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Why text expansion is so valuable (bright upbeat music) If you'd like to save an awful lot of time while you're typing at your computer, then this video is for you.

I wanna show you two of my favorite text expansion tools and share why you should be using something like this every single day.

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

And if you're not using a text expansion tool, you're wasting an awful lot of time.

Now I don't usually like to point blame at anyone, but wouldn't it be easier to just hit one or two keystrokes on your keyboard and have an entire email reply ready to go, or maybe half of that article or that agreement or whatever it is you're writing all ready there.

Well, that's where text expansion tools come into play.

Let's get started off with a tool which is called Text Blaze.

Text Blaze overview and how to start

Now Text Blaze is actually a Chrome extension.

So it is somewhat limited to only filling in things and adding text within your browser, but for many of us, we spend the majority of our time dealing with email, dealing with documents, filling in forms, for example, online, and I really liked the way that Text Blaze lays everything out.

It's quite simple to navigate.

So let me give you a quick tour and show you what you need to know.

Here on the left-hand side, I'm in my folder called My Snippets.

Now both of the tools that we're looking at today will allow you to group these snippets into different folders, and that's very important because over time you may accumulate a large number, and it's very valuable to group them into different categories that make sense to you.

So let's start off with something rather simple, something that I am sharing on a regular basis, and that is my Zoom meeting link.

Well, number one, I don't want to have to remember it and actually type in this link every time, and I don't wanna go and copy and paste it from somewhere else either.

I would rather hit just two keystrokes on my computer and input it directly wherever I want it to be.

So here, I've got the label for the snippet, which I'm calling Zoom link, and that's just for my reference, just so I know which one I'm looking at and talking about here.

To the right, we have the shortcut.

Now this can be anything that you want.

You can see that I'm using a /Z in this case.

So that's quick and easy for me to input this information.

The shorter, the better, but keep in mind you don't wanna be using common combinations or actual words that are going to be confused because whenever you enter this in this snippet, what you enter into this box down below is going to appear.

So having something like a forward slash or an asterisk, something else with a special character, is not a bad idea because you're probably not using that elsewhere as well.

So here we go.

I've got the link down below.

I've got the meeting password.

This is where I want to input anywhere I go.

I'm going to open up this Google Doc just to use as my example here, I'm going to enter in /Z, and immediately there we go.

I've got my information.

So if I'm replying to someone via email, if I need to share this quickly and easily, all I need to do is hit two keystrokes on my computer to do so.

To add your own snippet, all you need to do is hit this plus icon here.

You'll get a fresh workspace, a fresh snippet to create here, to give it a label, a shortcut, and then enter your text down below.

But remember, you can go much further than just a simple phrase or a simple piece of text.

How to use text expansion for email replies

I've got one down here below which I am calling my Trello reply because I do offer Trello consulting services.

And often people are inquiring about my services.

Now this is a great example.

You think of how many times in your workday are you responding with the same reply, or at least 95% of that reply is identical to the other 100 that came before it.

So in this case, I may want to customize something.

I may want to change maybe one of these questions, but most of the time, this is my default response.

So I have it all written out here.

I've got a link back to my webpage here.

I can add other customized pieces of information here as well.

So when I'm replying to that, and I'm just going to go back to my Google document for an example here, my shortcut key this time is /tr.

There I've got that information.

Boom, immediately I can hit send and go on with the rest of my day.

Now Text Blaze does allow some further customization, such as adding the current date, or doing some date math.

You can add in custom fields and custom names, but why don't we jump into our next tool, TextExpander, and I'll show you some of this capability there as well.

TextExpander overview and how to start

So the difference between TextExpander and Text Blaze is that TextExpander applies to your entire system.

It's not just limited to your web browser.

So this is great if you want to be able to use text expansion in other parts of your software, when you're working offline or maybe you just prefer to work on a desktop version of Microsoft Word, for example, you can use all this information here as well.

Now for today's example, since I'm using two different text expansion tools, I've decided to use a different prefix.

As we saw here in Text Blaze, I'm using a forward slash so I know that it's a Text Blaze expander or a Text Blaze snippet.

Here in TextExpander, I'm using the letter Z.

So everything is starting with the letter Z.

Now where I might need to be careful is if I have a combination of words, maybe like Z E.

I've got one here that's Z E M.

Remember, it's not Z E O or Z E R.

If I'm typing the word zero, but you want to make sure that no component of those combination of words doesn't exist in another word.

You're going to find that out pretty quickly, and then you'll need to come in here and change it.

So as we saw in Text Blaze, we also have the ability to group things together in different folders.

TextExpander is a little more full-featured.

Advanced libraries in TextExpander

In my opinion If we come down here to brand names, for example, they have a feature where they have this long list of common brand names and the way that they will auto-correct for you.

So it's more than just inputting text that you want.

Let's say that you keep forgetting is Mailchimp with a capital C or is it with a lowercase C?

Well, Mailchimp's proper name happens to be with a lowercase C, but it doesn't matter.

So if I come back here to my example and I'm going to purposely type in Mailchimp with a capital C, it's automatically going to change it to the proper lowercase C.

So it's more than just inputting the text.

It can actually be an auto-corrector and choosing the correct format.

And you can customize that as well.

Let's open up our TextExpander dialogue here for a second and go back to my own snippets.

Adding date math to TextExpander

I want to pull up one here which is called form submission response.

So for example, let's say that I get someone to fill in a form and then I want to send them back a response, but you'll notice I've added a little bit of customization to this particular one.

Here I've said in my final line, "Let me review the form you submitted, and I will get back to you by," and I've got some math going on here.

So I've said add two days to the day, month, day format.

So what this is going to do is it's going to add two days to the current day right now.

So whenever I input this into my email or if it's somewhere else, either online or offline, it's going to do that math for me.

Let's go back and check this one in real time.

So I'm going to come here Z form.

So there it is.

There's my snippet.

And remember, it can be much lengthier than this if I want to.

But at the end, it says, "I will get back to you by Thursday, March 11th."

That's correct.

Because as I'm recording this video, it is Tuesday, March 9th.

So you can adjust this.

You can add more complicated calculations here just to customize your responses rather than "I'll get back to you soon."

Or maybe there's an expected shipping date, something along those lines.

Including name fields to TextExpander

Do this to make it a lot more personal as well. Let me bring back this snippet here.

And at the very beginning, I'm going to say, "Hi," I'm going to leave a space, but in here, I'm going to choose this option, which is called fill-ins.

And I'm going to choose a single line field.

And in this case, the name I'm going to give it is just that—it's going to be a name because I wanna personalize this response a little bit more.

I don't wanna just leave it in the format it's in right now.

I want to input someone's name.

So by doing so, I'm going to hit okay here.

The last thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add a comma just for formatting, just so it looks more natural.

So it's going to actually prompt me to input the name I want before it inserts into my text.

Let's minimize this and see this again in action.

So I'm gonna type in my keywords, and just before it goes into the document where my cursor was, I'm going to get this little pop-up down below and you can see the cursor is waiting for me to input a name.

So I'm going to say, "Hi, Steve," in this case.

And all I need to do is hit enter.

And now, boom, Steve is right there.

I can address Steve in this email reply.

Now you can also add that same name field that we just saw in multiple parts of your snippet.

So think of something a little lengthier, like an agreement, maybe it's a longer email and you want to address them again later on in that message.

You only have to enter it in once, but it's going to appear in all of those places.

And the nice thing is that TextExpander is going to give you that preview as well.

Well, I would love to hear from you next—are you already using a text expansion tool?

If so, what are some of your best tips and tricks to getting the most out of these services?

Thank you so much for watching, and remember being productive does not have to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

How NetHunt CRM works with Gmail

(upbeat music) If you're a Gmail user and you need a CRM system, then this video is for you, why?

Because NetHunt CRM has gotten so much better because now it includes complex automation.

So you can sit back and do a whole lot less and let your CRM system do a whole lot more.

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

And the reason why I love NetHunt CRM is that you can do it all right here from within Gmail.

You don't need to open up another tab.

You don't need to go into another application.

Here, I can expand my Scott's business example here, and I can view all of my deals on a single screen.

I can view my pipeline and start to move things across.

As soon as I've won this deal, I can move it over here to the won column and manage those contracts, manage my clients.

I can not only view all of my contacts right here from within Gmail.

I don't have to jump to Google Contacts, but I can see the full history.

If I click on their link, I can see all of the emails and set my customized fields and everything that you would want from a CRM system.

But what I want to show you today is how to use Workflow Automation.

So you can have people fill in a contact form.

You can have people reply to an email and then automatically change their status or send a follow-up email campaign.

Whatever you want to do, you can build it right here within NetHunt CRM.

First, let me quickly show you

Example of a NetHunt CRM Workflow

what I'm talking about here with a sample I already created.

So in this case, I've got a nice overview of someone who is filling out a contact us form and how they're automatically being included in my CRM records.

But beyond that, I've got things branching out into a few different things.

Because once they've signed up or filled in that contact form, I want to send them a special email message.

And then I want to wait to see if they reply.

And if they don't, I want to send them another email, but once they do reply, I want to change their status to a lead.

And here on the right-hand side, I can follow those workflows each and every time.

So I can see in this case, I have three individuals that have already gone through the process.

And that gives me a lot of great statistics and data as well.

So I can see how many people are laying eyes on it.

If there's a bounce or how many emails are being bounced at what stages, where are people getting caught up in that workflow?

So let me show you how you can build out a workflow and a variety

How to create a workflow in NetHunt CRM

of different automations right here from within NetHunt. So all we need to do is click on the workflows tab on the left-hand side of our menu.

And then up in the right, we're going to select new.

And in this case, I'm going to call this a contact us form, okay?

So this is something, when someone fills out my contact us form, this is the automation and the email drip campaign I want to send them into.

So we start off with a blank grid and we can do so many different things here when it comes to automation.

I'm going to start by selecting, add a starting trigger.

And here's, you can see that trigger could be a variety of things, including when a new record is added, whether I do it manually, or maybe it comes in by some other form, when a field value changes.

So perhaps when I adjust the lead type or the customer type, maybe one of my customized fields that I already have set up in my contact list, that could be a trigger.

We can choose web hook events, but in this case, I want to use a web form

Setting up a web form in NetHunt CRM

when someone is filling out a web form. Now, the nice thing here within NetHunt CRM is that yes, you can connect it to other web forms that you're already using, but you can also create your own right here from within NetHunt.

So for example, I'm going to say that this is just a basic contact us form.

I could give it a description if I want, but I'm going to keep it simple for this example.

I'm going to keep it basic first name, last name, email address, and maybe I'm going to add a text field here as well.

And just something like, "tell us more about what you are looking for," something along those lines.

And you can add a variety of customized fields in your contact us form here as well.

Now I'm going to hit save.

In this case, we can do some customization here.

I kind of liked the way things were so far.

If you don't like the color scheme, you can change from a few different templates here as well.

But this is just a preview of what this form is going to look like.

And at the top of the screen, you can see, we can add this in a few different ways.

We can link directly to it.

So you can add this link, or if you want, you can embed this directly into any website.

So if you want to put this on a particular page or maybe in multiple pages on your website, you can do so as well, but we've got the contact form the way that I like it, it hit close at this stage. Let's decide next,

Adding actions to a NetHunt CRM workflow

what is going to happen once someone has filled out that form.

So I'm going to select add an action here.

And in my case, I think the most logical next step would be to create a new record, right?

When they fill out a form, I don't care, I may not even know their level of interest is, I want to add them to my CRM so I can decide and hopefully bring them in as a part of my sales pipeline.

So I'm going to say, create a new record, and I want to put it into contact.

Next up, we just need to match our fields, because remember you can customize that contact us form and have it mapped to different things within your CRM system.

So in this case, I just want to make sure that yes, first name is going to match up to first name.

We want the last name to match up to our last name.

We want the email address to match up to, yes, you guessed it, the email address.

Now this may seem like a lot of additional work at this step, but remember, all of those fields can be customized on your form.

So maybe you want to map them to something particular or very different than what the user is seeing depending on how you create your form.

So I'm going to hit save at this case.

So that's, what's going to happen next.

We're going to create that contact.

Splitting paths within NetHunt CRM workflow

But my next step here as a part of our web flow builder, or workflow builder is we want to create a split path.

We want to branch things off here into two different streams, because on the one side, I want to send them a welcome email and hopefully get them to respond.

But on the second side of things, this is going to be sort of the next step is when I graduate them to be an official lead, because I'm not going to really count them as a lead until they actually reply.

I'm not going to count them as a qualified lead until they actually reply to one of my emails.

So that's where this split path comes into play.

So we've got branch A and we've got branch B, let me show you how this is going to work.

Let's start with branch A and what we're going to do is we're going to send a welcome email.

Now you can see there's a variety of other things we could do as well, including sending Slack messages or a Google Chat message.

We could just simply update the record.

You don't always have to be sending email as a part of it, but I know for many of us, when it comes to nurturing our leads and people who are contacting us via our contact form, we want to send them an email.

So I'm going to select, send an email.

We're going to send it to the email address on file.

And here you can craft any message that you want.

In our case, I'm going to keep it very, very simple.

In fact, I'm only going to be using subject headers in this case, but of course you can customize this text any way you want.

You can even add macros.

So if you want to make it personal and address them by their first name, you can do all of that right here within NetHunt.

But let's say this is our welcome email and I'm going to hit save.

So that's the first email that they're going to receive.

Next up, I want to check and select another action.

Adding time breaks and rules within the workflow

And in this case, I want to wait for a little bit of time.

I want to wait maybe about two days before, I send my follow-up email.

I don't want to feel like a pest, but I don't want them to forget about me either.

So I'm going to wait a maximum of two days before I send that follow-up email.

I'm going to hit it save here and here you can see it's built right into my workflow.

So I can easily see what's going on and I can adjust these things, add more or remove or edit these actions whenever I like.

My next action here is going to be my second email.

So here, I'm going to come back into, add a new action, I'm going to say, send another email, and in this case, I can choose to send it as a reply to the previous email if I want, but in this case, I'm going to actually check that box.

I'm going to say, "I think you may like what we have," all right.

So this is my follow-up email, right?

'Cause they haven't responded to the first one yet.

So the messaging is probably going to be a little bit different.

Maybe I'll add a bit more detail and as to why they should reach out and find for more information.

I'm going to hit save on this one.

And here you can see I've got my second email here.

Now, remember you can make this drip campaign as complex or as simple as you like.

In this particular example, I'm going to stop it at this point because I want to show you how we can convert them or when we will convert them to a qualified lead.

But maybe you have five or seven or even 10 emails that you want to be sending along before you either change them or have something else happen as a part of your workflow.

So what I'm going to do at this stage here is I'm actually going to end this workflow.

Setting triggers for next path in workflow

You can see the last option here is to end this branch of the workflow.

However, as we move to branch B, let me show you how the relationships work here.

The very first action I'm going to select here is to wait for email.

And what that means is that I am going to wait until they've replied to do what is happening here in branch B.

So branch B is not going to start.

Nothing is going to happen in this second set of actions, the second set of automations until I receive that email back.

Now, in this case, I want to uncheck this box, which says, ignore previous emails.

I don't want to ignore those previous emails.

I want to be listening to and making sure that whenever they reply to any of those emails in branch A, then branch B will begin.

So I'm going to hit save in this case.

I'm going to wait for that email to receive, and as soon as they've replied to me, what I want to do is change their status from new contact to a lead as in a quality lead.

Because, just because someone filled out a contact form, I really can't gauge their full level of interest, but once they've emailed back or replied back to one of my emails that I've sent to them, well, that gives me a hint that maybe they are interested in my services.

Using the update record workflow action

So what I'm going to do in this case is I'm going to update the record.

Once they've replied to me, I'm going to select update a record.

We're in our contacts field already.

And what I need to do is come down here to one of my customized field values.

Now I can change any of these field values that you see listed here.

But in my case, I'm going to come down to type.

And what I'm going to do is going to select the value and choose the type that I want to change it to.

So by default, in my CRM, the way it is set up, everyone is a new contact when they first fill out that form.

But I want to change them to a lead as soon as they reply to one of my emails.

So I'm going to select lead in this case and hit save.

Now, the other thing that you want to keep in mind when setting up your workflows here within NetHunt CRM is you can rename these as well.

Here on the left-hand side, maybe the subject line of these emails are good enough to tell me what is happening here.

But in this case, it says, update a record.

It says, update one field.

Well, if I come over here, I can select rename.

And I think what's going to make a lot more sense if I say, update type to leads.

So I know what is happening at this stage.

I'm going to hit save here.

So now I know this is when they are converting from a new contact to a qualified lead.

You know, the next thing that I want to do once they've replied is obviously send an email back to them.

Either thanking them or giving them more detailed information.

So once again, I'm going to select send an email to their email address, and this is going to be, "take a look at these great, these great deals."

All right, perfect.

So here I've maybe got a long list of things that they may be interested in purchasing, or maybe I want to set up a meeting, whatever makes the most sense for you and your CRM automation system.

I'm going to hit save at this point.

So there is when that email is sent out.

And my last step here is just going to be to end that workflow, because now I've started a conversation, maybe I want to be a little more personal and I'm going to jump on board and maybe set up a phone call or a meeting or something of the like.

So here we go.

Now, I've got my automation all set up.

All I need to do at this stage is come up here and select activate.

So now we are ready to take it for a test run and see how this actually works.

Testing out the workflow and seeing it in action

So first off, what we need to do here is to get that form.

In order to get that link, all we need to do is click on that, contact us form.

I'm going to copy that link here and put it in a new tab.

So this is what your contact may see, or in my case, this is what my participants would see.

And again, you can embed this into your website if you want to.

So let's give this a very test, test, Testerson, yeah, that's a good name there, test Testerson.

And we'll give him a real address in this case, just so we can see how the reply automation works with the workflow that we've set up.

And I'm just going to leave this last one blank here.

So here's this test user who is submitting my contact us form.

Form is submitted, fantastic.

Let's jump back to NetHunt, which is within our Gmail account to see what happens.

So I'm going to come back here, let me close this page.

And already you can see on the right-hand side, we have someone waiting within this workflow.

I'm going to show you the contact in just a second, but here you can see we've got one person who's filled out the Contact Us form.

They've now updated the contact records and we've sent them that welcome email.

Now everything else shows as a zero for good reason because we're waiting, right?

We've decided to wait for two days, at least two days before we send out this following email below, right?

And again, you can have as many as you like.

The idea is that we hope to send them for them to reply an email back to us so we can change their status from a new contact to a lead.

Viewing the updates within NetHunt CRM

But let me jump over to my contacts for just a second here.

Here we see we've got test, Testerson.

Right at the top of our, right at the top of our list here.

If I click on that, you can see that we've got his information here.

Here's his welcome email that we sent him and the type is a new contact.

It's working just the way that we have designed it.

It's been added to our CRM system.

He is correctly labeled as a new contact and we can follow the conversation here, but nothing else is going to happen in this workflow until they reply back to us either they need to reply to us, or we're going to wait two days and we're going to send them an automated email.

Well, let's accelerate the process here.

I'm actually going to jump into my test Hotmail account and here you can see here's the welcome email we created just a few minutes ago.

So let's say that I am interested, right?

I'm someone who is interested.

So I'm going to reply and say, "please send me more details."

All right, so I'm going to hit send on this case.

I'm replying to that email.

So let's jump back into NetHunt and see what is happening with our automation.

So at this stage, you can see that we still have zeros on branch A because we haven't waited two days.

In fact, there's actually no need for us to continue on with sending this future email.

But if we look over at branch B, yes,

Reviewing the live details within the NetHunt CRM workflow

the email was received. So we've now updated that individual's type from new contact to lead and we've sent them the follow-up email.

And if we look over here on the right-hand side, it's even telling us that it's fully completed.

I'm going to jump back to my Hotmail account for just an example here.

Here you can see there's that new email that was automatically sent.

We had no hands-on in this operation at all.

It was all automated on our behalf, but on this side, we can also follow a full time staff history of the entire workflow and where this customer has been.

Everything from when they first filled out the contact us form all the way to when we sent that last email and when their type was changed.

And if you don't believe me, let's go back into contact here.

Let's click on that test Testerson and here his type, yes, is now changed to lead so we can treat him a little bit differently, send him other information, maybe reach out to set up a meeting.

Now, if you'd like to watch my full review of NetHunt CRM for Gmail, be sure to watch this video right here on the screen in front of you.

Thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel and remember being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

What is Time Blocking?

(logo whooshing) Are you struggling to find the time for your most important tasks?

Well, then time blocking may be the solution for you.

So in today's video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know along with some of my best tips and tricks for using time blocking right here within Google Calendar.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress, and time blocking can be one of the most effective ways to ensure that you have enough time for your most important tasks to-do's and projects.

So let's dive in.

Here I've got a pretty typical looking calendar.

I've got a week in front of me here, where I've got several different meetings, events, and appointments.

And by default, most of our calendars are built upon these things, things that involve at least one other person.

I've got things like a sales presentation where I'm gonna be presenting to another team.

I've got a monthly coaching call, where perhaps I've got a regular conversation, whether that's via Zoom or telephone, or maybe sometime in the future in person.

I've got a lunch date here on Friday.

All of these things have in common that I'm doing something with someone else.

And even if it's something like a dentist appointment, it involves not just me, but the dental office, right?

But too often, we ignore our own tasks, our own to-do list and where we can fit in the time to do those things.

And that's where time blocking comes into place. If I need to reserve some time to prepare

Using Time Blocking within Google Calendar

for this sales presentation, maybe what I should do, a smart move would be to create an event over here.

And I'm just gonna call it prepare for presentation, all right.

So now I've got an hour of time, maybe I need a little bit more than an hour.

I'm gonna block out 90 minutes to prepare for that sales presentation in time.

The great thing about time blocking is not only is it going to appear on your calendar, it's gonna send you a reminder, whether it's on your phone, if you have desktop notifications enabled.

But the bonus is that it will block out time from other people who may be trying to book an event with you.

So if you have a calendar that is linked to other people within your organization, it's going to show as busy.

If you have your Google Calendar linked to a scheduling tool such as Calendly, it's gonna block this out as well.

So that's one of the effective uses of using time blocking.

And you can use it for a variety of activities, for example, maybe you're having trouble finding the time to eat a healthy lunch during the day.

Well, a smart move would be to block out that time in advance.

You can select lunch on just one of these days, and then of course we can use the repeat functionality right here within Google Calendar.

If we open up this event, I can go over here and say, yeah, we want to repeat this daily at that particular time.

And now we can, on our calendar, we've got lunch scheduled throughout the week.

So it's blocked off, not only from other people, but we can reserve that time to hopefully eat a healthy lunch or go out for a short walk

Common problems with time blocking in Google Calendar

or whatever you want to do with that time. However, here's some caveats that I want you to think of when we think of time blocking within Google Calendar.

Many of us think of the flexibility of having multiple calendars.

As we see here in the lower left-hand side of my screen here, we'll create multiple calendars for things like things in our personal lives, things that are related to hobbies or social gatherings or maybe for just different aspects of our work life.

So for example, here I've got one called work in parentheses time block.

Now this can be effective.

Let's say if I want to block out some time here to catch up on email.

I'm gonna select email or call it email, should say, and then I'm gonna come down here and actually choose that time block calendar.

So not only is it gonna give me a different color, but I can also hide and minimize my time blocking activity by using multiple calendars here within Google Calendar.

However, watch out because this will not block out your time from external forces.

If someone is wanting to book time with me on Thursday at 9:00 am, it's gonna show this as available 'cause it's only referencing my primary Google Calendar.

If I have this linked to something like Calendly, as an example, again, it is not going to block out this time because it's a separate calendar.

It's only gonna be looking at that default calendar here. So how can we have the flexibility of seeing certain things

How to highlight your personal tasks on Google Calendar

on our calendar, make them stand out as something that we've blocked off without using this functionality?

Well, let me give you two options here.

Number one, on any of your calendar events, remember you don't have to change the calendar in order to change the color.

So if I wanna use that same type of green shade here, I could use that for all of my time blocking activity.

Lemme open up this first lunch one here, and maybe I want lunch to stand out in a different way.

Maybe I want it to be more of a red color, sort of like a stop for now, let's stop and go have our lunch.

I'm gonna hit save, and I can choose to add that to my following events as well.

So now lunch really stands out to me as I'm looking at my calendar here within Google Calendar.

However, there's an additional tip and a trick that I like to use to make certain things stand out.

Not only will it keep those things blocked off on my calendar, but they sort of jump out a little bit more as I'm creating them, and that's the use of emojis.

Now, not too long ago, I introduced some of you to one of my favorite sites, which is called Emojipedia.

Now here on Emojipedia, you can search for different things.

So let's say, I'm wanting to do some work, some focused work on my laptop, such as a writing laptop.

I can just type in a few keywords or search words and find the emojis that I'm looking for.

However, you should also be made aware of some of the quick keys or shortcut keys on your computer.

And if you are using Windows, for example, all you need to do is select the Windows key plus the period key, and you'll bring up your emoji menu.

So now I can actually start typing in some of the same things here.

I just started typing in lap.

Hey, there's a picture of a laptop, I can select that and then go on by labeling this, and maybe I'll just call this focused, focused work, right?

So I'm gonna label that focused work.

Now I've got this nice little icon beside it here, which just makes it pop, just makes it jump out a little bit.

Remember I'm not using a separate calendar, but maybe I'm gonna use these emojis as a signal as to the things that are, things that I've put on my calendar.

Things that are time blocked for me and don't involve someone else.

Using Text Expanders with Google Calendar

But let's go one step further.

I wanna show you another tip that I just stumbled upon, and I think it's gonna make your life a lot easier as well.

How about if you created maybe four or five different categories that are specific to your time blocking needs?

Things such as lunch, exercise, email, focused work, written work, maybe presentation preparation or something along those lines, whatever makes the most sense for you.

Maybe a social media time where you can review your social media platforms or set up your social media campaigns for the future.

Well, to incorporate the use of these emojis along with these labels, you can use a text expander.

And something that I've been using a lot is a tool called Text Blaze.

So let me show you how I can use that here with my time blocking strategy.

Let's say that I wanna go for some exercise here at maybe 4:00 pm in the afternoon, I wanna hit the gym, or I just want to go out for a run or something along those lines.

What I can do is I can create a quick key, something that's customizable to me.

I can actually use it in other places on the web as well.

But in this particular example,

Using Text Blaze snippets to save time in Google Calendar

I'm gonna use it right here within Google Calendar. So Text Blaze is a Chrome extension, which you can, which is free for you to use and you can create your own custom quick keys.

So if you're here, for example, here on the left-hand side, I've already created one for email and lunch, but you can go much beyond this as well.

This third one here is actually an email reply that I use quite often when I'm replying to a common question or the first time that someone inquires about my consulting services.

So all you need to do is give it a title, choose the quick key that you want to use to trigger this, and then you can edit all of this text down below.

So here, for example, is this email reply, let me just go back to the test screen here.

So if I enter in my quick key, in this case which is forward/ tr, I've got the entire email response right in front of me, it just appears.

So wherever I want to put this, I can do so.

Let's try this with the one of the existing ones that I have here, an email label, and I've chosen the quick key E, L.

So if I wanna create some time here for email here, maybe later in the day, I'm gonna open this up and I'm just gonna type in E, L, boom, I've got the emoji, I've got the all caps email for a reason because maybe I want it to stand out that much more.

That's when I'm gonna do my email at the end of that day, maybe I need to do some more catch up on Friday.

I'm gonna come over here, I'm gonna type in E, L, there it is again, hit enter on my keyboard.

Now I'm quickly and easily adding things right here on my calendar.

How to create Text Blaze snippets to use anywhere online

Let's go back to that exercise example and show you how you can create your own here within Text Blaze, or there are other text expanders that you may be using already.

So I'm gonna hit the plus key here to create something new, and I'm gonna call this one exercise in this case.

Now, when it comes to the shortcut key, you don't have to use a forward slash or a special key.

In fact, often what I like to do is use a combination of keys that are already in the word that I don't use very often.

But in this case, I think E, X is maybe a good choice in this case.

I'll use that as my shortcut, and then down below here, I'm gonna pick my emoji.

I'm gonna use that windows period to pull up this quick menu here.

And I'm gonna choose one of these runners here, I'm gonna put that in here and then I'm gonna give it a space, and I'm gonna say X or oh, let's use all caps like I showed before, exercise, okay.

So this is going to jump up big in all caps along with the emoji.

I don't even have to hit save here within Text Blaze, it's gonna work automatically for me.

If I wanna test it out right here within Text Blaze, they give you a handy way to do so, let's try that E,X boom.

There it is.

So let's go back to our calendar and let's say

Adding recurring time blocks to Google Calendar

I wanna add exercise all throughout the week at 4:00 pm.

I'm gonna come up here, I'm going to enter in my quick key, there it is.

If I want to repeat it, I can come in here and I can choose to, let's, yeah, let's repeat this daily and hit save.

Now I've got my exercise listed throughout the week, it's nice in all caps.

So it stands out from my other appointments and I've got that emoji there as well.

The other big benefit of using this type of time blocking strategy is that again I'm gonna get these notifications as well.

So if I have notifications turned on, on my phone, if I have desktop notifications turned on here within Google Calendar, I'll get that gentle reminder, hey, you're planning to go for a run or you're planning to hit the gym at this time.

It can help me keep on track with my goals.

Use a shortcut key to quickly add events in Google Calendar

The last tip I wanna share with you here today when it comes to time blocking within Google Calendar is another way to quickly add your events.

And it does involve a shortcut key but not an auto expander.

In this case, I want you to remember the letter C on your keyboard.

Whenever you have Google Calendar open and you hit C on your keyboard, it's going to immediately open up to create a new event.

So now I can add that title, I can set a repeat period if necessary and then hit save and immediately jump back to my calendar.

Now, one of the drawbacks is that it is going to open up in a full screen.

So you can't actually see the other things in front of you, but if you're on a different part of your calendar, maybe a few weeks in advance, or you've been reviewing something in the past, using C on your keyboard can be a great way of doing so.

Now if you'd like to learn even more tips and tricks and how to get the most out of Google Calendar, be sure to click on the video here on the screen in front of you.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Why spending less time with email is important Would you like to spend a lot less time in your email?

Well, then this video is for you, because I'm sharing with you my top five time-saving tips for getting the most out of Gmail.

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

And if we can shave off some time while dealing in our inbox while replying or reviewing or searching through our emails, well, then we can get onto more important things and the things that we want to get done

Changing Inbox Views in Gmail

as a part of our day. So let's start off our list with number five and we're actually looking at our views.

Sometimes when we come in here into Gmail, it can be really confusing as to see where we last left off, what we haven't read, what we have read, and where we should be putting our focus.

But Gmail has recently made it a lot easier for us to view this the way that we want.

If we come up here to the gear icon and open this up, and if we scroll about halfway down, you will see a section called inbox type.

And here you can see, we can go beyond just the default view of showing things in a chronological order.

Now we can customize this default view in a few different ways, but I wanna make sure that you save time by finding the ideal way for you.

So the first option that we have here is called important first.

And if I select this, you can see that it has filtered my most important emails, the ones that it thinks I should be dealing with first up front.

Here you can see, and I can collapse that if I want to.

And then down below, I have everything else.

Now, I only have this many messages in my inbox right now.

I know some of you may have many, many more, but I'm in the habit of archiving my messages.

So now I can deal with my important messages first, and then get to everything else as I go about my day.

The other options that we have here include unread first, and this can be really helpful after you've replied to something or once you've opened up a message and you only wanna be seeing new messages first.

Now, you may not want to stay in this view at all times, but as you can see here, it really splits things up nice and easily.

I've got everything that I haven't opened that I haven't touched upfront.

And then I've got the other messages, which may still be important for me to review down below.

Another option that we have here is starred first.

So if you're used to using this star feature amongst your emails, let me go ahead and star something down below here.

You can see if I refresh my screen here, it's now going to add it to my starred viewed.

So if you are picking and choosing certain messages that you wanna see first, that star viewed may be for you.

Now, the next two are the priority inbox, which is going to put a few different things here when it comes to important, and unread, starred.

There's a few different ways that we can segment this out.

In fact, if we click on customize, you'll have a lot further options here, but I wanna get to the last one here, which is perhaps the most customizable of them all.

That's multiple inboxes.

Now, by default, you may have a few different categories such as starred or perhaps things that are drafts as you can see down here below.

But if you click on the customize option, we've got a lot more detail that we can add here.

So here are the search queries that are being used to including those messages in those different headings.

What I would recommend is that you click on learn more, which is gonna open up this little dialog box on the right-hand side of your screen.

Now, at first, it's just gonna give you a bit of a description as to how these multiple inbox sections work.

But I want you to go one step further and actually click on search criteria.

Here, you will see the full list of search operators including an example, so you can include the things that you want to see here.

Maybe you want to include things with a certain name or a certain keyword in the title.

Maybe you want to filter out things from a certain individual, such as an important client or maybe your manager or something along those lines.

You can really think about this like applying the filtering option or the advanced search option within Gmail.

But now you can put it in your customized view.

So make sure you click on learn more and then view the search operator, so you can see the full list for yourself.

All right, let's go back to our inbox.

Schedule Gmail Messages to Send Later

I'm gonna rearrange my view back to the default, and let's get to my fourth best time-saving tip.

And that has to do with scheduling a send.

So let's open up and compose an email here.

How often have you thought to yourself, oh, I need to send that email or I need to let everyone know about something, but actually I don't need to let them know right now.

What do you do?

Well, perhaps you go to your calendar and add it as a task or you set yourself a reminder as to when it's an ideal time to send that message.

Well, that's a waste of time, because now you've got to add that to a to-do list or to a calendar.

And then you've got to come back and do it.

If it's on your mind right now, and you're thinking about it, why not write the email and then you can schedule that send later?

So let me just add an address here very quickly.

I'm not gonna add any content for this example, but if we come down here to the bottom, you will notice that there is a dropdown arrow to the right of the send button.

When we click that we are going to get this schedule send option.

Now, maybe I should put in just a fake, how about a fake subject line here?

Just so we can keep track of this as a part of our example.

So I'm gonna come down here and I'm gonna select schedule send, and that's gonna open up this dialog box, and it's gonna give us a few preset times.

Now, as I've shown you in a previous video, if you want to change these preset times, you actually need to go into your Google Keep account.

You need to open up Google Keep and change your default reminders.

That's where these times are coming from.

So if you want to change these times, if you don't want them to be a 1:00 PM or 8:00 AM, as it says here when it comes to afternoon and morning, you can go into Google Keep and change your default reminder times which are associated with your Gmail account.

Now, if none of these work for you, if none of these defaults fit for this particular message, all we need to do is come down here and select pick date and time.

And I can say I want to send this out tomorrow.

I'd like to send it at about 1:30 in the afternoon.

So let's make that PM and perfect.

Tomorrow, 1:30 PM.

I'm gonna select schedule send.

Now that dialogue box is gonna close, or I should say the email message is gonna close.

We're gonna get the notification down below that it's going to send tomorrow, but what if you made a mistake?

What if you actually want to send it sooner or later?

You just want to reword it?

Well, here on the left hand side of our Gmail menu, you can see that there's an area called scheduled.

So if we click on that, it's gonna bring up all of the messages that we have scheduled for the future.

And here's that fake subject that we just created.

Now, from this view, it's only gonna show us the date.

It's not gonna actually show us the specific time.

So we will need to click on that message to get the, here, send scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30 PM, just to confirm when it is going to be scheduled in the future.

So you can come in here and review any of those messages, but if we need to change it, all we need to do here is select cancel send.

And what it's gonna do, it's gonna bring us back to that original message.

Now I can change who I'm sending it to, the subject, the text, whatever I need to do, and I can reschedule it again if I want to, or I could send it out right now if something has changed along those lines.

This can save you an awful lot of time, because when you're thinking of that message, when you're crafting that message, why wait to press the send button yourself?

You can schedule it at the ideal time that you want.

Send and Archive Button in Gmail

All right, next up on my list, number three on my time saving Gmail tips has to do with sending and archiving at the exact same time.

Now, this is particular when you are replying to a message.

One of the great ways to get a handle on your email is to archive all the messages in your inbox, in your incoming inbox once you've replied to it, because you're most likely done with it, at that point.

You've sent the message.

You've downloaded the attachment.

You've acknowledged whatever the case may be.

So why not make it easier on yourself to, when you reply to that message, automatically have that email archived, so it leaves your inbox.

It allows for some decluttering to naturally happen.

So let me go in here into… I'll just use this as a sample email, and I'm gonna come down and I'm gonna say reply.

And I'm just gonna say, hey, thanks for the info. Okay?

So once I do, so you'll see down below I actually have two send buttons.

The first one is blue, and this is our send and archive button.

If I don't want to archive it right away, maybe I want to send the message, but then I want to come up here and grab some of this information, right?

Maybe I want to copy and paste some of this information or download the attachment, whatever the case may be, I will still have my traditional send option here on the right hand side.

But by default, I've enabled my send an archive.

So now when I click this button, it has sent the message, but it has automatically archived it.

It is gone from my inbox, which is great.

It's helping me keep my inbox nice and uncluttered.

So how do you make sure that you have that option?

Let's go up to our settings again, and this time we're gonna select see all settings, and under the very first tab under general, about six or seven down, we have this option send and archive.

So here you can see, we can either show the send an archive button or we can hide the send and archive button.

Now, remember even when this is shown, you're still gonna see that traditional or natural send button.

So you don't always have to archive everything when you're replying, but this can help you save an awful lot of time as well.

All right, let's get into our top two.

And just before I do, I wanna ask you what are some of your best Gmail time saving tips or tricks.

Be sure to share them with me and with others down below in the comments.

Smart Compose Messages in Gmail

Okay, number two. When it comes to time saving, for me, has to do with smart compose.

And what do I mean by this?

I mean, allowing email to help us finish some of our sentences, so that we can just hit the tab key and move on, and hopefully craft and write and reply to our emails that much faster.

So what exactly is smart compose here in Gmail?

Well, Gmail takes a look at what you are writing in the moment, and then we'll offer suggestions to help you complete a sentence or a phrase.

Now, in order to turn this on, what we need to do is come up to settings.

And again, we're gonna select see all settings, and we're gonna scroll about halfway down, and here you can see a few different smart features.

Now, the first one here is smart compose, and we want to turn that on if you want to allow Gmail to give you those suggestions.

Now, of course you don't have to have this on.

You can turn it off.

And in fact, it's probably off by default.

The second option that you may want to pay attention to is smart compose personalization.

And what this has to do is that Gmail starts to learn the way that you write.

There's certain phrases that you use most often, the way you address people, perhaps at the beginning of an email.

And it's going to start to personalize those suggestions as well.

You don't have to have these both on, you can turn personalization off while having smart compose on, and that's still gonna allow you to use that tab feature.

It's also gonna allow you to make it a lot quicker when you're using your mobile devices.

Well, of course you don't have a tab button when you're on your mobile.

All you need to do is swipe to the right when Gmail gives you those suggestions.

Okay, now that leaves us to tip number one,

How to use Gmail Templates

which I think is the number one way to save time with your email, especially when you're replying to common questions, and that has to do with templates.

So here we are.

I'm gonna open up my compose menu here once again.

And I'm just gonna say that, I'm gonna imply that someone is asking me a question that I get all of the time.

Maybe they're inquiring about my services.

Maybe it's the first time they're reaching out.

Maybe it's just a question I get a lot about my videos here on YouTube.

Rather than spending the time to write a personalized email with a lot of information and maybe going and grabbing certain links, all I need to do is create a template.

How do you do so?

Well, if we come down here to the very bottom, you can see our more options here, and you can see that there's an option called templates.

Now here I actually have a few templates that I've already set up.

So this saves me absolutely tons of time each and every week.

Perhaps I'm gonna select this one, which I've labeled learn more about Simpletivity.

And as you can see, everything such as links, such as images, such as bolding and text formatting, it all stays the same.

So you can have a very lengthy and a very specific email for different responses or different replies saved right here within Gmail.

Now, in terms of the name of the template, it's always going to look at the subject line.

So if you are creating a template from scratch, make sure you give it a subject that is descriptive to you.

Now, you don't have to keep it.

And in the event that you are replying to someone else, it will not replace it.

So if you're replying to someone using a template, it's always going to keep the same or the existing reply address.

It will not replace it there.

But this saves me so much time because I don't need to go finding certain links.

I don't need to go and find certain pieces of information.

And remember, I can still edit this.

For example, if I want to add at the very top, I wanna add someone's name and say hi.

"Hi, Dan," for example.

If I wanna personalize the message, maybe it's not a 900-word blog post.

Maybe it's just a 700-word blog post, for example.

I can come in here and customize certain elements.

Now here's a tip for you.

When you are creating your templates within Gmail, before you go and save it, which I'm gonna show you in just a moment, make sure you remove your email signature.

So for example, if I was to save this as a brand new template right now, it is also going to save this email signature, which means when I go to use it in an actual email, I'm gonna see a double signature, right?

It's gonna show this one in addition to the one that is automatically applied to my messages.

So that's just a very helpful tip when you're creating your templates, make sure that you delete the signature before saving.

How do you save it?

Well, once you've got your template, once you've got your message written the way that you want, we come back down here to our more option.

We select templates.

And we say save draft as a template.

Now we can either override one of the ones that we have here existing, or we can say save as a new template and give it a new name.

This is so handy when you are replying to things that you get asked time and time again.

Now, if you're looking for even more ways to get the most out of Gmail and save more time, you may be interested in my filters and labels tutorial.

I'll leave a link to it right down here below.

As always, thank you for watching.

And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

New views update and who can access

(whoosh) - Since the very beginning, Trello has been synonymous with a board view or a Kanban style of managing our projects, until now.

Trello now has introduced five new views, and I'm going to show you everything you need to know, on how to access and how to use these views, as a part of your Trello experience.

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

And this is a very exciting time to be a Trello user because there are some special features that have yet to come, but there are five brand new views that you can access right now.

Map view in Trello

So let's get started. Here in the top left-hand corner of any board, you're going to see a new dropdown.

Now it's going to show or list the view that you are currently looking at, and probably by default, it's going to be the traditional board view.

But if we click this, we can see that we have a number of other options available to us here.

So let's go through them one by one.

The first one here is a Map View.

So if I click on this map view, I have a couple of cards already, that have some location data.

So here you can see, we've got these little blue pushpins.

If I select them, it's going to show me the card, and I happen to have an image on these cards as well, that I can see, a little snapshot view of the data of that card.

If I come back down or if I zoom back out, I can click on this other one, I can see this card, and if I click on it itself, I can open up that card and start to work away at it.

If I close it, I'll be returned back to this Map View.

So, how do we access this Map View?

Now you may be familiar with this because until recently, this view used to be included in a Trello Power-Up.

However, that Power-Up is no more.

The only way that you can access the Map View is now by using this view here.

So let's go back to our traditional Trello board.

I'm going to open up one of these cards that already has location data, and you can see it's even going to give you a small mini map so you can actually view that inside the card.

But if we go and open up another card that does not have location data, you'll see here on the right-hand side just below attachment, there is now a location button.

So if we click on this button, and if we start to type in something here, let's just type in an address of some kind.

It's going to bring up the same type of results that you would expect from Google.

So I'm going to click on this address here.

Now you can see it's been added to this card.

Now you can only have one location per card.

You can't be adding multiple locations.

So this can be a great use in my example, for something like real estate, or suppliers, or client locations, whenever the card is going to represent something to a single location.

Now we can open up that Map View even by clicking on the miniature map here itself.

If I click on that, it's going to immediately bring open that map view.

So I can start to look at its surrounding areas as well.

And I can even add a card from this view as well, but if we go back here, if I need to change it, all I need to do is either select the button again and I can start to type in a new address, or if I come down to this mini view I can select the more option and select change location or I can remove it if I want to as well.

So as mentioned, although this is not an entirely brand new view moving from a Power-Up to this dropdown, now you don't have to enable or waste a Power-Up or manage something additional.

You always have that location feature available to you.

Timeline view in Trello

Let's go to the next one, which is really exciting.

And that is our Timeline View.

This is sort of a simplified Gantt chart view right here within Trello, and I think this is maybe the most exciting view of everything that's been introduced here.

So here we can see I've got a view of some of my tasks on this board, and although some of them may have a singular due date in terms of they're only encompassed on a single day, you can see that I've got other cards, that surpass a few days or maybe even a few weeks.

Something that you may have noticed in the last few months is that Trello has now incorporated a start date into your cards.

We've moved away from just having a due date, we now have a start date as well.

So here we can see the two different drop-downs, here's the start date, and here's the due date.

And if I go and start to add a brand new card, or open up a card that doesn't have a due date, I'm going to click on that due date option.

Here you can see there is a start date checkbox, so you don't have to initiate this.

You don't have to have a separate start date.

You can stay with just the due date.

And if I check this box, now I can pick a start date and an end date.

So here you can see that this particular card is scheduled to start on the 9th, and then finish on the 25th.

I can hit save.

And now I have both of those dates listed here.

If we go back and select our Timeline View, now you can see that crazy idea is now included in this view.

Now, as you saw me do already, I can click on any one of these and open up that card, I can make edits and changes here, and then close that and come back to this view.

But with any type of helpful Gantt chart view, maybe the most important feature here, is that you can shrink or expand these dates by clicking and dragging.

So if I need to move this and say, I can't start this until Thursday, I'm going to drag it there.

Now it should be noted that that does not affect the end date.

It does not give us the capability to click and drag and move the entire project.

So let's say if you have something that spans seven days that you just shift those seven days over, you do have to at least from this view, move it manually both the start and the end date, to your desired location.

However, in one of the other additional views, I'm going to show you how you can do this in a workaround type of method.

So this can be really helpful seeing our cards in this project view, but we can also see it in a few different ways.

Over here we have a drop down that allows us to break it down by member.

So here you can see on the left-hand side now I'm viewing these different cards and these different tasks by the members assigned.

The default here is list.

So you have the list on the left-hand side, but we can choose to view that by member and see if there's any overlap here.

We can choose a label view, if we want to see the different labels on the left-hand side, or we can choose none, which will have nothing listed here on the far left-hand side.

Calendar view in Trello

All right, let's keep going and look at a new Calendar View.

So yes, this is actually a little bit different than the Calendar Power-Up.

First things first, you can see that we can witness both the start and the due date at the same time.

So no longer, is everything just listed on a single day.

If I go back to the traditional Calendar Power-Up, you can see that nothing spans across those dates.

It is only showing things on the due date.

So that's one of the nice things of this Calendar View.

It's showing us both the beginning, the start date, and when that task is due.

Now here's that workaround that I wanted to show you, coming from the Timeline View, which does not yet allow you to drag things across.

Let's say, I'm looking at this another sub task card here.

And I want to start it on Monday.

But I want to drag the entire project back.

All I need to do is click and drag it.

I can drag it to the 15th, and you will notice that the end date moves with it.

Let's do that again, just so you can see the difference.

We're starting on the 15th, and we're ending on the 24th.

But if I want to bump this up a week, I'm going to bump it up here, you can see now that that end date is now the 17th.

The entire project moved with it.

So you might want to use the Calendar View in conjunction with the Timeline View depending on how you're managing your cards.

Again, we can click on any one of these, go into the card, and then come back directly to the Calendar View.

Now, the one thing that you should note is that unlike the traditional Calendar Power-Up, you cannot scroll forever.

Here you can see I'm looking at the month of February, and I can't scroll beyond, before the month of February or beyond the first week of March in this particular case.

I do need to use this arrow to go to another area here.

And depending on where you're wanting to drag those new calendar events, that may be a limitation.

I would imagine that Trello is going to address that.

Dashboard view in Trello

in an upcoming releas. Let's continue on with our different views here.

And this is something that Trello users have been asking for for a very long time.

And that is a Dashboard View.

You've got so many cards, you've got so much data staring back at you, give us a valuable summary, so we can see what's going on.

What we've seen right here is the Default View, what you're first going to see when opening up the dashboard, but the good news is that we can edit all of this information.

So just a couple of examples here.

We've got cards per lists.

So we can see that we're sort of evenly broken down here in this particular case in terms of how many cards are in that list.

Here, we have cards per due date.

And I think this is quite interesting, right?

To narrow throw in and zero in what is overdue, what's complete, and what is coming up, or maybe when we want to address those things that have no due date at all.

Now, one of the disappointing things to note is that we can't actually click on any of these data sets.

So for example, if I just want to see a summary of all of those cards that don't have a due date, I can't actually click on it, it is only a visual.

A couple of other examples that they include by default are cards by members and cards per label.

But you'll notice in the top right-hand corner, of each of these charts, we have an edit or delete option.

So I can come in here and I can select edit, and I can say, I would rather look at this as a pie chart, and yes, I want to keep it as cards per member.

So I'm going to say edit tile.

Now I've got the same information, but I've got it displayed in a way which is maybe just a little more convenient for me.

If I don't want this to be shown on my dashboard, I can just choose delete.

Now down below, you'll see there's always going to be a plus option, so you can start from scratch.

Maybe I want a line chart, and this time I want to see the timeframe from the past two weeks.

So I'm going to say add tile, it's going to take just a moment here, and here you can see a bit of a breakdown of what has been going on on my board.

Now, another caveat is that you can not click and drag these data sets to a different area.

So if I want something like this, to appear in my top corner here, I would actually have to delete everything above it, and then recreate them down below.

Again, something that I imagine Trello will add in as a future feature set.

But this can be great if there's maybe two or three pieces of information, that you or your team wants to see immediately, you can create your own customized dashboard, and get that glance of what's going on in your Trello boards.

Team Table view in Trello

Now last but not least, we've maybe saved the most powerful view, of how we can not only see things on this particular Trello board, but on multiple Trello boards.

And that is the Team Table.

Now, when you choose Team Table, it's actually going to open up a new tab within your browser.

You can actually see here I'm within my business class account, and you can see the other tabs that you may be familiar with here.

Now, there is a note at the top here that this is still in a Beta version.

In fact, this is something that's been available to business class users for several months, even starting back in 2020.

But let me show you how you can get the most out of this Table View.

So in this case, because I launched it from this particular board, I'm only seeing the cards from that board.

But already this can be a very helpful step.

Here I can actually change what list a card is in if I want to do so from here.

And I can do that with the other columns as well.

Maybe I want to add or remove another label, I can do that here, I can change or add members right here from this screen.

So I've got a lot of great information, and I can make these updates.

I can even check things off if I need to complete a certain card as well.

It also makes it very helpful here in the top right-hand corner, we have a few quick filters.

So if I click on this option, I can just narrow down and look at the cards that are only assigned to me, for example, or maybe I only want to see things that are due in the next week.

So it's going to narrow things down and give us this great filtering capability.

However, its real strength is that we can add multiple boards.

So let me go back to all cards here for just a second.

And I'm going to add some additional boards to view here.

So if I select this add boards option, I'm going to choose this Best Trello Power-Ups board, and let me select just another board here as a demonstration.

So now you can see we've got a lot more cards, we've got a snapshot of some of the different colors of those boards here, but now I can use some of the same quick filters, or I can sort from the top if I want to here, I can sort that information.

And pull in that information from multiple places.

So if I say, you know what is assigned to me, for example, it's going to bring it in from multiple boards.

Now, once you've got the view that you like, let's say you filtered it a specific way and you've added the three or four boards that you want to see in this view, what you need to do is select this bookmark option.

So by selecting this, Trello is going to give you a unique link, which you can copy to your clipboard.

And now, you can either add it as a bookmark within your browser if you need to get back to this quickly, or you can share it with others, you can share it via email, for example, with other members of your team.

What's important to note, and they stress it right here in their language, is that people with this link will only see boards they have permissions for.

So you don't have to worry if you've added multiple boards that maybe some of the people that you're sharing this link with don't have access to.

Don't worry, they're not going to be able to see that information down here.

It's going to filter those ones out.

It's going to keep those things safe or keep them private.

So you can have your own customized view of information across multiple boards, and see them in a variety of different ways.

What can Taskade do?

It's a to-do list, it's a project manager, it's a video conferencing app, no, it's an instant messaging tool.

Actually, Taskade is all of those things and so much more.

So in this video, I wanna show you how Taskade can replace many of your more expensive applications but perhaps more importantly, keep you on the same page.

So you don't have to be switching tabs or opening up different apps.

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

Built-in video conferencing

So let's get started here with video conferencing.

And right now I'm in the middle of a Taskade call, no, this isn't a small or minimized Zoom window or Microsoft Teams.

I'm actually using Taskade's built-in video conferencing tool.

So myself and my team and whoever else I invite to this call, we can actually view the same project here on the left-hand side, making sure that everyone's on the same page.

And the great thing about using an integrated tool like this is you don't have to remember if you sent the correct link or not.

Everyone who's invited to this project or to a broader workspace can have access to this call to make sure that everyone's on the same page.

Project chat and instant messaging

Now it gets better than that, down below here, we also have a chat window as well.

Now you may think that this is built into the video conferencing feature, and of course, we can be using this chat window to upload files and to communicate with one another while we are on a call, but this is actually a full-fledged instant messaging system as well.

So as we're working on projects, we can update one another, we can ask questions, we can mention people directly, and have a full log of that going on here as well.

So no, this is not specific just to the video conferencing functionality, we can be using this ongoing.

And what I love about this is that we don't have to remind people to use the correct channel or the correct hashtag.

For those of you who use Slack, you may be familiar with what I'm talking about.

Of course, everything that is mentioned here is going to be attached to this project so that we can stay focused on the task at hand. Well, let's dive into some of that fuller-fledged project management

Multiple project views in Taskade

and task management functionality that you can see here on the left-hand side.

So Taskade can be used in a variety of different ways.

Here, you can see I've got a variety of different checklists and tasks.

Some of them are assigned to individuals, some of them are assigned to me, for example, but Taskade can be used for note-taking, for creating an agenda.

There's really a wide variety of ways in which you can use Taskade.

But one of the things that I love is that you can view this information in a variety of different ways as well.

So here in the top right-hand corner, you can see that we're looking at sort of the traditional or standard list view.

And if you like something a little more linear, we've got our subject headings here, sort of a vertical workspace.

This may be great for you, but what if you prefer something more like a Kanban view, something a little more like a board view?

Well, great! Taskade has that too.

So you can drag tasks over into different lists and you can manage that here as well.

They also have something called an action list, which is really gonna create a little more distinction between things that are actual tasks, things that are actually separated, even if they are sub-tasks were broken out into different branches.

Now, one of my favorite views happens to be this one, and you don't get this in an awful lot of project management tools.

And that is the mind map view.

Now, of course, this may be dependent on the type of project or the type of tasks that you're working on.

I really enjoy this mind map view because the way it branches out, the way I can quickly add other levels, right?

The ways I can quickly add sub-tasks and so forth or minimize views right here within the mind map view, something that you don't always get with other project management tools.

And then last but not least, we also have an organizational chart view.

Now this is really, in many ways, just the mind map view tilted on its side, right?

Just rotating it a little bit but depending on what you're working on, you may like this organizational chart view as well.

Now, if you wanna make sure that you have a favorite, even if other people on your team or whom you're collaborating with are changing views, you can select a default here.

Here you can see I've put a star by the list view because this is the default view that I want to be using when I'm working or at least the first view that I wanna see when I'm coming in here within Taskade.

How to check all tasks in Taskade projects

Another nice few touches that I like about the project view and how you manage your projects here within Taskade is the ability to check off multiple tasks all at once.

And how many times have you come back to a project and realized, Oh yeah, we've already finished this up, right?

Like we've done everything on this board, I guess I gotta come back in here and manually check off every single thingwith how Taskade is laid out we've got s that is in front of me.

Well, what Taskade has added is an ability to check everything so that you can quickly get caught back up to speed.

And that's especially helpful if you're looking at something like your own task list.

So here you can see, I've got a variety of different tasks that are assigned to me with specific due dates.

If I, or maybe someone who is the project lead, is not checking these things off, I'm gonna still see this in my task view here.

So if I go back to my team workspace, let's go back to this brainstorming solutions project.

If I say to myself, you know what, we've actually finished everything off here, I don't wanna waste my time checking off every little tick box.

I can come up here and select more and I can select check all.

Now, the nice thing is, it's going to give me a prompt, are you sure you want to do this?

I think this is always a very safe measure whenever you're doing something like this in bulk but I'm gonna say, yeah, yeah, go ahead let's just check everything off here and so now we're done.

Now, this project is wrapped up.

So just a nice little touch to make it a little bit easier when you get into those positions or when you get into those circumstances and you need to check everything off. So let's go back to the workspace here. And for those who may not be familiar

Taskade structure and custom templates

with how Taskade is laid out, we've got some nice subheadings here, including a calendar.

If you want to favorite certain projects or workspaces and as I just showed you, your own personal tasks.

So it can bring in tasks from multiple locations but then you can break things out by different workspaces whether it's your own workspace, I've got a personal workspace here, or a team workspace.

And as you can see here on the right-hand side, I've got different projects within that workspace.

So a nice way to organize and branch out different things that you may be working on.

Now, if I wanna start a new project within this workspace, I can come up here and select new and right at the top it's gonna give me some helpful templates to get me started quickly and easily.

Now there's a few preset ones here, in fact, you can actually see a lot more if you click this option.

There's a full library of Taskade templates from users in a variety of different industries, but you can also create your own.

So for example, here I've created one called Team Meeting Agenda, which already has Simpletivity in the title.

It already has some of my custom headings here because this is the type of things I want us to be tracking when we have our meeting together.

So not only can you create your own custom templates, but you can attach them to a specific workspace.

A pet peeve of mine is that as you're building out a variety of different templates and you wanna go use them but you're already within a sub-folder or a particular area or a particular workspace.

I don't wanna see all of the templates, I only wanna see the templates that are relevant for that workspace.

So you can do that.

Here we go back to the team workspace.

If I click on templates, here you can see there is my Team Meeting Agenda.

It's waiting for me because it's specific to this particular team.

So there's a quick overview of Taskade, how it can replace things like Zoom, like Slack, like Asana or Trello, so that you can keep yourself and the rest of your team on the same page.

What Taskade features excite you the most?

Now, I would love to hear from you next, which of these features are you most excited about the most or which of this functionality are you typically more frustrated with in terms of having to go back and forth or creating some type of linkage or integration that you would love to see here all on the same page.

Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video, be sure to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

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

Meet Francesco from Keep Productive

Hello there, my name's Francesco D'Alessio and I run a YouTube channel called Keep Productive.

I've been here on Scott's channel before to do some features, and I'm excited to be back.

Today, I'm gonna be diving into Amplenote.

Scott will be diving into his opinion on Amplenote over on my channel, Keep Productive, so you can check out that video below, naturally.

If you're new to both Scott and I's channel, it'd be great to have you as a subscriber.

Overview of Amplenote workflow

So Amplenote is an application that blends note taking and task management.

It has a two-week trial, and if you wanted to go for the Basic and Pro account, it's $6 per month and $10 per month, but you'll find all the pricing information below.

So before we get into stuff like that, we'll talk about the application and the concepts behind it and really go into a bit more detail in what the application actually does.

If you're interested, this app was actually created by the creators of Get Clear and Bonanza.com, Bill and Jordan, and it is available on iOS and Android and also on web.

So the whole concept is quite interesting. It's designed and based off of something called the idea execution funnel.

The concept itself is broken into four phases: Jots, Notes, Tasks, and Calendar.

Essentially in Jots, you write and capture. In Notes, you rewrite them and organize them.

In Tasks, you make them more actionable, and then you actually schedule them and do them, connecting it to your Calendar.

So here we have the web version in front of me. It's only available for a 14-day free trial, as I said two weeks, and then there is a paid model, so the minimum you'll be paying a month is $6.

However, if you do get on with this, I guess it's like a task manager and a note taker all in one which isn't too bad of a price, I guess, and it does have a system and process behind it.

How to create notes in Amplenote

which does make it a lot better. So let's start by creating a brand new note, and as you can see, the design looks very similar to applications like Evernote, where you have these sort of three sections over here.

You can access your Jots, which is essentially your daily note taking, and as the concept mentioned earlier, you essentially use this to capture stuff and be able to write it down, and you can use these using some of the daily Jots here.

Notes is where you write, rewrite, and organize your notes for later. You can add tags to them.

And Tasks is essentially pulling all of the tasks that's inside all of your notes into this application, and they've got some really nice task abilities which I'll dive into.

So let's start by making a daily note. Okay, so as you can see here, when I was inside of Jots, I went ahead and created that as a full note, which meant that it became available inside of the Notes section here.

Now when I was inside of this section, you can do more formatting, the Jots section is really just you get the idea down, so they don't really want you necessarily to be making this fully-formed note as you would in the Note section.

And as you can see here, I added a few tasks.

Tasks and To-Do's in Amplenote

so let's see the concept behind the tasks. So as you can see here, you can pop open the feature, you can set a repeat up for the task, you can set a due date, in this case, I might make it today.

And as you can see, you can set a reminder, priority, and duration, all the regular stuff you'd expect.

Now what's really cool is it actually gives the task something called a task score, which essentially gives it a rating of how likely you're able to complete it.

And if I go over to the Tasks section, you can see that it's appeared here as well as all of the other ones that I've created in that note.

I can still pop this open and interact with it like I would, and as you can see, it's quite a handy way to get started on your tasks.

Now what's cool is you've got this shortcut called like Due This Week, so for example, if you want to narrow that filter down and find something that you need to do this week, then that's something that you can do.

You can also choose the ones that are high value only. For example, in this case, this is an important task so it's narrowed those down to filter that section.

You can go up to the top right and actually sort the tasks based on their tasks score.

This is an automated number that is associated to a task based on the following algorithm.

It's designed to help you find out what's really important to do.

Using Backlinks within Amplenote

which is quite a nice touch to this application, if I'm honest. So one of the features inside of it, aside from task management and this sort of built-in task management list processing, is actually the ability to create back links.

Now we've seen this inside of applications like Roam Research and Obsidian, but let's show you how they work.

So if you wanna create a back link, you create these two brackets and add the title of the note or link it to something you've already created.

So as you can see there, I created a section using a header for meetings, and you can see that I created a chat with Simpletivity.

Now when I actually finish those brackets, you can see that an area was created, and you can see a little preview of what the note actually has in it, in this case it doesn't have any notes.

I can edit the details of that preview but if I want to actually go into that, as you can see, all I have to do is open that note up and I can start writing my own notes here using the same format I would for most note taking.

Down here you can see the back links that have been formed, so for example in this case, they know that I've mentioned this inside of Daily Jots, which is perfect for if you want to start building something like the Zettelkasten methodology, which is something that is becoming increasingly popular in productivity these days.

So we've talked about so far in terms of the Jots to simply capture stuff, the Notes to simply be able to rewrite your notes and organize them in a bit more of a fixed fashion.

We talked about Tasks and how you can use the task score to work out which stuff you wanna get done during the week, but there's also the ability to connect with your calendar to be able to actually schedule it in.

So when it comes to using Amplenote, you can use it for note taking and task management.

It allows you to do this advanced task management where you can do everything from even hiding your actual task til later which is something that I quite like inside of this application, because it could probably get quite messy if you started filling up notes with tasks.

I feel like this is actually something that applications like Evernote could benefit from massively, having some form of methodology or task system that you could use and take advantage of.

Tags and special features in Amplenote

So before we go, I wanted to point towards some of the features that I really liked inside of this application, particularly the ability to add tags is something that could be quite useful for organizing projects and activities.

They essentially serve as notebooks, and that's something that can be used as you go along.

The other thing I really like is if you go to the top right-hand corner, you can do what's called Applying Vault Encryption.

Now obviously once you have the basic account, I believe that's where you'll be able to access this, but you can see here that you can actually encrypt your notes, which means that the notes won't be stored on the server.

So it says here that the content of the vault-encrypted notes will not preview in your notes list or be matched in searches.

So this is actually a perfect way to keep your notes safer and more secure, away from other prying eyes. I really like this focus on security that they have.

The other thing I really like is the fact that down here you've got hidden, completed, and back links, all really nicely organized, ready for later, and I also like the search bar for being able to find and organize

Amplenote pricing plans and options

your notes for later, and it actually was really easy to use. So this application is still in its early days, so let's take a look at the pricing.

As you can see here, there are three types of pricing: Basic, Pro, and Founder.

With the Basic one, it's near enough $6 per month. It's billed annually, and it allows you to collaborate with unlimited users, use some of the task scheduling and recurrence, all of the notes encrypted at client, and up to 10 gigabytes storage for attachments.

The Pro is billed at $10 per month but billed annually. All the benefits of the Basic, and that means that you will have to upgrade to this account to get the Vault Notes for sensitive content.

You'll also have publish your notes as web links and up to 25 gig for storage.

Now if I'm honest, the pricing is pretty steep for this one, however they are an independent developer, so as you can imagine, this app is something that they're working on and improving and at quite a rapid rate.

And if you compare it to apps like say Roam, it's still cheaper.

But if you're going for the Founder plan, which is $20 per month billed annually, then naturally it's gonna be more expensive than the likes of Roam Research.

So folks, if you're looking for a note-taking application that has some really cool task management abilities within it, that totally utilizes back links, and it has more of a focus on security and you're willing to pay up to $10 per month, this could be a great option for you.

So folks, I just wanted to thank Scott for having me here on the channel.

I love coming on, I'm excited for his feature over on my channel, so make sure you subscribe to both of us, but a big thanks to Scott.

We'll talk very soon, I'm sure me and Scott will work on some collaborations in the near future, but sending my best to you all, and I hope to see you in the comments below.

Cheerio, folks.

Don't look like a fool on Zoom

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. You don't wanna look like a fool on your next video conference.

So in today's video, I'm sharing with you seven common Zoom mistakes that you can easily avoid, so you can look so much more professional in your next Zoom meeting.

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

How to test your Zoom audio & video in advance

And let's start off with tip number one, and that is do a quick test in advance.

I'm just gonna stop sharing my screen here so we can go back into the menu.

And even if you started, you can still do this, but I would recommend you do this in advance.

On your desktop or laptop computer, you wanna open up the Zoom interface.

Now, if you're joining a Zoom meeting on your mobile device, you're probably going to get a prompt anyhow to test your video and to test your audio.

But here, what we wanna do is open up our Zoom meeting interface and click on the gear icon, click on settings.

And we're gonna look at two settings very quickly. No joke, I actually do this every single time.

Number one, I click on video. Hey, am I in frame? Is the lighting proper? Am I using the correct camera?

Because for many of us, we actually have more than one webcam. Your monitor or your laptop probably already has a webcam built in, but perhaps you're using a better or higher quality webcam that you attach via USB.

So make sure you come down here, make sure that you're viewing the correct webcam. Now that's a pretty quick and easy one.

We also wanna click on the Audio tab and take a look at two quick things here as well.

The first one is test speaker, making sure that you are hearing the meeting the way that you want to.

In this case, you may have a variety of different options as to how you can listen to that meeting.

For example, I typically take my Zoom calls using my Bluetooth earbuds, and because it's Bluetooth, these are often connected to a variety of other devices in my home.

So I wanna make sure they're connected properly. What I can also do is select the Test Speaker icon, and make sure that I can hear what is going on, making sure that I'm hearing that in the device that I want to.

I also want to come down to microphone and make sure I've got the correct microphone selected and I can test that mic as well.

Especially if you've invested some money in a better quality microphone, make sure you're using that microphone.

By default, it may just be choosing your system's microphone, so yeah, your audience can hear you, but perhaps they're not hearing you in the best of quality.

So make sure you do a quick test in advance.

How to use the spacebar to unmute yourself

Now let's jump back into our Zoom meeting, and tip number two has to do with muting yourself when you don't need to be heard.

Now you're probably already familiar with where the mute button is, and I can come down here and mute myself so that no one else in this meeting can hear me.

It even gives me a bit of a warning because it can hear that I'm talking at the moment.

But the tip I want to give you is that if you're involved in a Zoom meeting where you only need to interject or contribute once in a while, right? You're not the host, you're not the main presenter, I want you to make use of your Space bar.

The Space bar actually acts as a trigger. You can almost think of it like a walkie-talkie where you hold it down and you can speak.

So if I press down on my Space bar, I am temporarily unmuted, you can hear me, everyone else can hear me, but as soon as I release that Space bar, I automatically become muted.

Take a look here on the lower left-hand corner, you can see the red slash, I'm muted, but if I press down on the Space bar, now I can ask my question or I can give my comment and then release that Space bar and I am immediately muted again.

So no more worrying if people can hear me. Am I muted, am I unmuted? You can use that Space bar so you know when you're pressing it down, you can contribute to that meeting.

How to share sound when Zoom screen sharing

Tip number three, we're gonna stick with sound, and this has to do with sharing your screen, particularly sharing music or sharing video.

How often have you been in a Zoom call and someone has tried to share a YouTube video or something else with sound?

And everyone has to start pointing at the screen or using private messaging and saying, "We can't hear it. We can't hear it. None of us can hear it."

And the host looks a little puzzled because they can hear it. They can hear it just perfectly. Why can't everyone else hear it?

Well, when you share audio or share video, when you select share screen, before you select that file or before you select your browser, you wanna come down here and make sure you check, share sound.

That is the only way that the audio that you hear on your machine, what you're sharing is going to be shared with others.

And if you are sharing video, you may also want to select this other option here, optimize for video clip.

Meaning it's gonna try and smooth things over a bit, so it is a better video experience for those who are watching the video through Zoom.

But if you are sharing audio, make sure that you select share sound.

Now note, this is also gonna share other sounds on your machine. So if there is going to be an alert or a notification or other things that come up, people are going to hear that as well.

But this is in particular if you are sharing that content with other individuals.

All right, I'm just gonna select my browser here. And let's go into share mode and talk about something which again can really make a lot of us look foolish,

How to move or hide the Zoom control menu

but there's an easy fix for this mistake. Many times we are sharing our web browser or a web page.

So here I am on the Zoom website and let's say, I want to browse around to a bunch of different tabs, but by default, the Zoom floating bar, which has all of my controls, is anchored at the top of the screen.

And you know what, that makes it really difficult, because if I wanna get to... Oh, I'm trying to get to that tab. And if I wanna get to this tab, as soon as my cursor goes over there, it comes down.

And how many times have you stopped sharing or maybe hit something up here when you actually meant to select that tab?

Well, the good news is that you can move that floating bar.

If you come up here and hover over the green, "You are screen sharing" area, click and hold, you can actually drag this floating bar to wherever you want.

Now, I often like to drag it to the very bottom of the screen because I don't have any tabs down there.

It's not in the way of anything else. And I can still access it, right? If I come down here, I can hover over and access these controls down below, but now I have full access to all of my tabs in my browser.

Or if I'm opening a file and I wanna access all the menu and options up above, nothing is distracting me in that case.

I can always come back and drag it back to the top or drag it to wherever I want.

Now, another option that you have with the floating menu bar is if you come over here to More, you can actually hide these meeting controls altogether.

Now you can see they are completely gone. I can't see them at all. And if I press Escape, it will return to the screen.

Now, a bit of a warning because they're completely hidden, I may end up forgetting if I'm sharing my screen.

And maybe after my portion of the presentation, I believe I've handed it off to someone else and I'm not sharing my screen. And then I go to social media or maybe try to do something else off the side of my desk.

Meanwhile, I'm sharing to everyone else. I might forget it. So if I hit Escape again, that floating bar is going to return.

But I think one of the nice things of having this visible at least somewhere on your screen, is you're gonna see this green, "You are sharing," and this stop share. The green and the red makes it pretty apparent that you are sharing in that moment.

How to chat with everyone vs direct messaging

All right, so the next one on this list is something really, really important and it's actually changed in the past year.

I've had so many questions about this one. I wanted to make sure I included it in today's video.

What we're gonna do is come up here and open up the chat window.

In fact, why don't I just stop sharing for a moment? I'm gonna have the chat window here on the right-hand side.

Now, one common mistake that you want to try and avoid is make sure that you know the difference between messaging everyone and messaging someone privately or sending them a direct message.

How often have you, or have you seen someone else, send a message when they thought it was directly to an individual, but really it was stuck on everyone and everyone in the meeting saw that message?

So take a quick look at this dropdown menu. Make sure that you know the difference as to who you're sending that message to.

But here's the question that I got asked last year, when it comes to a direct message, and Zoom has changed the label of this. This used to say private, now they use the term direct message. Is it truly private? Can the host truly not see this?

Well, it's true in the meeting, the host cannot see this. The host cannot see any of these messages, but what also used to be true is that if the meeting host was recording that meeting, they would get a log of the full chat, including those private messages.

So they weren't private afterwards. The host actually could have access to them.

I wanna tell you that that has changed and private really does mean private. The host does not have access to those messages even if they are recording the meeting. So something that you should be aware of there.

The other thing I wanna point out when it comes to chat is that if you are the host, you have a lot more options available to you here.

So for example, by default, most Zoom meetings are set to everyone publicly and directly, meaning that everyone can message the entire group or they can pick and choose individuals at a time.

But you can disable the directly option and you can choose just everyone publicly.

Meaning that every single comment is gonna be to everyone. No one can reach out to someone on a one-to-one basis.

There's two other choices you should be aware of. Host only, meaning that participants can only contact you.

You can contact everyone else, but only they can ask you questions or send you comments directly.

Now, this might be an interesting one to use if you are a teacher or a trainer and maybe you want to ensure your participants that they don't need to be embarrassed about their questions or to ask for help.

So in this mode, all of their questions or their comments go directly to you and no one else sees them.

And of course last but not least, you can just disable chat altogether.

You don't always have to have chat on, but I mean that sort of defeats the purpose of engagement and allowing people to interact in another way. Just wanna make sure that you're aware of those options there.

Speaking with participants

How to mute all participants

and speaking with having a little more control as the host, I also wanna make sure that you're familiar with muting everyone in your Zoom meeting.

How embarrassing is it that when you are trying to speak or give a presentation and then you hear someone's dog barking in the background or perhaps you hear someone speaking to a spouse off camera?

Well, don't forget as the host, you have control, that power to mute everyone.

If we come down here to the bottom, you can select Mute All. You're gonna get this pop-up window.

And just before you say Yes, I want you to look at this option as well, Allow Participants to Unmute Themselves.

If you're having a meeting with a fairly large audience or perhaps a group of people that you don't know very well, you may want to uncheck this option, meaning that they cannot unmute themselves unless you give them access to do so.

How to stop participants from doing things

You get to pick and choose. Now my seventh tip for you has to do with having full control, especially if you want to prevent your participants from annotating on your screen, prevent them from sharing their screen, unless you say so and other options.

If you're the host, you can come down here to Security and there is a section titled Allow participants too.

So by having share screen unchecked, no one else can share their screen right now, until I check this, no one else can do so without my permission.

I have chat turned on, but I could turn it off at this level as well.

I can choose to prevent them from renaming themselves. If I don't want them to rename themselves something that is already looking good or I can identify them, I can prevent that as well.

I can also, as we just saw another location where you can prevent them from unmuting themselves and if you don't want them to start their video, maybe there's no need depending on the type of meeting or what you're trying to host, you can also prevent that option as well.

Now, if you're looking for an even better way to engage your audience, you may be interested in learning how to use Zoom breakout rooms.

If so, I invite you to watch my video down here in the left-hand corner.

Thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Why Web Accessibility is important

Did you know that 20 to 25% of the population has a disability? Why should you care?

Well, that could be 25% of the population who cannot access your website, cannot find your products, services, or whatever information you're sharing online.

So in today's video, I want to show you a tool so that you can help others get the information and get the products and services that they're seeking.

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

And in today's video, we're looking at helping others to get more done, people who are looking for your products, your services, or your information online, and giving them the ability to access that information.

Regardless if they have a visual impairment, maybe motor skills, or cognitive disabilities, or maybe just something as simple as poor eyesight, how can they access your information easily, without you having to do a lot of work?

Now, I think there are two key reasons why it's important for us to talk about web accessibility.

Number one, if your website is not ADA and WCAG compliant, you put yourself at risk of receiving lawsuits for not being accessible to other individuals.

But I think the second reason is so much more important, is so that everyone can enjoy the use of the web, including whatever it is that you have to offer.

How to know if your website is ADA & WCAG compliant

So how do you know if your website or websites are compliant? Well, a great place to go and check is Ace.accessiBe.com.

And when you get here, you can just enter in the name of any website, but probably your own, 'cause that's where you're most curious, and select get the results.

What accessiBe will do is a quick check of your website and evaluate it through the industry standards.

And in a matter of seconds, what it will spit out is a short report telling you if you are compliant or if you are not.

As we can see here on the website that I ran through the checker, it is not currently compliant.

And I can go through this report and see the different areas in which it is not accessible to those with a variety of disabilities.

How to make your website compliant with accessiBe

So what do you do if your website is not compliant? Well, it's not always an easy fix.

The thing is, you can't just change your font or use web-safe colors and instantly make it accessible to everyone.

There are simply too many and various disabilities. You have to make certain changes for their needs.

So instead, you can use a tool like accessiBe. Let me show you how it works.

Once you sign up and install accessiBe on your website, you will have the option to have this icon appear on your web pages.

By having this appear, your users can click it and now start to adjust your content, adjust the way that your website's information is displayed, so that they can more easily digest and find the information that they are looking for.

And accessiBe makes it really easy because it has a number of profiles ready-set, depending on that user's disability, to change your website.

But just before I show you how accessiBe is going to change your website for the better, let's take a look at a few things that we sometimes don't think about, in terms of the challenges that many users experience.

On this sample webpage, for example, we have a carousel that is rapidly moving here.

We've got a GIF image, which can be difficult for some people. It may even trigger a seizure for those who suffer from epilepsy.

We've got a number of bright colors, and the font is maybe not the easiest to read.

How accessiBe makes web content accessible

How could someone with a disability safely navigate and find the information that they are looking for? Well, by clicking on accessiBe, I can make a few changes.

So, let's start with the first one: Seizure Safe Profile. Immediately, you can see that the colors have been dialed back a little bit.

It's not exactly black and white, but it's a lot easier on the eyes. This GIF image, for example, has stopped moving, and the carousel has as well.

Again, the content is still there. It's all still clickable, it's all still accessible, but much easier and much safer for someone who suffers from epilepsy.

The second one down is the Visually Impaired Profile. So, by selecting this one, you can see that now the colors are much more distinct.

And I'm sure you saw that the text, the font itself, not only became a lot larger but became much easier to read.

As I scan down through this webpage now, there's a much sharper contrast between the images, and the text is that much easier for me to read.

How do website visitors know about accessiBe

Now, I'm sure some of you may be asking, how does someone with a disability identify that this is a button that is for them and it's gonna help them navigate your website?

Well, this symbol that you see here has become a universal symbol for web accessibility.

For those who use a screen reader, or those who perhaps need to navigate by keyboard alone, are used to and becoming more accustomed to finding this on the web.

So if you have this on your website, there's a good chance that they're going to find it immediately because it never goes away.

It's gonna be floating in either the bottom left or right-hand corner.

But for someone who is blind or visually impaired and needs a screen reader, no problem, by having accessiBe installed on your website, the screen reader will alert the visitor that this is an additional option to make their navigation so much easier.

Let's take a look at a quick example. So when I first visit this website with my screen reader.

• [Computer voice] Press alt plus one for screen reader mode. Stop this message with alt plus zero.

It's letting me know there's some enhanced functionality, just for me. If I press alt plus one.

• [Computer voice] Screen reader mode is on. Alt plus zero to cancel, button, heading three, a good looking, comfortable, traditional collection. Heading three, list item. Woman in gray denim jeans. Woman in black tank top with black tattoo on arm. List item.

What accessiBe is doing is enhancing my picture tags, my image tags, so that people who are wanting to view that information can see it.

Even if they can't view it with their own eyes, they can access it with their screen reader with the help of accessiBe.

Custom options and accessiBe features

Now, keep in mind that even though accessiBe has these six different profiles at the beginning of its menu, if you scroll down, you've got so much more available to you.

So, for example, a user could simply click the readable font and just change the text, the font on the page here.

Maybe you want to be able to align all the text on the page to the right-hand side so that's easier for the way that you like to read.

If we go down a little bit further, we can choose a higher contrast, which if I close this down for a second, here you can see, it's a much higher contrast between the lights and the darks.

And for those who may suffer from color blindness, again, color blindness is different for different color blind people.

So what is the proper text color, depending on your color blindness?

Now, as we continue down the accessiBe interface, we come to orientation adjustments, and again the user can tweak this and make adjustments depending on their needs.

Here's one, for example, is hide images. So if you just want to be able to focus in on the text and not be distracted by videos, GIFs, and other images, you can turn that off as well.

There's also the option to increase the size of your cursor. Maybe I want a big black cursor, which is going to help me navigate and follow along where I am and make sure I know what I'm clicking on and where it is.

Another feature that I find most helpful is where are the actual links? So here, under content adjustments, I can select highlight links.

And now this is going to tell me what is clickable and what is not.

You can see the little orange around these buttons here, I can see that there's orange around these images, I can clearly see what is clickable and what is not as I scour and browse this website.

So if you want to make sure that your website is accessible to all, be sure to check out accessiBe at accessiBe.com.

Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity Channel, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.