up another tab. That's right. I'm not even sharing my screen. When it comes to this point in the training, all I need to do is select start, and immediately that video will open up

right here within Butter, and the video will begin to play. With this integrated video player, all participants will be able to see and view your video as if they were watching YouTube on their own desktop.

It's seamless for you as you launch the video and the quality is the best it can be for those who are on the other end. But don't just stop with video. You can bring in other interactive elements and other apps

that you use all the time directly into Butter. In this case, perhaps I want to gather some of the key points from our discussion. Here, I've opened up a Google Doc, but you'll notice I haven't opened up another tab.

Here, I can edit and get others to contribute to this Google Doc in real time, and then have something that I can send out immediately after this training session. Whether it's Google Drive, Miro, or many other applications, you can bring them in directly into Butter so it's a seamless experience for both you and your attendees.

Breakouts for deeper understanding

Next up, let's make sure that your attendees have an opportunity to share with one another in breakout rooms. Now, I know with some other applications, including Zoom and Microsoft Teams, breakout rooms can not only be a little intimidating, but they can be a little difficult to set up.

But here, within Butter, you can set up your rooms, name them, and customize them in advance. So when I'm ready to get started with this Q&A portion of my training, I'm going to select start here.

Within the breakout room overview page I can see everything that's going on. Here we are in the main room, but I've created three rooms in advance. Maybe I want them to assign themselves depending on the size of their team.

So I have three rooms labeled small, medium, and large, and I'm going to give them the opportunity to join the one that's the best fit for them. Once my attendees have assigned themselves to their appropriate breakout rooms, I've got a master bird's eye view of what's going on.

I can either go ahead and join each room individually or if I want to observe without making my presence known I can do so by hitting the observe button. I can also communicate directly with each room. When it's time to end the breakout room,

all I need to do is come up to the top of the screen and say, yes, let's end this session.

And in a matter of seconds, people will be brought back to the main room.

Use templates to save time

Last but not least, the agenda and all of the components which I've been showing you in this video can be saved as a template. So if you're delivering the same training

or the same workshop again and again you can access all of your materials and start that next session in a matter of seconds. And best of all, Butter is absolutely free

for up to 100 participants and a 60 minute meeting. So if you'd like to get started with Butter, go to butter.us, or click the link in the description down below. And if you'd like to learn even more free websites to help you with your workday, be sure to click on this video next.

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

Create email distribution groups This video is brought to you by Crmble, the powerful yet easy to use CRM. Want to get more out of Google Contacts? Well, in this video, I'm sharing with you seven tips and tricks so you can work faster, smarter, and get the most out of Google contacts.

Tip number one. Let's use labels to make email so much easier. Now, labels here within Google Contacts is a great way to organize all of your contacts information. For example, I've got a label called Follow-Up so I can quickly see the individuals I need to follow up with.

And I've got another one called New Leads. But these labels are so much more than just organizing our contacts or putting contacts into different groups. For example, I have one here called Client Team. But this really becomes powerful when I combine it with my email.

Here within my Gmail account, when I go to select who I'm going to send this message to, all I have to do is start to type in the name of that label. And here it is, Client Team.

And it shows me, it has six members. By selecting this, all six members of my team are added to my email and now I can continue to write this particular message.

Make your group labels stand out

Tip number two. Making our labels stand out. Now you can add as many labels as you want. But as you can see here, it's hard to distinguish between our different labels. Google Contacts doesn't give us the ability to add a color like we can within Gmail.

And if we look at our list here on the right hand side, it's very difficult for me to see how many different labels are actually displayed here. And even reading between the different ones can be often confusing.

Well, there is a workaround that we can use that will make things stand out so much better. So for example, maybe I want my New Leads label to stand out not only on my list here on the right hand side,

but maybe also here in my list of labels on the left side menu. What I'm going to do is select Rename Label and I'm going to put my cursor at the very end of the label. Now, on a Windows keyboard, if you select the Windows Key + the Period key, that will bring up the emoji dialogue.

And if you're a Mac user, you can select Control + Command + Spacebar. And in this case, I'm going to select this red circle here and I'm going to hit Save. Now we have a very distinctive color and shape at the back of this label.

It will not only appear in the list, but it will appear here on the left hand side as well. So it's very easy for me to see these new leads. Now you can either do this for just some of your key labels or you can do it for all of your labels if you like.

Here within my Client Team, let's do this again. And perhaps I'm going to select this laptop or keyboard and hit Save. And once again, it makes it that much more distinct.

Now, the reason why I recommend adding your emojis to the end of your label is because if you add them at the front, it will reorder your labels based on the actual name of that emoji. So for example, if this emoji is named laptop, it's going to treat this label as an L. And that would be sorted now down further below. So put your emojis at the very end and make your label stand out even more.

Customize the display order

Number 3. Let's customize the display order of our contacts. Here in the top right hand corner, you will see these little three dots which will reveal our list settings.

We have two options available to us. Number one is display density. By default, it'll be set as comfortable. But if you'd like to see more contacts at a time, you can select Compact. It essentially will remove the little picture profile icon and make things that much closer together. But if you don't like that, we can always come back

to Display Density and come back to our comfortable view. The second option here has to do with changing the column order. If I select this option here, you can see the five different choices we have available to us.

So for example, maybe I want my labels to come before the email address. I can drag and reorder these columns any way that I'd like. And instead of the job title and company, maybe I would like the phone number displayed instead. All I need to do is select Done.

And now both my order and what is displayed is changed based on my preferences. Sticking with customizing our view, remember that you can also view your names in either first name or last name order. To do that, we want to move up up to the gear icon

‍

and select More Settings. Within this dialogue, we can change the Phone number Country code, but also choose how we want our name sorted either by first name or by last name.

Delegate access to others

Tip number 4, delegating access to someone else. Now, if you use Google Contacts within your work, school or other group environment, you can delegate access to someone else within your domain. This is very helpful if you work with a virtual assistant or someone else who would like to have access to your contact list.

In this case, what we need to do is select the gear icon and then select Delegate access. And here you'll have the opportunity to invite one or more people to have access to your contacts so that they can view, edit, delete,

Open contacts shortcut key

and also create contacts. Now, the next tip in our list is one of my all time favorites

and probably the one that I use most frequently. More often than not, I want to access my Google Contacts while I'm dealing with my email here within Gmail.

Now, it's true. I could come over here to the sidebar and select contacts, but I don't have all of these same options available to me here. I could also come up to the very top, select Google apps and then select Contacts.

But the fastest way to get into Google Contacts from Gmail is to select the keys G C on your keyboard. By entering G C on your keyboard, it will immediately open up Google Contacts in a new tab. This is a quick and easy way for you to get exactly what you want whenever you are within Gmail.

Find and merge duplicates

Tip number 6, merge and fix. One of the strongest features of Google Contacts

is its ability to look out for duplicates, so you can do your best to keep your contact list clean and accurate. Here in our menu, just below contacts and frequently contacted, you'll see an area called Merge and Fix.

And if there's a number beside it, it means that it's identified one or more that it may think is a duplicate. By selecting this option here, you can see that I have two different contacts here with the exact same name and they also share one of the same email addresses.

Now, I have the opportunity to review this first and decide whether it is in fact two separate people

and then I could select Dismiss. Or, I can see that wait a minute, this is the same individual, but I want to keep the information. I'd like to combine these new email addresses along with this phone number. In that case, all I need to do is select Merge.

And if you have multiple duplicates, you can always select Merge all here in the top right corner.

Undo changes from the past

Tip number 7, undo Changes. A little known fact among Google Contacts users is that you can go back in time. So if you've made a number of changes, if you've given someone else access, or you just want to go back to the way things were, you can do so right here within Google Contacts.

Up in our Gear icon, if we select this and then select Undo Changes, it's not just going to revert the last thing that you did. By selecting this option, we will get a new dialogue where we can select a timeframe.

So maybe you just want to change the things you've done in the last 10 minutes. You can select this first option here, but you can extend it out to a few hours to a week to even a custom timeframe within the last 30 days.

Now note, contacts that have been deleted forever from trash cannot be recovered. But all other contacts and changes can by selecting this option. But what if Undo changes is just not enough? And perhaps you're struggling to manage all of your clients and customers here within Google Contacts.

Well then crmble CRM may be a better solution for you. Here I am within my crmble contacts where I can quickly and easily search for any of my contacts. But beyond just seeing their contact information, I can get valuable insights

into my relationship with my clients. On the right hand side, I can see the deals associated with this individual including where they are and the value of those deals.

In addition, I can see valuable reports and information about my sales funnel

so I can be sure to reach out and connect with my clients when and where I need to.

If you are looking for something more than just a contact list and needs something simple and easy to use, you should check out crmble CRM. To learn more, just go to crmble.com or click the link in the description down below.

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

Create areas of focus

Do you want to create a plan that will stick but also evolve with your changing needs? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to use an online whiteboard to create a plan that you can come back to again and again.

So, let's dive in. Now, in this example, we're using a tool called Miro. And one of the reasons why I love using an online whiteboarding tool such as Miro is because of its flexibility.

As you can see here, I've broken out my yearly plan into five different categories just using a very simple diagram structure. I've got work, finances, health, personal, and relationships.

Now of course, you can add many more categories than this or change these all together depending on your needs. But one of the great things about using a online whiteboarding tool is that I can group these activities together.

So for example, maybe I want work and finances on the left-hand side of my screen and then I can just move these ones up over here on the right-hand side. Any way that you'd like to order or perhaps reorder these areas, you can quickly and easily do so.

But before we start planning for the coming year, let's do a super quick year in review.

Take a look back

In order to do so, what I'm going to do is actually copy this first diagram and paste it down below. The reason being is that I want to come back to this in just a few minutes time, but we're going to come back up to this top one and I'm going to rename this.

I'm going to call this now Year in Review because if you want to plan your best year ever, I think you need to take just a few minutes to take a look back at the previous year.

So here, what I like to do is go through each category and just highlight some of the wins and losses or pros and cons. So when it comes to work, maybe, I'm going to highlight that yes, we hired an editor, that was certainly a win.

I can just hit enter on my keyboard. Maybe another win is that we hit 300,000 subscribers on the channel. That was another big win, but I also like to highlight the cons as well. And so maybe we missed our revenue target, for example.

So, that was something that was a bit of a disappointment. Now, in order to separate out the winds from the losses, what I'm going to do here is highlight these first two and I'm going to give them a slightly different color.

I'm going to give them this greenish color here. But for the loss or for the con, I'm going to choose this reddish color so I can highlight both the things that went well and then the things that didn't go so well.

Now remember, the key reason for spending time on this year in review is so that you can set relevant goals for the coming year based on things that have been either successful or maybe not as successful in the past. In fact, I've found that some

of my most important goals have come from this review process.

Identify important goals

Next, we can scroll down and start to plan for the coming year.

And one of the nice things here when it comes to focusing is that we can zoom in and out quite easily. So if we just want to focus on our work goals, we can do so. But if I quickly have an idea

about a goal for my relationships or my personal life, I can add that here quickly and easily.

So when it comes to planning for the future, all I need to do is hit this little plus button, and this time around, I'm going to start my goals with a G and A colon to signify that this is going to be a goal for that area. I'm using this G at the beginning

because I'm going to separate this out from the actions which are actually going to be the tasks or specific projects that I'm going to engage with. So maybe one of my goals is to increase revenue by 10% in the coming year. I'm going to hit Enter here.

I'm going to again select G and A colon and I'm going to say I'm going to hire a virtual assistant. That's another one of my goals in the coming year. But remember, goals are really hard to achieve in the short-term, so we want to be able to break this out even further.

Decide actionable steps

So the next level down, I'm going to use the letter A for action. And so maybe the action here, how am I going to increase my revenue? Maybe I'm going to launch a new course is one way that I'm going to do so.

I'm going to use that A and A colon again. And maybe another thing is I'm going to deliver more workshops or more live workshops in the coming year as well. So here, we have the high level goal under my Work category but these are some of the ways, these are some of the actionable steps I'm going to take in order to increase my revenue by 10%.

Now, you may be asking yourself as you start to add more and more things to your plan, you're going to have quite the spider web of details. And although you can drag things around

to make it look a bit neater, don't forget you can always minimize any of these areas.

So if I want to minimize that goal here, for example or if I want to minimize all of my goals and actions, I can do so under the Work category and then maybe I can come down here and focus on finances. But if I want to expand that, if I want to see what those actionable steps are,

Connect the past to the future

I can do that here as well. The other nice thing I love about using an online whiteboarding tool such as Miro is that we can make connections between different parts of our plan.

So, maybe I want to remind myself, why are we increasing the revenue by 10%? Well, the big reason is because we missed our target last year. So, what I'm going to do is come over here and choose this line tool And I'm going to make a connection between these two. So now, if I need to go back or realize, "Oh,

why are we doing this? Or how are we going to overcome this particular missed target? I can see that connection here. Last but not least, as you keep coming back to your plan throughout the year, there is that satisfaction of crossing things off.

Complete your tasks

So in this case, I'm going to come up here and I'm going use the strike through feature so I can say, "Yes, I've launched that new course, that action has been taken." Now, if you'd like to start planning with Miro for free, just go to Miro.com and if you'd like to learn other ways on how you can make use of an online whiteboard, be sure to watch this video next.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.