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Open Last Closed Tab

You probably spend an awful lot of time within your web browser; whether it's for work or maybe research, or maybe just entertainment, we spend an awful lot of time with our tabs and our information here within Google Chrome.

So, in this video, I want to share with you seven of the most useful keyboard shortcuts, so you can save time while using Google Chrome. Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

Now, most of the shortcuts that we're going to be dealing with in today's video are the same for both Windows and Mac users. Instead of Control on a Windows machine, you're going to, of course, use the Command button.

But if there are any differences, I'll do my best to highlight them. So, let's start off with keyboard shortcut number one, and that has to do with retrieving your last closed tab. How often have you been working on something and maybe accidentally closed a tab or maybe you just closed the tab a little bit earlier

and, "Oh, where did it go and how do I get back to it?" Well, all you need to do is select Control + Shift + T and that will reopen your last closed tabs.

So, this can be really useful if you either make an accident by closing something that you didn't mean to or maybe you've been working away for a little while and realize, "Oh, that would still be helpful if I did Control + Shift + T." Now the great thing is, is that you can continue to go back here.

You can see that I actually went back to another tab that was closed and I can actually continue to do so to continue to go back to other things

that I've closed in the past. So, even if you've closed two, or three, or more tabs,

you can use either Control + Shift + T on a Windows machine or Command + Shift + T on a Mac.

Close the Active Tab

Now, number two on our list has to do with the exact opposite and that has to do with closing the active tab. Now, of course, you're very used to this, going up to your tab

and finding the one that you need to. And if I'm on this particular page, if I come up here and click on this little X, but often depending on your screen size, this little X can be really small that wastes an awful lot of time. Well, instead of finding my cursor

and having to bring it all the way up here, all I need to do is select Control + W and that will close the active tab, whatever you're viewing at that particular time. So, if I'm on this hotels.com site, and I say, Control + W, that's instantly going to close that tab.

I don't have to use my mouse, I don't have to come up here and find that little X, and again, if I want to retrieve it, hey, let's go back to tip number one and I can bring it right back to me.

Jump Between Next and Previous Tabs

Next up on our list, we have a shortcut key, which is going to help us save time when we are moving through our different tabs. Sometimes, you may be giving a presentation, or maybe you just need to go back and forth between a few tabs. So, instead of using our cursor and always having to bring it up to the top of the screen,

especially if we're doing something down here below, instead, we can hit Control + Page Up or Control + Page Down. If I select Control + Page Down, it's going to move it to the right. If I select Control + Page Up, it's going to move it to the left.

So, I can either quickly cycle through a number of my tabs or I can go back and forth depending on the direction that I want to go. Now, if you're a Mac user, it's going to be slightly different. You're going to select Command + Option plus your right or left arrows, depending on the direction that you want to go.

One of the ways in which I make use

of this keyboard shortcut is whenever I'm sharing something on Zoom or video conferencing. So, for example, rather than having participants always see my cursor, right? Always see it come up here and showing the different tabs, all I need to do is use those keys and I can go back and forth between maybe two or three particular websites that I've set up in advance.

So, maybe I want to show them a map, then I want to quickly show them a video, and then I want to show them something else

and go back and toggle between a few different pages. It allows me to free myself up from using the mouse. And also, my viewers don't have to see my cursor on the screen at all times.

Open the Downloads Page

Next up, we have a shortcut key which is going to help us manage our downloads that much quicker and easier. Now, when you're browsing around and downloading things, whether that may be a file, or a PDF, or maybe a picture, as in this example,

you're probably used to seeing the Menu at the bottom of the screen. So for example, here, I'm going to save this image as, and I'm going to say, "Yeah, we can save it there." I'm going to hit Save. At the bottom of my screen here, you can see that image. The browser is telling me that I've just downloaded this particular image.

And sometimes, this can clog up or you'll see multiple things here unless you hit the X and close that window. But what if you want to go back and review what you've downloaded or maybe make sure that you're not downloading the same thing multiple times? Well, all you need to do is select Control + J for windows users

or Command + Option + L and it will bring you directly to the Downloads Manager screen. So, here I can see a full history of all of the things that I've downloaded on this particular machine. I can also see it by date as well.

Now, the nice thing here is that I can either click on that image immediately and it's going to open it up so I can access it here on my machine. It also gives me the option to show it in my folder on my computer, which can be convenient if I'm saving things in the same location and I want to review those items as well.

But the other nice thing about the Downloads screen is that it is searchable. So, for example, maybe I just want to search for JPEG images. Maybe I'm just looking for things that are images.

So, I'm going to use that file extension to search for things or maybe if I was searching for that sunset, for example, I'm going to use that keyword sun, and I'm going to find that image here as well.

So, if you want to quickly come to your Downloads screen right here within the Chrome browser, Control + J or Command + Option + L for Mac users.

Open Bookmarks Manager

Next up, let's take a look at how we can access and manage our bookmarks that much faster and easier. Now, you may be familiar with accessing your bookmarks here at the top of the Google Chrome browser.

In order to do so, all we need to do is use another shortcut key, which is Control+ Shift + B. By either selecting this, we can toggle this on or off, but the one I want us to focus on is the one below, and that is accessing our Bookmark manager, Control + Shift + O. So, here, I'm going to do Control + Shift + O and in a new tab, it's not only going to bring up all of my bookmarks, but just like how we saw on the Downloads screen, I can search through these bookmarks.

I can also reorder them and maybe manage my bookmarks that much easier here. Sometimes, it can be difficult to do all of this here within our Bookmarks bar and especially if you have a large quantity of bookmarks, this might make it that much easier.

Now, if you're a Mac user, you're going to want to select Command + Option + B to open up your Bookmarks Manager. So, it is slightly different from both operating systems. For example, if I have a very large quantity of bookmarks and a combination of folders,

I can use the Search to search for something in particular. And I can find my social folder here and maybe it's a bit easier for me to drag and drop. If I want to bring Twitter to the top of that menu, I can do so here as well.

We also have access to all of our other options here, too. Sometimes, it can just be faster to go to this Bookmarks menu first and then open it up in a new tab or copy the URL depending on what you're wanting to do with your Bookmarks Manager. So, don't forget.

Control + Shift + O for Windows or Command + Option + B for Mac users.

Launch Incognito Mode

Now, the next keyboard shortcut on our list is going to allow us to browse privately

so that no one will see a history of what we're looking at or what we're doing online.

And, yes, we're talking about Incognito mode. Now, you may think that Incognito mode is primarily just to hide your activity and what you're doing, but I'm actually going to show you how I use incognito mode more often, especially when it comes to my business and things that I'm editing online.

Now, you may be used to coming up here to the menu and selecting New Incognito window, but this shortcut is going to get us there that much faster. And for that, we want to select Control + Shift + N and that's going to immediately open up a new Incognito window or an Incognito browser.

Now, just a few things to clarify, yes, you can browse privately and Chrome will not save your history, your cookies, or site data, or any of the information that you've entered in on your forms. However, you should note that your activity might still be visible to the websites you visit, your employer or school on where you are accessing, and your internet service provider.

So, no, you're not the only one in the world that's going to keep all of this information private. Some of your activity may be visible to some of these people or organizations.

I actually use this to test a number of my websites or to test some of the things that I've been doing to see how my users will actually see it on their end. So, for example, I'm going to type in simpletivity.com/reset, which is one of the courses that I teach throughout the year.

Now, I make a lot of changes to this website, depending if enrollment is open or not and when I'm on the editing side, sometimes I'll see other things where it won't behave the exact same way because I already have an account, for example, or I can already sign in, or I have an email address that's already a part of the waitlist.

So, I will often use Incognito mode to test my website or to test some other services just to make sure and I can see how things are going to behave for individuals who are actually visiting my site, how it's going to look and feel for you, for example.

So, the next time you need to test something out, you want to make sure, "Hey, is this how I'm experiencing it because I have an account or I'm the administrator?" All you need to do is select Control + Shift + N or Command + Shift + N to go directly to Incognito mode.

Clear Browsing Data

Last, but certainly not least, let's take a look at how we can quickly clear our browsing data or clear our cache, depending on what we need to do or if we're trying to wipe away some of our history here.

Sometimes you've been using a site and maybe you've been talking with a support team. And one of the first things that they suggest is to clear your cache or your browsing history to fix a problem that you may be experiencing.

Well, you could come up here to the Settings and then come down to More tools, and then come down to Clear browsing data, and eventually get to where you need to be. But there is a much, much quicker way. All we need to do is select Control + Shift + Delete on our keyboard and we are going to be brought directly

to the Clear Browsing Data menu. Now, this is something that you may want to do on your own on a semi-regular basis, whether that's monthly or whether that's quarterly,

not only can you clear up some room, for example, here, I can free up a little over 300 megabytes, but it can also remove some of the cookies and site data that you've collected along the way.

And of course, at the top, you can choose in terms of the timeframe that you want just the last hour or day or everything from the beginning of time. So, rather than coming up here to the menu, make sure to select that keyboard shortcut Control + Shift + Delete. Now, I would love to hear from you next.

What are some of your favorite keyboard shortcuts or how do you get the most out of the Google Chrome browser? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

How to add and edit Trello labels

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In order for you to get the most out of your Trello boards, you need to be using labels so in this video we're going to start with the basics and work our way up to some more advanced techniques so you can get the most out of Trello labels.

Now when you first create a Trello board, you're not going to have any labels applied. So let's start off by finding out where we go to both edit and access our labels. First off, we can go to show menu and then select more and then the second option is going to be, you guessed it, labels.

And here we can see all of the labels that are available to us. Now again, on a fresh Trello board, we're not going to have any titles listed here, but let's go ahead and start adding some so we can get started.

So to the right of each of these colors, you will see a little stylus and if I select this, I can now give this green label a name. So maybe I'm going to call this HR in terms of human resources. I'm going to then hit save.

Now I've got that title associated with this particular label. Let's give another label a name here. This time I'm going to select yellow. So I'm going to give this one maybe a priority level so maybe I want yellow to mean medium priority in this case so I can enter that here into the text field.

If I want to change the color, I can do so here as well, but I'm going to save it as just this yellow in this particular case. Now you're not limited to just the six different colors that we see here, nor are you required to add a title.

Maybe I just want to use red to distinguish some of my cards from others. I don't necessarily have to give it a title, but the nice thing is is that we can search our labels if we do give them a title.

And if we do need to add more labels, we can just come down here and select create a new label

Viewing labels within a card

and then we can add some additional colors as well. But of course, this is not the only place that we can go in order to access our labels. We can open up any of our Trello cards and here in the top right-hand corner, we have the labels button.

So if I select this, we are basically presented with the exact same menu. Now in this case, I can also use this to apply my label. So if I want to add the HR label to this card, I can then select it and now you can see it's going to appear here.

Now when there is at least a minimum of one label applied to a card, you will see this plus button right next to that label. So here I can select the plus button instead of using the label button and now I can access my other labels here as well.

And if I want to remove any of these labels that have been applied, I can just click on them and it will also bring up this menu where I can make adjustments. And keep in mind, you can add as many labels to a card as you like.

Quick ways to access Trello labels

But let's stick with accessing our labels and I want to show you maybe the easiest way to bring up the label menu and that is when you are hovering over a particular card. Let's say that this card here, hire a new HR assistant, that certainly sounds like an HR activity.

So I want to be able to quickly and easily bring up my labels menu.

What I could do is select this stylus in the top right-hand corner and this will open up sort of a mini menu here where I can select edit labels. And yes, I can add the HR label and hit save. That was rather quick and I didn't have to open up the entire card,

but let me go over here and just remove that for a second and I'm going to show you an even simpler way.

Here all I have to do is hover over that card and then select L on my keyboard. Yes, L for label and that will immediately bring up my label menu

so now I can access that HR label and apply it directly here. If I want to go over here and add a label to review these docs, I can again hit L on my keyboard. That will immediately bring up my labels and now I can apply whichever labels that I like.

Now once you start to become more familiar with your labels, there's an even easier way for you to quickly add and access your labels on each of your cards. Let me open up the labels menu here just for a second so you can see our labels in order.

You'll notice that we have green, yellow, orange, red, purple and blue and this is the default order of your label colors for any new Trello board. But this order can be helpful because the keys on your keyboard, the numeric keys, also correspond to these colors.

So for example, green is one, yellow is two, orange is three and so on.

So if I want to quickly and easily add that HR label to this card as well, all I have to do

is select the number one on my keyboard and it is added. If I want to remove this green label, I can just select one again and it will be removed. Maybe I want to add the first three labels to this card.

All I have to do is select one, two and three on my keyboard and they are immediately all applied. So you may want to get to know these quick keys, at least the most common labels and what numbers they are associated with.

As long as you are hovered over them, you can add or remove them just by using those numeric keys.

Expanding Trello labels

Last but not least, what can be very helpful when dealing with labels is actually seeing the labels on the top of the card. Now by default, we are limited to just these color strips as you see here.

But what if you forget what this green label actually means? Instead of having to open up the card and saying, oh, that's right, green means HR and yellow means medium, there's a much easier way.

Here within our board view, all we need to do is actually click directly on any of our labels and it will expand them for the entire board. Now we can see medium and HR and if we end up giving this orange label a name, we'll see it here on the front of the card.

So this may be a much easier way for you to deal with your Trello boards and actually see those labels. Now don't worry if you or a member of your team ever make a mistake and apply the wrong labels to a bunch of Trello cards and you don't have the time to manually remove them, you can use Rewind Backups to quickly restore your board.

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Color blind friendly labels

So you will also see at the very bottom of our labels menu, we have the ability to enable color blind friendly mode. So if you would like to distinguish your labels that much more, you can select this option.

Here you can see that the colors remain, but there are some additional shapes or patterns which are added to the labels to help give them a bit more distinction, especially for those who may experience color blindness.

Trello label examples and use cases

Now that you know how to create, edit and add and remove labels to your cards,

let's take a look at a few useful examples. So in this case, I'm going to go back to our labels menu here and I'm going to make a few changes. The first thing I want to do is create some urgency or a priority level for my label.

So for example, maybe the red label I want to be a high priority so I'm going to type in the word high and I'm going to hit save.

Orange perhaps I'm going to change and I'm going to make that one the medium priority and then the yellow I'm going to edit and make it a low priority so I'm going to use this to distinguish, you know, what's important and what is less important on my particular boards.

I can keep HR as green here, but maybe I'm going to come down to my purple label and I'm going to label this as sales, for example. And maybe the blue, I'm going to say is part of my support team and I'm going to hit save there.

So now I've got a combination of both departments, but also urgency as well. So let's go back to some of my examples here. I can't have something that is both medium and low priority so let me open up my labels menu here and I'm going to say that this is actually a medium priority.

Over here I'm going to say that this is a high priority and it's part of the support team. I'm going to say that this is also a high priority. This time it's part of the sales team and let's maybe do one more here.

This isn't assigned to a department. I'm going to say that this is assigned to the sales team as well. So now you can see we have a mix of labels,

both priorities, but also the departments in which they are assigned to or which they are attributed to. Why is this helpful?

Filter cards by labels

Well, here in the top right-hand corner, we have the option to filter our cards. And labels is one of the best ways in which we can filter the information on any Trello board. So here I'm going to select filter and about halfway down, you can see that we have this labels option down below.

So for example, maybe I just want to quickly and easily see all of the cards which are assigned to HR. I'm going to check this checkbox

and it's only going to bring back those two cards. Now in today's example, we only have about a dozen cards in which we are dealing with, but you very well may be dealing with a board that has hundreds of different cards with many, many different labels.

So this can be a great way for us to filter out that information. Next up, maybe I want to add another label to match my filter so maybe I don't only want to see things

that are matching HR, but I want to see everything that HR has that is also a medium priority so I can select this option here as well. Now you may notice that this one did not go away.

That's because at the bottom of our filter menu, we have the choice to use either any match which is what we have set right now so anything that has HR or a medium priority. But if I come down here and select exact match, now you can see we only have the one card which matches both HR and medium.

So make sure that you take a look at this last option, depending on what you are looking for. Whenever you want to be able to clear a filter, all you need to do is come up here and select this X and you'll go back to your normal state or your primary view of your Trello board.

Trello card covers

Now in addition to labels, there is another way in which we can help distinguish

certain cards on our boards and that has to do with applying a cover. When you open up any card within Trello, on the right-hand side you will notice that there is a cover button. By selecting this option we see many of the same colors that we saw within our labels menu, but a card cover acts and behaves a little bit differently,

but may be suitable for your needs. Now here in the top, it's going to show us

how that cover is going to look. Either we can have a single strip of color at the top of the card or we can make the entire card the color that we choose down below. So let's go with something a little bold and I'm going to select this red.

Now by default, it's going to choose this red color here. Now when the card is open, you're going to see it at the top. But if I go back to my board view. Here you can see that that red spans the entire length of the top of that card.

So no matter where I move this particular card, it's really going to stand out. Let's keep with this particular card

and now that we've applied a cover, you will notice that that cover is no longer available to us here in the add to card section. We actually have to come up to the top and select cover.

By doing so, we can choose the second option which is going to make the entire card red. Now it's not going to make any difference here when we are viewing the inside contents of the Trello card, but when we close it, now you can see that entire card is now red and even the text is a little bit larger and bolder.

This is ideal if you want to create a section break or maybe create a header at the top of your Trello lists. The downside is it will not show other card details on the front such as a due date or a member assignment or other things as you see here.

But again, if you'd like to use this as a header or as a section break, this can be a great idea. Now if you want to remove your cover, all we need to do is come back over here and here we can say remove cover and we will go back to the default.

In addition to just adding a color cover, you can also upload your very own cover image or maybe search for an image online. So in this case, if I really want to spruce things up, I can have this cover image on the front of my card. So a lot of flexibility, an additional way

in which you can segment and highlight certain cards on your boards.

Secret hidden labels

Lastly, let's take a look at a secret or special label that even some of the most advanced Trello users do not know exist. In some cases you may want to apply a label that does not necessarily show up on the front of your cards here, but you may still want to be able to filter or search for that label.

So let's open up our labels menu here in this particular example. Here at the very bottom, I'm going to select create a new label. And what you may notice is the very last option we have available to us is this gray label and it has no color, meaning that it won't show up on the front of our cards.

So in this case, I'm going to call this one a special label and I'm going to say create. Here you can see I've actually applied this special label to this particular card,

but you will notice that that label does not show up on the front of the card. If I open it up, you can see that yes indeed, that label has been applied and I can go over here and I can apply that label to other cards as well, but they will not show up on the front of my card.

So if you want to segment out your cards or maybe tag your cards without having them interfere with your other existing labels, you may want to apply the special and secret gray label.

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Interactive meeting options

Have your video meetings become a little boring? Have you found it increasingly difficult to engage your participants when you have a video conference or hosting a webinar online? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how Butter can make your next video meeting that much more exciting and also easier for you to host.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And today, I've got my friend, Rex, joining me for this video demonstration

so I can show you all the ins and outs of Butter and why this is going to make Zoom meetings and Microsoft Team meetings and most other video conferencing meetings look boring in comparison. So right off the bat, I love the simplicity of Butter.

Here on the left-hand side, we have our interactive options where we can decide if we want to mute ourselves, unmute ourselves and also react to things as well and you'll notice right away that things are big and bold.

So if my participants want to react to something, if they want to give a shout out or a hand of applause, it's big, it's bold, things are moving around. And as a host, I can even go one step further and add some sounds.

If I want to (cheering) give someone a round of applause, because I thought their comment was fantastic, I can do so at a click of a button

or by using a shortcut key here on my keyboard. Now on the left-hand side,

Built-in agenda

we have our interactive options. And then on the right hand side, I've got some additional tools available to me as a host.

And that's really where I want to start, because this is where I think Butter sets itself apart from so many other video conferencing tools. Right off the bat, we can create an agenda in advance so that not only can I stay on track, but everyone who's joining me for this meeting can see this agenda as well.

And as I'm adding the agenda, it's going to do the math for me. So I can see the total length of this particular meeting. Of course I can adjust this on the fly if I want to, but I always have access to the agenda here.

If I want people to see the agenda and resume the agenda with me in real time, all I need to do is click this button here at the top. And here you can see it's actually starting a timer, which is great to help us stay on track.

How often have you been involved in a meeting, number one, there's no agenda or the agenda is buried in the calendar invitation, and then number two, we spend way too much time on a particular topic? This has the timer built right into the agenda items.

Of course I can adjust things. I can choose to see the full agenda here to see

if we're on track or if we need to move on to something else. But these are great productivity enhancements to make the meeting so much more enjoyable, but also so much more effective.

Timers for smooth meetings

Now, if we just want to use a timer, we can do so as well. Here's a timer feature and I've set up one called, "Let's start to wrap this up." You can create as many custom timers as you want, or just start a quick start timer whenever you like.

So in this case, maybe when there's about five minutes left in the meeting, I'm going to start this timer on my end and down at the bottom of the screen, everyone is going to see this timer.

So they know "I mean business" or "Listen, we should really wrap this up so that we can get on to our next meeting or our other commitments as a part of the day."

So I love these little enhancements that can make our meetings that much more effective and help us to stay on time.

Polls that are worth sharing

You'll also notice below the timer function. We have the ability to create polls. Now we can, of course, create as many polls as we want in advance, but we can also create new polls on the fly.

So in this case, I've decided to add this question, "Which app should we integrate with next?" And I'm going to say, see the results so I can show this on screen. I can see who voted for what and who the overall winner was as well.

So again, if I want to export this data, if I want to reuse this poll multiple times in the future, I can do so as well, all at my fingertips here. Now below polls, you'll see that we have a breakout rooms feature as well, but I'm going to come back to that in just a minute.

Back over on the left-hand side, I've already given you a sample of some of the reactions and sounds in which we can include and enhance our meetings.

Better comment & question management

But one feature that I really love here is called the queue. How often have you been trying to manage questions and comments and other things that are coming at you through the chat window? But what if someone does have a specific comment or a question.

Those are two very different things and you want to actually hand over the microphone to them. Well, that's where the queue comes into place. Where people can decide, do they have just a comment or maybe an idea, or do they have a specific question? So in this case, I'm going to say that I have a comment.

And what you'll see in the top right-hand corner is that there is a queue building up. A queue for the host to manage and to see who has a question. I can see that Rex has a question and I can see that Scott has a comment.

What I can do now is I can hand over the microphone to Rex. People can see that Rex has the floor, so to speak, and he can ask his question. Then at my control, I can hit X, remove him from the queue and then answer that question or maybe start a discussion.

So this is a great way to manage those questions and or those comments in a queue style format and separate from the chat. Of course, Butter is going to have a chat window here.

So if you prefer text management, or if you prefer to have your participants be able to communicate with one another, they can do so here in the chat as well. But this idea of a queue I think is fantastic.

Add private notes

Speaking of ad-ons that really make Butter shine and stand out from the competition, you have an opportunity to collect and record your own personal notes.

And no, I'm not just talking about the facilitator, I'm talking about participants as well.

So each user has access to this private note space, and you can even do some basic formatting, such as bolding or creating bullet points in real time. And the great thing about my notes, here are some notes for example.

Let me just type in a few things here, is that they don't go away. Even if I close this dialogue. So let's say I'm taking some notes here, but then I want to get back to the discussion, or I want to listen in on what others are saying.

All I need to do is hit that notes tab and my notes remain here. So I can collect notes along the way. Then I can export those notes and save them for use later. A great tool to, again, keep your participants engaged, giving them the opportunity to take notes without having to switch tabs or to open up another application on their computer.

Host & facilitator tools

But let's go into some of the other facilitator tools that we have available to us, just to show how easy it is to set up your own Butter sessions. So here I am within my Butter dashboard and you can see I've already created two different rooms.

I've got my Team Brainstorming Meeting, which we were just in. I also have a, another one called an awesome Workshop. What I really appreciate about Butter is that I don't have

to create a new meeting each and every time. I can create as many rooms as I want

and repurpose them for very specific purposes. It also gives me an opportunity to prepare materials in advance so I don't have to be sharing my screen, sharing other documents or preloading other websites. Let me show you what I mean.

If I hit set up here for my Awesome Workshop, you can see I've already created a few defaults here. I've created a color scheme. This is actually going to be the intro screen here

on the right-hand side. I can choose things like background color. I can even include some elevator music. (calming music) So when people are first joining the meeting,

maybe testing out their camera and microphone or entering in their name.

Again, something to liven things up a little bit, make them get excited about joining my video conferencing. But on the left-hand side is where we have some of those features that we saw in meeting. And I want to show you just how easy it is to create and set this up.

How to create an agenda

So here under agenda, I can say, well, let's start off with some introductions, for example, and maybe we're going to do that for about 10 minutes. I'm going to hit save. And then we're going to review the last meeting minutes or something along those lines.

That should only take us about five minutes in length. I'm going to hit save here. You can see it's summing up the length of my meeting so I can see exactly how long each section is going to take.

And as you saw in my previous example, everyone can have access to this and to see that agenda in the meeting, not having to go back and reference another document.

How to setup timers in advance

Here under timers, I can create my customized timers. So maybe I want to say that this is going to be our twenty-five minutes for a particular game or an activity.

I can set the time, give it a specific color, even give it some specific music if I want. Polls or another great feature in which we can repurpose across our meeting rooms. But if you really want to get your participants engaged,

Breakout rooms that are easy to use

I encourage you to use the breakout feature. Here you can see I've created a breakout room in advance. In fact, I've created three distinct breakout rooms.

I've added a few specific tools. I've even set a time limit. If you are hosting a webinar,

if you are running a class or doing any type of teaching,

Butter breakouts are the choice for you. In this breakout rooms example, I've created three different rooms and I've given them each a specific title, Watch and Learn; Win, Lose, or Draw; and Mind Map Mania.

I don't know how many times people have asked me, "Scott, I'd like to set up something in advance in Zoom, where there's an activity or something waiting for my participants and then I can just cycle them through those different rooms." Well, that's exactly what Butter allows you to do here within their breakout feature.

So for example, in Watch and Learn, I have already uploaded a particular YouTube video. No, I don't have to share my screen. I don't have to just give them a link and hope that they all watch it on their own.

The video is going to be waiting for them in that breakout room. In the Win, Lose, or Draw room, I've already uploaded and set up the whiteboard here within Butter so that they can just start playing the game immediately.

They don't have to hold up a piece of paper from their desk or do something else or have someone know how to initiate the whiteboard. The whiteboard is going to be waiting for them there.

And here in the Mind Map Mania, maybe I've got something else prepared. If I click on the tool section down below, you can see the direct integrations that are available to us right here.

And it's just as simple as dragging them into the tool section. Now I have that whiteboard waiting for me and waiting for my participants in the breakout rooms. But let's go see how this looks like for the host because it gets even better

Managing breakout rooms like a pro

with how we manage those breakout rooms. So here I am back in my Butter session

and on the right-hand side, I'm going to open up my breakout rooms here. I'm going to select start now, or if I need to make any adjustments, I can do so on the fly. I'm going to select start now here. And I'm going to say, "Yes, I want to assign these participants in advance." So I've got my participants here on the left-hand side.

I could assign them randomly, but maybe I want to make sure that Rex starts in the Watch and Learn. And I'm going to maybe start myself in the Win, Lose, or Draw room,

just cause I want to give them some additional instructions. I'm going to select start breakout at this point. And those breakout rooms are going to be launched. I'm going to say yes, bring me there right away.

And now I can start with this whiteboard. Remember I said that whiteboard should be waiting for me. Here it is. I don't have to launch anything. I don't have to share my screen. I can do so right here. But as a facilitator to the meeting, it gets better. If I come up here to the top of the screen,

I can see all of the breakout rooms and join any of them at a click. But maybe let's start out by just taking a look at the breakout overview screen. So if you're managing several breakout rooms, you can see exactly who is in which room, what's going on,

and you can choose to observe that room without having to join the room. Something that is lacking in Zoom meetings, for example, is that you actually have to join that room and everyone in that room knows that you're there.

But if you're the facilitator, you can somewhat just eavesdrop just like a teacher would in a real classroom and just see how things are going. You can choose to join the room later if you want to, but you don't have to show your presence at any time.

So this really makes the teaching and the facilitation of these rooms so much easier. You'll also notice that there is a timer at the top of the screen. Why? Because when I was setting up my breakout rooms, I decided that I wanted to spend 10 minutes in each room

and then I want everyone to switch or move to the next room. Others will have access and be able to see this timer as well. So they can know when to wrap things up and then we can move to that next breakout room.

So again, very thoughtful features here for both facilitators and for participants to make these workshops, to make these trainings and these conferences that much more engaging and effective.

Easiest way to share video in a meeting

And one more thing. How often have you tried to share a video in your online meetings only to forget that you have to both share your screen and oh, you have to hit that checkbox to share your sound as well. Butter makes it so much easier because we have a direct integration to YouTube.

So you can preload all of your YouTube videos. If I click on this video here,] it's immediately shared right here within my Butter interface. So I can hit play, no more stumbling around or asking people if they can hear the video.

So if you're tired of boring video conferences and would rather spruce up your meetings, (dramatic music) be sure to check out Butter. See the link in the description below for more details. If you have any further questions about Butter and its video conferencing features, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

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

Welcome to the Awards Show

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, productivity enthusiasts from around the world, welcome to the 2021 Simpletivity Subscribers Choice Awards. My name is Scott Friesen, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress, and I'm excited to dive into this year's award show, so let's don't waste any time. We have six different categories, ranging from the best browser extensions to project management apps,

to the coveted best to-do list app of the year and many others in between, all selected by you, both the nominations for these different categories, but also, you had an opportunity to vote for your favorites. So yes, this is very much like a People's Choice Awards. None of these are necessarily my favorites or necessarily my personal picks. I wanted to leave it up to you. So let's dive in to category number one,

Favorite Browser Extension

which is your favorite browser extension. Now, this is a difficult one, because there are so many different browser extensions, and many of the extensions that are nominated are based on what you're already using, the tools and the apps that you're already using. But let's take a look at the nominees. The nominees for best browser extension are Bitwarden, Pocket, and Todoist, and the winner of best browser extension for 2021 is Bitwarden. Now, this was a bit of a surprise to me. For those of you who are not familiar with Bitwarden, it is a password security app very similar to things such as LastPass or 1Password, but many of you spoke in droves, saying how much you enjoyed the usability,

the ease of use, of installing, and making use of Bitwarden. Now, as it comes to all of these categories, what I would encourage you to do is take note of the apps that you were unaware of, and maybe try them out for yourself, or at least do a little bit of research. Although this is very much a popularity award show, I think it's very important to listen to what other people are using, what other people are installing,

and seeing if you can't find something that is maybe better suited for you in the coming year.

Favorite Video Conferencing App

Let's jump into category number two, and our second category has to do with our favorite video conferencing app. Of course, in 2020, video conferencing absolutely exploded because of the pandemic. By 2021, it became the norm for many of us to meet with others using video conferencing technology.

Let's take a look at the nominees. Your nominees for best video conferencing app are Google Meet, Teams, and Zoom. This year’s race was much tighter than last year’s, but your winner for favorite video conferencing app is Zoom. Yes, Zoom retains its title as the most popular—or your favorite—video conferencing tool.

I want to take just a very brief pause here and let you know about something coming up in 2022, one of my favorite ways to kick off a new year. I am running the Reset Productivity Masterclass to help you get the most out of your technology, simplify your workday, and learn techniques to maximize your use of some of the apps we're discussing today. It’s a live, four-week class.

The Reset Productivity Masterclass is where I teach you and a small group cohort in a live webinar environment. You get to interact with me, ask me questions directly, and I give you small homework assignments along the way so that you can change the way you work, feel more in control of what you do day in and day out, and get the most out of your software and apps. If you'd like to learn more and enroll in the January cohort, be sure to click the link in the description below or go to simpletivity.com/reset.

Okay, let's jump into our third category for our award show.

Favorite Cloud Storage Service

this evening, this afternoon, or this morning, depending on where you are, and the category is cloud storage. Now, again there's going to be some biases here, depending on what other tools that you're using. If you're an Outlook user versus a Gmail or a Google Workspace user, you know, this might be foretold in terms of what you're using day in and day out, but if you had the choice, what was your favorite?

Let's take a look at our nominees. The nominees for favorite cloud storage app are Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive. Well, the winner here, not a terrible surprise, especially since I talk so much about Google tools and Google apps, but your favorite cloud storage app was Google Drive, a very flexible tool, which, again, allows us to not only create and store a variety of different files and share them with others, of course, but if you're already using that Google infrastructure, might be the best selection for you. Well, we've now come to our top three, maybe the most coveted awards of this show, best project management, best note taking app, and best to-do list app.

Favorite Project Management App

And let's kick things off with best project management app. The nominees are Notion, Todoist, and Trello. Now, this was one of the tightest races this year. In fact, historically, this has been one of the tightest races when it comes to the Subscribers Choice Awards. Your winner for favorite project management app is Notion, Notion, by a little bit of a hair, maybe a few hairs, beyond Trello. Now, I think this speaks to just how diverse Notion is, just the multiple and various ways in which you can set up your Notion workspace, and whether you like a Kanban style of managing your project management, whether you want to create a simple database, whether you want to use it for note-taking and brainstorming, you can just do so much in Notion,

whereas Trello, who was a close runner up, again, is going to keep you in that Kanban style of project management. Now, a quick note here, and the final nominee in this category, Todoist, I saw many comments saying that Todoist really isn't a project management app, but I would have to argue against that, that initially, Todoist was very much a to-do list app, a task manager. However, over the years, they have added much greater project management capability, collaboration capability,and it can be a very effective project management tool. So I think it was right to choose this, or to add this into the nominees list. You're the ones who put it there in terms of one of this top three categories, but there you have it, Notion, Todoist, and Trello the nominees, and Notion taking the win.

Favorite Note Taking App

Moving on to best note taking app in 2021, and of course, note taking apps are so vital to make sure that we keep and capture all of those ideas, those aha moments, all those things that we could be doing, should be doing, maybe we want to put on the back burner for a little while, having a tool ready so that we can both input information, but also grab that information at a later day. Your nominees for favorite note taking app are Google Keep, Notion, and Microsoft OneNote. Now, the winner for favorite note taking app is Google Keep. And again, not a huge surprise here, as well, but I think this speaks to the simplicity of Google Keep, its ease of use, how fast Google Keep is, not only just in the desktop or browser version, but especially when you're using it on your mobile device. You're probably taking your notes, grabbing your notes, and maybe also retrieving your notes on your phone, more than anywhere else, or maybe on a tablet or an iPad, and that's where speed really, really counts. You don't want to wait just a few seconds for that app to load, and then find the place or add a tag. Google Keep does an extremely good job of, yes, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it gets you to where you want to be. So your choice for favorite note taking app this year is Google Keep.

Favorite To-Do List App

Last but not least, we've come to the final category in our award show, and that is the coveted favorite to-do list app of the year. Of course, this is vital for being at your productive best and for getting the most out of your workday. Your nominees for favorite to-do list app are Google Tasks, Microsoft To Do, and Todoist.

Now, an interesting collection here. It’s not a surprise that we have a Google app in our top three. Microsoft To Do makes its first appearance in many of these different categories, showing just how important Outlook and Microsoft remain. They’ve done exceptionally well with the Microsoft To Do app, really gaining a loyal following over the last few years. And then, last but not least, we have Todoist, which is often the front-runner. I would say, you know, when people ask me to recommend the best all-around to-do list app, it's hard not to go with Todoist because of all the features and functionality it offers.

But this isn't about my personal selection, and it’s not about my preferences; it’s about what you selected. So the winner for favorite to-do list app in 2021 is Google Tasks. And this one, for me, was a bit of a surprise, just because Google Tasks still does not have a standalone web version or desktop version. Of course, they do on your mobile app or tablet, but when it comes to using Google Tasks, you need to be firmly cemented in the Google ecosystem. You can only access it from the Google side panel when you're either in Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, or a few other Google products.

I think this also speaks to the small but important improvements that Google Tasks has made over the past two years. It has become a much more relevant task manager, but as I always emphasize—and you know this from your experience and hopefully from subscribing to the channel—it’s the simplicity of that tool that stands out. Yes, it cannot do all the complex things that Todoist can do, or what Microsoft To Do can do, but it's not always about the features, functionality, and bells and whistles. It’s about what you need the application to do.

So your votes spoke to that, and Google Tasks is your winner this year. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for first, submitting your nominees this year, and second, for participating in voting and adding your comments as the voting took place within the Simpletivity Community tab.

I also want to express my thanks as we draw to the end of 2021 for all of your support—whether it's subscribing to the Simpletivity channel, adding your comments and questions, or really dictating, or at least contributing to, the types of videos and content that I produce here. With that, I wish you a fantastic end to this year and a happy new year in 2022. I look forward to seeing you in the new year. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it’s very simple.

Getting started with Jotform Apps

Are you looking for ways to make first-time customers repeat buyers? Would you like to make it easier for your clients to book time with you or purchase your products or services from the convenience of their own phone?

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to create a free app in just a few minutes. This app will help you "Wow!" your clients and customers, making it easier for you to secure that next sale or appointment.

To get started, all we need to do is go to jotform.com. Under Features, we're going to click on Jotform Apps, or you can select the link in the description below.

Jotform has been one of the leaders in online forms, which is important because when building an app, you want to make it actionable. You want to allow people to book time with you, purchase something from you, or submit a request. Jotform already has all of this built right in, so you'll have access to these features within the app builder itself.

Next, we just need to select Get Started Now because, yes, it is absolutely free.

The first thing you'll be asked is whether you want to start from scratch or use a template. Starting from scratch will give you a completely blank canvas, so if you prefer that route, you can choose it.

In our example, we're going to look at using a template because it allows us to swap out anything we like. Even if the template is from a completely different industry, if we like the layout or design, we can customize it to fit our needs.

Selecting a mobile app template

So, I'm going to select Use a Template. So, here within the Template menu, we have over 300 examples to choose from in a variety of different industries and examples.

And the great thing about this is that as you browse through these different options,

we can always select the Preview button and get a full experience as to what this template is going to look and feel like.

So, in this case, maybe I run a salon or a barbershop, so I can take a look at how this is going to be laid out. I can even click on things here within the app itself to see what the forms or other pages are going to look like before I make my selection.

At the top of the screen, we can also search by some keywords. So, let's stick with that salon example, and I can bring back all of these different examples. So, whether I'm a barbershop, maybe I'm a massage therapy clinic, or something along those lines, I can take a look at all of those examples here.

On the left-hand side, they've even broken it down by different categories and different areas like different industries or types of businesses that you may be involved with.

For our case, I'm going to take a look at the Scheduling Apps option because, in many cases, we want people to reserve time or book time with us.

And I'm going to click on this one here, this sort of purple theme. I'm going to select Use Template and just show you how easy it is to create your very own app.

Adding and editing app elements

So, once selecting your template, we now have the ability to edit any of the elements that we see here.

On the left-hand side, there is this Add Element plus button. If this expands, we can see all of the other things that we can add to our app. And there's a very long list of all the things that we could be adding to our app here.

So, if there's something missing, like a particular button, or if you'd like to add some images, or if you'd like to embed a document, you can do so.

For example, sometimes it can be helpful to add a map to your app if people forget where you're located, especially if they're only coming to you maybe once a month, or once a quarter, or whatever the case may be.

So, I'm just going to drag this Map widget over to the place where I would like it to reside. And now, at the bottom of the first page of my app, people can have access to this map. It's going to take just maybe a few seconds to load here.

Of course, I can click on it, change the settings, and change the address.

but now they can always remember where specifically I am located. We also have a number of widgets as well, which is fantastic with Jotform. So, if you're wanting to embed certain things related to your social media accounts or if you want to add a QR code, more on that a little bit later, you can do so as well. I'm going to close that down for a moment and move over to the right-hand side,

Editing the style of your mobile app

where we can choose different styles and designs for our app. So, for example here,

I've got a bit of a purple theme going on here. Maybe if I want to jazz things up a bit

and brighten things up, I can choose a different color scheme here on the right-hand side. Maybe I want something more of a bluish design here for my particular app,

I can do so as well. Of course, all of these things are editable. So, down below, even if I don't find a color scheme that I'm wild about, I can come down here and change the specific colors themselves. So, if I want to be on brand with my website, I can do so here as well. The other thing here is we can change our app layout, for example.

So, if I come over here and if I don't like this layout, maybe I want maybe two columns

instead of just one column here, I can choose that as well. So, there's a lot of variety

when it comes to changing the style of your particular app. We're going to take a look at removing the logo here for a second here because, hey, that's not my logo.

Let's see if we can change that. So, everything here is clickable, almost everything is drag and drop. So, in this case, that's not my logo. So, I'm going to say, Remove that Image and I'm going to choose to upload my own image. So, I'm going to select upload file. I'm going to go over to my desktop and I'm going to go grab my Simpletivity logo. So, now, I can have my logo displayed at the very top of my app.

That only makes sense, right? Yeah, it only makes sense. Let's click on the company name and we're going to call this the Simple App, how about that in this particular case? And we can even add a description down below  if we want to as well. So, remember, everything here is customizable,

but let's get into the actual functionality of our app and how people are going to be interacting with us.

Previewing and testing your app

So, here we can see we've got sort of two big buttons here: Schedule an Appointment and Contact Us. I'm going to click on this for just a second here, because it's saying it's a clone of Contact Us just because we created this from a template. And remember, we can edit not just the text, but we can edit the forms that these are linked to as well. One of the great things is that you can always preview your app

in the top right-hand corner. So, as we're making changes here in the editor, all I need to do is toggle this Preview App button, and we're going to be brought to a live preview. So, this can be a great way to preview what your app is going to look like for your clients. You can click on things to make sure that things are behaving the way they want to. You can even change the landscape view to portrait view to see if everything is going to look and feel the way that you like. And when you're done, all you need to do is come back up here and toggle the Preview App button. You're going to be brought back to the editor window so that we can continue to work

Editing settings for your mobile app

and build out our custom app. Now, let's move on to the Settings area here because there's a few things that you want to pay special attention to. So, first off is the status of your app. And, of course, by default, it's going to be enabled, but you can disable it at any time or disable it on a specific date. So, let's say that you're putting together a special or a unique app just for a particular event, something that you're putting on

just for the month of February, for example. Well, you could disable it on March 1st if you wanted to. The second setting below says Continue Forms Later and because Jotform is all about forms, this is going to allow people to save their submissions and complete the form through the app later. This is a fantastic feature that most other app builders are not going to provide because, well, they're not built on the strength

of a form builder. This is great, especially if you have a lengthier form

that you want people to fill out and they don't have to feel that they have to continue

or finish the entire thing in one sitting, they can come back and finish it at a later date. So, just providing your users a little more convenience as a part of the process.

And then below that, we have a setting that says Add to Home Screen Modal, which I would strongly suggest that you turn on. In just a moment, I'm going to give you a real example of how easy it is for people to install this app on your phone and this is going to give them an invitation to add your app to their home screen. So, not only does it make it more visible for them, but it actually makes it easier for the user to access your app going forward. Here on the left-hand side of the Settings screen,

we also want to pay attention to the name of our app.

So, in this case, even though I changed the name on the home page, we can customize what they will see when it comes to actually accessing the app on their phone. Here, I'm going to set it to "Simple App," so that's what they're going to see.

I also want to edit the icon as well. So, I'm going to select Edit Icon here. I'll choose to remove the current image and then upload the logo we saw a little bit earlier because I want them to see my logo. Or, maybe you have something custom, something special that you want to add there as well.

Lastly, we have a Splash Screen option. I think, in this case, this blue color is actually going to work quite well. This splash screen will appear when someone first opens up your app.

because it may take one or two seconds for them to land on that home screen of the app itself. It's always nice to show your logo to show something there so they don't just see a blank screen. So, you can customize this as well.

How to publish and share your app

Last but not least, let's head over to the Publish area to make it easier for our clients to actually access it. Now, there's sort of three primary ways in which you're going to want to share your app. And no, you don't have to get involved with the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Jotform apps works with all Apple and Android devices, but they don't need to go to the App Store to install it. All you need to do is either send or share a link, you can invite them via email, or you can download a QR code. Now, the link, of course, is something that you could copy and paste and put directly on your website. Maybe you want to send out this link in an email newsletter

or maybe when they buy something from you, you could just include this in the footnotes or say, "Hey, next time, you can purchase or make a request using the app.

Just click this link to install." But another very convenient way to do so is to use the QR code option. So, you will have a unique QR code in which you can either copy this code and embed it on your website or within your email or you can just download the image here and think of your retail store. If you do have a salon, or a restaurant,

or some other brick-and-mortar store, you can actually have this at the cash register so that they can quickly and easily set it up. Maybe you can remind them when they're checking out or when they're completing their order to, "Hey, just take this QR code and you can install this right on your phone." You might even want to give them a slight discount for doing so right there in front of you. But this QR code, you can send out in a variety of other ways as well. So, let me switch over to my own phone

How the app looks on a mobile device

and just show you how easy it is for the user to install this app for themselves. So, here I am on my phone, and I'm going to open up my Photo app, and I'm going to zero it in here on the QR code, and I'm going to say, "Yeah, I want to go to that QR code." So, here you can see I'm immediately brought to the app itself, but because we had that setting, the user is going to be invited to add it to the home screen.

I'm going to say, "Yes, I do want to install this. I want to add it to my home screen."

So, now if I go back to my home screen, you can see right in the top left-hand corner, I have the Simple App installed. My users can click on that whenever they want.

There's my splash screen, and now I'm brought directly to my app. It looks fantastic! It's not within a browser; it doesn't have a URL at the top of the screen. They can click on Schedule an Appointment, and here it is, ready and waiting for them.

They can fill in their name and select a time that works best for them. Keep in mind, all of these forms and options are editable.

If they want to go back and access my Contact Us form, they can do that here as well. I've also provided some handy information, such as notifications of my opening hours.

If they want to call me directly, they can do so with just a click of a button. If they need to visit the website, they can do that as well. And here's the map that we embedded earlier.

How to make your app private

Keep in mind, Jotform Apps also allows you to make your apps private if you would like to.

By default, when selecting the template option, the Public Access selection is always going to be selected. This makes sense for most businesses that want to attract as many clients or return customers as possible.

However, you can also change this to Private Access. For example, if you want to create an app just for your internal staff or employees, you can do so. In fact, you can even limit access by a specific domain name if you're doing this within an organization.

There may be other scenarios where you want to keep private access. For instance, if you're selling a membership, such as running a gym or working as a personal trainer, you might want to provide private access only to people who have signed up for a particular program. This way, they can track their progress.

They can input their reps, and their nutrition, or however you want to design your particular app so you can either make things public or private based on your needs.

So, if you'd like to create a professional-looking mobile app and do it absolutely for free, be sure to check out Jotform Apps. Click the link in the description below to get started today. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

How to enable multiple inboxes in Gmail

You can waste an awful lot of time going back and forth between your different labels and folders within Gmail. If you need to view something on the left-hand side, you can only go into that label. Then, if you want to go back to your inbox, you have to click up over here.

Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you a little-discussed feature that might just transform the way you manage your email. Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you get more done and enjoy less stress.

Wouldn't it be great if you could click a little less and just access the emails or types of information you want right here within Gmail? Well, under Settings, we have an option to create Multiple Inboxes, and this is going to give us an advantage by allowing us to create various ways to access our email.

When you first click on the Settings gear tab, you'll notice a number of different options down below, including Inbox Type. By default, you're probably going to see something like this—just your basic inbox. You may already have customized filters that send certain emails to other labels right away, but this is typically our default view. However, you can choose a few other options.

Way at the bottom is something called Multiple Inboxes. You can turn on multiple inboxes right away by selecting this radio button, and you can edit it by selecting this link.

But I also want to make sure you know how to get here from the traditional way. At the very top, if we select See All Settings, you're probably familiar with this General tab. The third one in is titled Inbox, and we can also access it here as well.

So, right here at the very top,

Adding inbox labels and filters

We have the selection for Inbox Type, and we've just been looking at our default view. Here, we can see those other options as well, but the last one is where we want to pay our attention: Multiple Inboxes.

You're going to be presented with something like this: five different sections, which we can customize either by filter, by some other Gmail search queries, or even give them a customized name so that we can see additional information. Let me show you how this works.

I already have one here called is, meaning I want any emails that I've starred to be in my very first section. But let's take a look at what else we can add as well. The next one down I'm going to set to is. In this case, I'm referring to my Urgent label, which you can see here on the left-hand side.

Keep in mind, you can't just click into these fields and expect a drop-down to appear. Not only can you select some key labels you've created on the left-hand side, but you can also create a fairly complex filter based on a date range or urgency. If you'd like to learn more about specific Gmail and Google search filters, I encourage you to click the video on the screen right now.

For section number three, for example, I'm going to use from instead of is. I'll enter my own email address. Let's pretend in this case that this email address belongs to my boss, a coworker, or a very important client, and I want to make sure I see their emails so they don't get buried with all of my other emails. So, here I have my three different search queries.

I'll come back to the Search Name in just a moment, but let's go to the very bottom of the screen and don't forget to select Save changes.

Now, we are going to be brought back to our inbox,

What multiple inboxes look like

But it looks a little different, doesn't it? Yes, here on the right-hand side, we have our multiple inboxes with our different sections. We have the starred emails at the top, my urgent emails next, and then at the bottom, we have my Scott@Simpletivity emails.

These are always going to be displayed in conjunction with my main email inbox account on the left-hand side. So, not only can I continue to manage the messages that I normally would in my inbox, but I can also have certain messages filter up to the top and deal with them here at the exact same time.

Now, first thing: right in the middle, if you hover your cursor, you can adjust the size of this split. If I want to make it nice and tiny, I can drag this all the way to the right and still have access to any of these emails. If I want to click on an email, it will open up just as it normally would. I can reply and forward as I usually do, but when I go back, I can still see these emails here on the right-hand side.

Let me make this just a little bit bigger for our example. Some other things for us to consider: we don't always have to have them visible like this. We can minimize these sections. For example, maybe I just want to keep an eye on emails from Scott for the rest of the afternoon. I can have that section expanded while minimizing my other sections. Or, I can minimize them altogether until I actually need them.

The nice thing is that I can get directly to this information without hiding my main inbox here in the front of my screen.

Let's go back to our settings.

Multiple inbox settings and options

Remember there's two ways to get to it. We can go to See all settings. I'm going to come down here and select Customize this time, which is going to bring me back to the exact same section. So we can add as many as five different sections here. Thing to note though is that you cannot simply drag and drop these sections around, which is kind of unfortunate.

So for example, if I want to change and have this from email address as my first section, I'm actually going to have to cut and paste this, put it up here, and then put this starred somewhere else. So you might want to take a little bit of time to consider what order you would like your sections to be in.

But another nice feature is that we can actually name these. Remember, this looked a little, well, shall we say just a little messy? Let's go back to that inbox for a second here. We've got things like is:starred,

is:urgent, from. I mean, I know what that means, but maybe I'd like something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing or maybe just a little more direct, especially if I have a complex filter or something there applied.

So if we come back here, we can go to the section name and we can say very important emails, maybe something like that. For my urgent, maybe I'll keep with urgent or I could add something maybe like a stop sign or a red color, something like that. I'm just going to go with an emoji, in this case, and I'm going to say emails from me, maybe something like that. So it's something a lot more descriptive. So I don't have to be staring at the search query. I can look at the section name.

Now there's two other things that we want to pay attention to here on the Inbox tab. Down below, we have the maximum page size, and this is referring to the number of conversations which it is going to show per section. So right now I have it set to 9, but maybe I want to reduce that a bit. I'm going to set this down to 5 conversations per page. I'm going to show you how that looks but also how you can access all of those conversations from those section areas.

And then the last thing we want to pay attention to is the multiple inbox position. Now, in this case, I have it set as right of the inbox. I personally feel that this is maybe the most convenient because you can see your inbox in full view in the top left, and then you can see your multiple inboxes to the right. But you can also choose to display them above your inbox or below the inbox as well. So depending on your preference, you can make that selection here.

Once again, we want to come all the way down to the bottom and select Save changes for anything that we've done here to take effect. So, now you can see, I've got my much cleaner, my much more aesthetically pleasing labels or titles for these sections, very important emails, I've got my stop sign here representing my urgent emails and then emails from me.

And just like we said that we wanted to limit it to a maximum of five emails displayed, you can see, we've only got five per section. Well, maybe only four here because I only have four starred emails. But for the other ones, you can see it is showing me 5 of 11 and 5 of many. So if I want to go beyond and access the emails in this section, all I need to do is select this 5 of many, and it's going to open up all of those emails for that particular filter.

Now I can just go back to my inbox at any time and I'm brought back here as well. And the great thing is, is that everything still applies. Let's say that I want to maybe delete this email and these two emails and this email here, I'm selecting the check boxes. I can come up here and select Delete. So I don't have to do it by section, I can select multiple things at any given time and access them right here on the same screen

Things to consider before using multiple inboxes

Now, just a couple of caveats you should be made aware of before you start to transform your entire multiple inbox view. Number one, applying these changes to your inbox, whether it's in this section or over here within your traditional inbox, will not take effect immediately.

So let's say, for example, I'm going to star this email here and I'm also going to star this one as well. You'll notice that two new emails did not appear here immediately. I still only have these three. I would actually need to refresh the screen in order for those changes to take place. Here, after doing a quick refresh, now I have both of those emails listed here as well. And that's going to go in both directions.

The other thing you may want to be made aware of is that we cannot simply drag an email from one section to another. So, for example, let's take a look at this "Sticking with a habit" email. Maybe I'd like to make it an urgent email. I can't simply just go like this and drag it into my urgent area and move it and apply that urgent label. It's not going to do so.

What I can do is I can still grab that email and drag it into my urgent label folder over here if I want, and that does actually bring it immediately into this section area. Now, if you have any questions about how to use multiple inboxes right here within Gmail, be sure to leave it in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Email safety check

Doesn't it feel great when you find a website that does that one thing really, really well and it does it fast and it does it absolutely for free? Well, in today's video, I'm going to share with you seven extremely useful websites that you may have never heard before, but I can guarantee you're going to come back again and again because they're just so useful.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's start off with website number one, and it is called Have I Been Pwned?

Have I Been Pwned? My first question for you is how do you pronounce this word? There's a big debate online, whether it's pohnd or pawnd, or do we just say owned because it's based off of someone making a mistake and actually misspelling the word owned.

No matter how you pronounce this word, this is a fantastic website to check your email or phone number to see if it's been involved in a data breach. Now, of course, you've heard of many important and significant data breaches over the years.

Maybe your banking information has been attacked. Maybe other big services, such as Facebook and other social media accounts, have been hacked.

Maybe you've received warnings in the past. Well, you can do your own checks based on your own information.

So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to type in an email address that I use for testing purposes. And I'm going to hit pwned/pwned, you tell me in the comments, and it's going to tell me that, "Oh no, there's been some data breaches."

In fact, there's been 11 data breaches. Now, if I scroll down, the great thing about this website is that it's going to tell me the details of these particular data breaches for my specific email address or whatever you enter in here.

So I can see things like Adobe and Canva, for example. If I scroll down further, Dropbox, Last.fm, they'll even give me the years in which many of these data breaches occurred, and they're telling me that, yeah…

Look at this, email addresses, passwords, usernames, website activity, all of these things were compromised in these data breaches. So what do you do next?

Well, maybe I'm going to log into some of these accounts and change my email address. That would be one thing.

Number two, I should probably go in there for sure and change my password. Even if I want to keep the username or the email address, log into some of these services and change their passwords as well.

Printer friendly mode

The next useful website on our list is called Print Friendly, and you'll find that at printfriendly.com. Now, how often have you been looking at an article or a webpage and saying, "This is valuable information. Maybe I'd like to save this as a PDF, or maybe I need to actually print out a paper copy."

So you come up to your browser and you select Print. Now, sometimes this can take a little while because it needs to load all of the ads and the images, and other things that are going on in this article.

And even before I saw the preview, I'm looking up here, 11 sheets of paper. Even if this is going to be a PDF, that's, I think, way too long for this article.

Look at all of this menu and website gunk I've got at the top of the screen. And as I scroll down, look at all these advertisement breaks in between.

Here's another Black Friday ad in the middle. I've got these advertisements spaces.

Yeah, this is not very easy to read in this particular format. Well, that's where Print Friendly comes into play.

Let me just copy the URL of that exact same article. I'm going to come over here and paste it and say Preview.

Now it may take just a few seconds, but here you can see a much more readable file. So here we got the entire document, and we're done, that's about it.

That that looks more like two, maybe three pages at most. I've just got the goods of this particular article.

Now, Print Friendly is perhaps even more friendly if you install the browser extension, then you don't have to be coming back to this website. And the good news is that Print Friendly is available on all major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.

So if you want to print just the goods, be sure to check out printfriendly.com.

Bypass content paywall

Now the third website on our list may be a little controversial, but I'll let you decide if you want to go forward and use it or not. The website that we're talking about is called 12ft.io.

And here's the tagline, "Show me a 10ft paywall and I'll show you a 12ft ladder." So here's the idea, you come across an article and maybe it's from a magazine such as Harvard Business Review, maybe it's a news publication such as the Boston Globe or really anything which is requiring a subscription.

So here I've found an article. I've been searching online, and this looks like a great article, really what I'm interested in or what I need to know.

But as I scroll down, I've only been given about a paragraph, and then it's telling me that I'm out of free articles for this month. And this is going to change depending on the website that you're on, right?

Some may give you a few free articles per month or per day or whatever the case may be. Now, I want to be very clear. If you're getting real value from any publication or any website, I think you should be paying for those services.

That's how you're getting quality content and quality information. However, you might stumble across a website where there's just that one article, right? Just that one piece of content.

You may not be interested in any of the other content that this website is providing, but you would just like to see what's going on here. Well, this is perhaps where 12ft Ladder comes into play.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to copy this URL, and I'm going to come back to 12ft Ladder. Now, you actually don't even need to come to the website itself, all you need to do is actually put this little URL in front, the 12ft.io URL in front of it.

But I'm going to paste it in here just for our example here. And I'm going to say Remove the Paywall.

And what it's going to do, it's going to stay on that same tab, but now as I scroll down, I have no restrictions. I've got the entire article here in front of me.

And the nice thing is that usually, it will remove everything else, including the ads. So why is this working and how does this particular website get around this?

Well, if we scroll down to the bottom of the 12ft.io page, you can get the, what, why, and the how does it work? Essentially, the developer of this website says that he thinks that AdWords has killed the web.

And so that we're too often being served up with things with keywords and things just to grab our pieces of information. But how is it working behind the scenes?

Well, Google is indexing all of their content. So new sites and other publications are giving Google the entire article so it can scan through it and do its Google crawler business.

However, this website is making you somehow, I guess, of the crawler or access to that same information so that they can cache a copy of the site each and every time.

Original headshot images

Now the next website on our list is very interesting and also comes with a very peculiar name. Here we are at thispersondoesnotexist.com, and yes, you read that right, the person we're looking at right now does not exist.

What we're looking at is a headshot or an image made up of many other faces. So this is not a real human being.

This is someone that a computer has put together from a variety of other random images. Let me just hit refresh.

Here you can see someone with some type of hat on top. It's a very interesting website, and the way that you might find it useful is if you're looking for some headshots for your website, if you're looking for something for your demos or maybe a database, especially if you're giving examples to your clients or customers.

I know for myself, I'm often needing a few headshots if I'm putting together a database or wanting to put something together where it looks like I've got some actual avatars or actual profile pictures here. And it's almost eerie on this page because this person, and everyone that we've seen so far, does not actually exist.

These eyes are probably from someone different than the nose, than the mouth, than the hair, the ears, and the chin profile. Let me refresh this once again, and again, someone else who does not exist.

Now, you're probably already recognizing that it's not the most diverse collection here. There tends to be a lot more women in this particular collection and a lot more fair-skinned women as well.

So if you are looking for greater diversity, this may not be the website for you. But even just for a few moments of entertainment, you can refresh this screen and look at an image that looks so lifelike, that looks so real, yet this person does not exist.

Something that may be helpful to you if you're looking for images and not just want to repeat all of the stock images and all those things that you see time and time again, you can go have some fun or use it for your own purposes at thispersondoesnotexist.com.

View old websites

Now, speaking of things that no longer exist, here we are at archive.org, and we are going to take a look at the Wayback Machine. How often have you wanted to go back and see what your website or maybe a competitor's website looked like many years ago?

Or maybe you just want to have some fun and take a look at a website from the past. What the Internet Archive does is actually cache most webpages or at least a large variety of webpages over the years.

It's like taking a snapshot of different websites over time. So let me give you just a quick example.

I'm going to actually type in my own website because I'm in the process of redesigning it. Maybe I'd like to go back and see, well, how did things get started?

Was there anything that was working better in the past or not? Let's go back and take a quick look.

So here you can see, we've got a bit of a timeline here at the top. Yes, my website was actually launched in 2015, but it looks like the Wayback Machine didn't start archiving it until 2016.

These little bars represent the different points in time where things were snapshotted, where things were grabbed over time. If I click on 2016, for example, down below, then I'm given a yearly calendar.

I can see the different months to see what things looked like at that time. So let's take a look at, I don't know, November 27th, 2016.

If I go here and click on the time, that's going to be the specific time when they took that snapshot. What it's going to do is actually bring and present that website to me here within the browser.

And things look quite a bit different than they do now on my home screen. Now, keep in mind that some of the fonts, some of the layout may be a little bit different.

So, for example, this Simpletivity link is actually a logo that was over here. It didn't actually look quite like that.

There might be a few things out of alignment, but I can actually go back and I don't have to save a copy of this or necessarily back up the website if I want to come back and review it.

I can come here and say, "Oh, wow, so this is what I did. This is what things looked like way back when. Was there anything that I want to come back and revisit?

Terms of service

Now, the next website on our list is for all of us who don't have the time or effort to read all of those terms of service. And you know what I'm talking about.

Regardless of the software, website, or apps that you use, you're often presented with an extremely long terms of service that, even if you did read it all, would you be able to understand all of the terms and the legalities within those terms of service?

Well, here at ToS;DR, that's termsofservicedidntread.org, you will get not only a summary of the terms of service, but it's actually going to tell you what it means.

So, for example, if we go here to Facebook, it's telling me that Facebook stores your data whether you have an account or not. Your identity is used in ads that are shown to other users.

Now this is the plain speech that we understand. But if I hover over it, it's actually going to give you the specific wording, showing you or referencing the actual terms of service.

On the front page here, you're going to see some of the bigger names like Amazon and Reddit and Wikipedia, for example, but you can search for anything here.

So, for example, if you want to type in one of your favorite tools or one of your favorite services. Let's type in something like, oh, I don't know, maybe something like Todoist, for example.

And here we can see Todoist doesn't have a grade yet. Many of them will receive an actual grade, but here are some of the things that you may want to consider if you want to go forward with using that tool and if there's anything that maybe stands out to you.

So, if you want to go and preview or read some of the things that you couldn't have read in the first place, or let's be honest, you didn't read in the first place, you can always come to Terms of Service; Didn't Read and catch up and determine if you want to proceed or maybe hang back.

Amazon price checker

Last but certainly not least, we are on a website that's going to help you save money and make you feel confident if you are getting a great price on a particular item. Here we are at camelcamelcamel.com, and CamelCamelCamel is all about looking at Amazon products and seeing the price history of those particular products.

Now you can use CamelCamel in a variety of different countries. So even if you're not using the American Amazon site, you can look at a variety of countries down here, including a German flag with a blue on the top.

I don't know why they chose that there, but, anyhow, let's stick here with CamelCamelCamel and we're going to type in something here like, oh, maybe something like a Blue Yeti microphone, for example. I get a lot of questions about, "Scott, what type of microphone are you using?" And yes, I do use a Blue Yeti microphone.

So if I scroll down here, here you can see there's a few different models and things that are going on here. And let's click on this first one here.

It's telling me the Amazon price currently is 129.99. But if I click on the item itself, we're going to get so much more detail.

So how am I going to determine if this is a good price or not? Well, if I scroll down, I can see a full price history all the way back to 2014.

And you know, like most products, there's ups and downs, right? There's sales, there's Black Friday, there's a variety of other things here as well.

So there's quite a gap between when it was cheapest at a mere $85, but that was also several years ago, to its highest price of 131. So, really, if I look at this, the average price has been $116.

Maybe right now is not the time to buy this particular item. In fact, it's very close to the highest price it has ever been.

Let's try another product for our example. Maybe I'm looking for an RGB keyboard, in this case. I'm just going to type in those keywords.

It doesn't have to be a specific product. You can actually do much of your shopping right here at CamelCamelCamel.

And let's take a look at this Razer gaming keyboard, which says it's 34.99. Well, is that a good price? Should I pull the trigger and purchase this today?

Well, let's open it up and see what the data has to say. So, once again, I'm going to scroll down. And even before I do, it tells me, "Hey, this is the best price."

Well, show me the data. Why is this the best price? Well, look at this chart. Things have seemed to continually come down over the years and I can see that, yeah, this is rock bottom.

This is the lowest this particular keyboard has ever been listed on Amazon. So the average price has been 48.91, the current price is 34.99.

Yeah, let's go ahead and buy this keyboard. Now, if there's a particular item that you're waiting for, the other nice thing about CamelCamelCamel is that you can track those prices.

So if you just enter in your email address and say, "Listen, I want to be notified when it drops to a certain amount," you can do so right here.

Now I would love to hear from you next. Which of these seven websites were your favorite? And do you have anything else that you would love to share and add to this list?

Please be sure to do so in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult; in fact, it's very simple.

Focused background sounds

If you want to work at your productive best, it's so important to increase and keep your focus. So in today's video, I'm sharing with you five free apps and websites that will help you stay on track and keep your focus longer.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's kick things off with website number one, and we're taking a look at Noisli.

It is so easy for us to increase our focus often just by adding some background noise. Whether it's noise, music, or just emulating the sounds of some of our most familiar places, Noisli is an incredibly simple yet free app that we can use to add some less distracting sounds.

So, for example, maybe you've got kids, family, and pets at home, or maybe there's construction going on in your neighborhood. Let's mask that by adding some sounds.

Maybe I want the sound of some rain, so I'm going to click on this little cloud icon here. Maybe I want to combine that with some sounds of the night.

(rain sounds) Got some crickets there in the background. Maybe I want a bit of a crackling fire in there as well.

(fire crackling) So what Noisli allows you to do is mix and match a combination of sounds because we all have different things that maybe trigger us or bring more peace or calm to our ears.

What I love about Noisli is not only its simple interface, but I can mix the different sounds as well. If there's too much crackling in that bonfire, I can bring it down.

If I want a little more rain in my mix, I can bring it up a little more as well. And if I want to turn things off, I just have to click on that particular icon.

But it also comes with a few different playlists as well. So here's one that's called Relax, which is a combination of, it looks like rain, thunder, and a crackling fire.

I can choose a random mix if I want to here. This has some wind and maybe some rustling leaves in the mix as well.

Or I can create my own, so I'm going to clear this, and actually, I created one a bit earlier called, well, I'm calling it Midnight Storm. So if I select this one, it's a combination of these three here, sort of a rustling river thunderstorm and some crickets in a midnight sort of setting here.

So you can combine anything that you like here, save them. You can also go and share them with others if you want, absolutely free. Check out Noisli.

Track your focus by typing

The next tool on our list is going to help us track our mood and also help us find out when we are most focused and productive as a part of our day. And for that, we're going to TypingDNA and looking at their Focus app.

Now, TypingDNA is all about analyzing the way that you type, including things such as speed, how often you use the backspace key to see and track your mood. I've been really fascinated with what it's been showing me over the past few weeks.

So here's a snapshot of what TypingDNA Focus is tracking for me over the last seven days. So I can see on average where I am spending more time at my computer and specifically at my keyboard and when I am not.

It's even going to show me some helpful information here, such as how many minutes I spend typing per hour, characters typed, and characters per minute. But I think the most helpful part of TypingDNA Focus is the mood tab, where it's actually going to help me find out where I am more tired, more stressed, but also most focused.

So, for example, here we're taking a look at my last seven days by hour, and we can already see a bit of a theme developing here. Around lunchtime, I'm starting to dip, right, and I'm getting a little more stressed out.

My focus is starting to dip as well. I'm certainly a lot more tired when it approaches the middle of the day.

And you see that that happens again later in the afternoon, but I have some other peaks when it comes to being a little more calm, but sometimes also being a little more stressed as well. Down below, you can see where I peaked on a few different characteristics, such as I was most focused, according to TypingDNA, actually on Saturday at 4:00 pm.

So maybe I'll want to dive into that a little bit deeper, but I was also most stressed at 4:00 pm on the Friday. Why was that the case, and should I avoid certain activities at that particular time?

Now again, we can look at this in a few different ways. Let's take a snapshot of my day yesterday, and I can sort of see the peaks and valleys and determine where I should be putting more focus.

So yes, I would agree I tend to be most focused at 8:00 am, and that is why I do some of my more challenging work first thing in the morning. But I'm also most tired at around 3:00 pm, so maybe I should try to avoid certain activities, or maybe that would be an ideal time for me to take an extended break.

Now if you'd like to get access to three bonus moods here within TypingDNA, be sure to check out the link in the description below. These special moods will only be available for the next 24 hours, so don't delay and start using TypingDNA for free.

Pomodoro timer assistant

Now the next tool on our list is actually a browser extension called Marinara. And Marinara is a pomodoro assistant. If you're not familiar with the pomodoro technique, it's essentially about working in 25-minute increments and then taking a short break.

Twenty-five minutes to be ultra-focused and then taking a short break before selecting what you want to do next. Here you can see up in my browser extension area, I've got six minutes left in my current 25-minute pomodoro window.

So I can see how much longer I have to focus, perhaps on creating this video or perhaps on doing some other task before I'll be notified of taking a break. And the great thing is that Marinara will keep track of all of this information here as well.

We can also adjust the setting so if you don't want 25 minutes, maybe you want something a little longer or a little shorter, you can also change the default amounts and the default settings for both short and long breaks.

The great thing about Marinara is that it all lives here in your browser, so if I right-click here, I can pause or stop or restart the timer, and I can even see how many minutes are left here as well. So I don't have to download another app or have something else in front of me here. I can manage all of this right here within my browser.

Create a focus forest

Now the fourth focus app on our list today is Forest, something that's going to help us stay focused in a fun and very entertaining way. Now, yes, you can use it on your mobile devices, but you can also use it as a Chrome extension as well.

The idea behind Forest is, again, very similar to pomodoro, working in certain increments that you set. But Forest also allows you to block out certain websites.

The goal in this case, and to make it a little more fun, is for you to start with a seedling, start with a small plant, and over the course of your 25 minutes or whatever time that you set, you can grow a full tree.

So here, for example, in my browser, you can see I've got the Forest extension installed, and I haven't started my next one yet here, but it says if I click, I can start planting.

So I'm going to click on this icon, and here you can see I've got this little seedling, and now I've got a countdown timer. Now I don't need to see that visible. It's going to let me know when that timer is done.

Now I can go ahead and work as I would and try to grow a full tree. As the time progresses, this is going to grow a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, until as I near zero, till I near the end of my timer, it will be a completely full tree.

The nice thing about Forest is that you can also set your block list, so if you want to block certain websites, you can do so, meaning it will prevent you from visiting certain websites.

You can, of course, turn this off if you like to, but in this particular mode, it would prevent me from following certain social media pages. As you can see here, since I've already started my particular timer, I cannot adjust the block list mode.

And I like that type of functionality, right? Because I've already decided to work on a particular project or task or maybe just have a focused conversation with someone, so I don't want to be able to adjust this in the moment.

I want to keep going. I want to see if I can grow that tree and keep my focus throughout the next 25 minutes.

Stop mindless browsing

Next up, we have a very simple Chrome extension which is going to help us stay on track by reminding us as to where we should be or what we should be doing next.

So in this case, it's called Mindful Browsing, and it's very simple in its nature, but it can be also very powerful as well. So let's say, for example, I'm doing some work or I'm doing some research on this website, and I want to avoid some of my social media pages.

So let's say I get the urge to go over to, oh, I don't know, something like Facebook. So I'm going to type in facebook.com.

However, what's going to happen is Mindful Browsing's going to say, wait a minute, do you really want to spend time on facebook.com? You said you'd usually rather review my task list.

So you can actually customize these messages. Now it does give us the option here. I can say yes, please give me 10 minutes of time on Facebook, or I can say, you know what, actually that's okay. I should probably get back to my work and what I was doing.

Here with the Mindful Browsing extension installed, you can see we have a few different options. So you can keep adding to your list in terms of the types of websites you would like Mindful Browsing to watch out for.

And I do like that it gives us this window of time. This is not editable. It's only going to be a 10-minute max before it kicks you out of that particular service, but you can keep adding other sites, other things that distract you.

Then down below there's a section called usually I'd rather, and that's why it said here I'd rather review my task list because that's something that I added myself. You can add a variety of different things here, and it will randomly walk through or present you with these options if you try to access one of these websites here.

So Mindful Browsing, incredibly simple, but very helpful if you're tempted to move on to something else. Now I would love to hear from you next. What are some tools that help you focus, whether that's on your desktop or on your mobile device?

Be sure to share them with me in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Connect events to Keep Notes

Would you like to spend less time managing your calendar? Well, then this video is for you because I'm gonna share with you seven time-saving tips and tricks so you can get the most out of Google Calendar.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's jump right into tip number one, which is one of my favorites.

How often have you organized a meeting or been getting ready for a meeting, but you have some additional notes that you don't want to forget when this particular meeting arrives? So in this example, I've set up a meeting with Kate.

I've told her what we're going to be discussing here, but maybe I have some additional notes, not an agenda, but some additional notes that I want to remember to ask Kate, but I don't want to share them with her in advance.

Well, if you use Google Calendar, there's a pretty good chance that you probably already use Google Keep. And if you don't, this might be a really good reason to start doing so.

When you open up any Google Calendar events, such as this, and you come over here to the Google side panel, if I click on Keep, you can see that I can add a new note.

Now you might think that's not a really big deal. Of course, you can take a note. You can view your other notes here as well.

But watch what happens when I say take a note; I am actually creating a connection with this particular note and this particular calendar event.

So maybe I've got question one, I'm gonna ask about the sales team, something like that, maybe question two, talk about next week's conference or something like that. I'm gonna hit Done.

And what I've got is now a related note to this particular calendar event. Yes, I can take additional notes, and I can access my other notes here, but watch what happens when I close this particular meeting, and let's say I can still see that note here.

But whenever I open up this meeting, that related note is always going to jump up to the very top here, but it gets even better.

What if I'm thinking about adding or editing these questions when I'm not inside of Google Calendar? Well, all I need to do is open up Google Keep, whether it's on my mobile device or here on my desktop.

And here you can see I've got that exact connection with that particular event. In fact, I can even go directly to it.

If I click on that little button there, it's gonna take me directly to this particular meeting event. So a fantastic way to create a connection between your notes and specific Google Calendar events.

Add meeting notes

Now, let's stick with the topic of meeting notes, and in this case, what if you do want to share an agenda in advance, or maybe you just want to take notes during the meeting and make sure that everyone who attends has access to those notes?

Well, if you subscribe to any version of Google Workspace, you can take advantage of a new feature. Here, you can see I've got a Test Meeting, and when I click on it, you can see that there's an option here saying, Take meeting notes.

So what this is going to allow me to do, if I select this link, is it's going to open up a brand new Google Doc, but it has the date of that meeting, it has the name of that meeting, already pre-filled out for me.

I can take note of all of the attendees. I can start to add notes. I can create action items during the meeting itself.

And what's going to happen from here on in is that that agenda is now directly attached to this calendar event. If I go and open it up, you can see it's gonna be listed here under the description.

We can click on that again and immediately open it up. Now, what you should note is that this, unlike tip number one, is not going to be private.

Anyone who is a guest of this particular event will have access to these notes. So this is really intended for more agenda purposes or for people to review those notes after the meeting, but a great and quick, easy way for you to add notes directly to your calendar events.

Add multiple notifications

Now, tip number three on our list has to do with saving time and making sure that you don't forget about the most important events on your calendar.

Here, I have a meeting called Team Meeting. And let's say for this example, it's by far the most important event on my calendar this week.

So not only do I not want to be late for this particular meeting, but I wanna maybe give myself a nudge or a reminder in advance, perhaps even a day or two in advance.

Well, when we are setting up our meetings, we are so used to just using the default notification time. Now we can always go into Google Calendar settings and adjust the default time.

So if I open up this meeting, yeah, my default for all of my meetings on this calendar is to notify me 10 minutes in advance. And if I have notifications turned on, I will receive a warning here within my browser, and I will also be notified on my mobile device.

But this is such an important meeting, I wanna make sure that I'm notified well in advance. Remember, you can always add multiple notifications.

You don't have to just change this first one here. I can come down here and say, you know what? I'd like to send myself an email, maybe two hours in advance, right? Just so I'm prepared.

I've got all of my meeting notes together, and you know what? I'm gonna also send myself an email, maybe two days in advance. So I'm gonna say two days in this case, just to make sure it's top of mind and I'm getting prepared in advance.

All I need to do is click Save at this point. And now these notifications will remind me, one, which is going to be a standard notification either in-browser or on my mobile device.

And these next two will be sent to me via email. Keep in mind, these notification settings are for you, the organizer, and will not apply to the guests you've invited to your event.

Now, something else that can save you a lot of time and also save you a lot of effort is if you need to transfer ownership to someone else for a particular meeting.

Change event owner

Let's stick with this team meeting example where I've got only two of us invited at this point, but maybe, let's say for our example, we have a number of important stakeholders in this meeting.

Well, I know that perhaps I have a meeting that might run late, or maybe I just can't make this meeting at all. And I wanna make sure that things can still be updated in my absence.

All you need to do is come up to the top and select the More actions button. And near the very bottom, we've got the option that says Change owner.

Now, in this case, I don't have to just select someone who has already been invited. I can actually select any email address.

I can invite anyone here to be that new owner, and it gives us a standard message here, but I can change this and say, listen, I'm gonna be running a little late, or I'm gonna be off for the next two days. Can you be the owner of this meeting as changes happen?

So this can be a quick and easy way for you to change ownership rather than just delete the meeting and have someone else create it from scratch again.

Enable working hours

Now, the next tip on our list is gonna save you time from telling people that you can't meet or that something is outside of your working hours. Note, this particular tip only applies to those who have subscribed to a Google Workspace account.

So in this case, let's say that you are working in between the hours of nine and five, Monday through Friday. However, if you don't set your working hours here within Google Calendar, someone else within your organization could book you for 7:00 PM or two in the morning or something well outside of your working hours.

So in order to adjust and apply your working hours, come up to the gear icon, select Settings. And then on the left-hand side, under the General menu, we wanna come down to Working Hours, and here you can choose to enable or disable working hours, choose the days of the week, and then those specific times.

And remember, your schedule may not look as standard as this. Maybe on Wednesdays, for example, you only work until 3:00 PM, so you can adjust it for your specific needs.

You don't have to hit Save on this page, you can simply go back to settings. You will note that this will visually do nothing for your calendar.

However, if someone else is attempting to book you within your organization, they will get a warning, telling them that it is outside of your working hours if they try to book you outside of those windows.

Add events from Gmail

Now, the next tip on our list is gonna save you so much time because you're not gonna have to use your keyboard almost at all to book another event. Well, specifically, if that event is originating from your email.

Let's take a look at this example here. Let's say that someone has emailed me and they want to meet later in the week. They've even given me a particular day.

So it sounds like I could probably go ahead and book this individual for a meeting on Thursday. Now, typically, you would have to open up Google Calendar and find the selected time and add that individual and give it a name and everything else that goes on with creating a brand new event.

But since we have most of those details here, and maybe we want to even keep the information here, why don't we just create an event directly from Gmail?

Now, yes, we could do so by using the side panel up here, but you can also do so by coming up to the top of the email. If we select the More option, we can select Create an event.

This is going to immediately open up Google Calendar and create an event with the subject of that email. The person who sent the email or who is included in that email will automatically be added.

And even the body of the message will be included here in the description. Now, in most cases, you're probably going to want to change the name, right?

Because the subject of that email is probably going to be somewhat unrelated or maybe confusing. So I'm gonna say meeting with Scott in this particular case.

But it can be such an advantage to have all of this information right down here so we can include this or maybe review this when it comes to the meeting itself. So a much faster and easier way for you to create that meeting directly from within Gmail.

View multiple time zones

Now, speaking of saving time, I often waste a lot of time trying to convert the time zone of the people that I'm wanting to meet with or planning to meet with in my local time.

Here, by default, Google Calendar is going to show you your local time here on the left-hand side of your screen. But what if you work with others, whether it's colleagues or clients in different time zones, and you want to make sure that you can see exactly when that meeting is scheduled?

Well, if we come up to settings and then click Settings, here within Google Calendar, we have the option to adjust our time zone. So under Time zone, we can create our primary time zone.

We can even change the label if we want, but we can also display a secondary time zone. So in this case, maybe I want to show Eastern time in addition to Pacific time.

And again, I can change the label if I want. Currently, my primary is labeled as Home, but maybe I want to change that. I wanna call that Local as my local time zone there.

So now if I go back to my calendar here on the left-hand side, I can clearly see my local time, but I can also see the Eastern time, my secondary time zone here on the left-hand side.

If you wanna go one step further, if we expand our menu option here, we can also choose to see additional current times in other parts of the world.

If we go back to our settings and back to the time zone area, just below, there is a section called World clock. And here we can add as many different additional time zones as we want, so we can see the current time for different places in the world.

Now, if you want to see even more time-saving tips and tricks, I invite you to click on one of the videos which is on the screen in front of you. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.