How to Improve Your Business Writing in Seconds (ProWritingAid)
Why a writing editor app is important
There is a very good chance that you spend more time communicating via text than by any other format. And no, I'm not talking about text messaging.
I'm talking about things like email, social media, or perhaps your website. It's important for us to be able to convey ourselves in a clear and concise manner so we can get our message across.
So in today's video, I want to show you why it's important to use a writing editing app and how I've been using a particular one over the last few weeks to help improve my online messaging.
Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. A few weeks ago, I was on my own website, and I was reviewing some of the content that I had included on my About Me page, and something really stood out to me.
As I was reviewing my existing text, I identified a spelling mistake, a spelling mistake which has probably existed on this page for the past two years.
But beyond just that small mistake, I also realized and discovered, with the aid of a tool, that I could really improve my communication. I could be a lot more specific and get my message across to my potential clients.
So what I've been using is a tool called ProWritingAid, and it's so much more than just a grammar and spell checker. It's actually helping me improve my readability and it can help improve yours as well.
How to use the ProWritingAid browser extension
I want to show you three different ways in which you can use ProWritingAid, and let's start with the first one, and that is right within your browser. Now, this is probably the easiest one, especially when we are crafting our email messages or perhaps our social media posts.
As you're writing, as I'm showing you here in this example, it's gonna highlight certain errors but also suggestions here as well. You can see there's three different colors it's highlighting here in front of me.
I've got a yellow, a couple of blues, and a red. The red is probably the most obvious—it's a spelling mistake here.
Yeah, "forgotten" does not have a zed at the end, but I've got a few other suggestions here as well. My readability may be enhanced if I removed "that."
When I read the sentence, yeah, "that" is just a filler word. I don't need to include that here.
And then, the blues in this particular case have a little more to do with grammar and some punctuation here as well. So yes, that's not the proper form of "know."
There should be an S on the end, and "details" in this particular example should have a comma at the end. However, there's a good chance that you may be writing longer form content, such as a blog article or perhaps your own website, like in my own example.
How to use the ProWritingAid web editor
That's where the online editor comes into play. So here we are. I haven't downloaded anything.
I'm just within the ProWritingAid site, and here I can either copy and paste content, I can upload a document, or I can just write right within this window. In this particular case, I've chosen to use a blog article that I wrote a few years back to see if I can improve on it with ProWritingAid.
Now, when you first input your text, your realtime editor may be off, but let's turn that on and see what it has found. And I've got about nine different suggestions waiting for me here.
So we see some of the same colors that we saw on the extension version when I was writing my email. In this case, there's a few different things that I should be looking to improve upon.
But you'll also notice up here, at the top of the menu, I have a large number of different reports where I can dive into in a lot more detail.
So let's take a look at a couple of my favorites. One of the ones that I've been using a lot is called Sticky.
Now what Sticky is referring to are sentences which may trip up some of my readers. Perhaps I'm using words or language that is just not as smooth for someone to digest as they're reading this content.
Think of how important that is when you're trying to convey your message. Maybe you're creating a sales page and you're trying to sell a service or a product.
Or maybe it's just the landing page of your website, and you know that you only have a few seconds to get your message across before they move on to something else.
So the last thing you want is to trip them up by including a confusing sentence or maybe too many filler words where you don't need to here. So here, I've got a few different things highlighted.
If I go over here to the left and click on this, I've got some examples here, such as "When I," "I don't," "It allows," "So select." These are things that I could maybe tighten up a little bit, use different words or fewer words, so it's easier for people to understand.
The other one that I use a lot here within ProWritingAid is Readability. So in this case, it looks like I'm pretty good.
If I hover over these different paragraphs, it says that, hey, great, this has a Flesch Reading Ease score of 84.9. However, if I come down to the bottom of the screen here, this is my last sentence or my last two sentences, and it may be a little bit difficult for some of my readers to wrap their heads around or understand me correctly.
And keep in mind, you don't always know your audience and their background. You don't know what their reading level is.
You don't know what their native language is, or perhaps what country they are coming from. So it's so important that you have clear and concise language so that they're not confused and they understand the message that you're trying to get across.
How to use the ProWritingAid Microsoft Office add-on
Now, the third way in which you can use ProWritingAid is with your favorite word processor, such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word. So in this case, I've downloaded and installed the ProWritingAid extension from Microsoft Office.
So I can use this within my own desktop setup here. Here, I've got a different article that I've been working on, and you can see that Microsoft tries to help us out with a few simple suggestions here.
You may see some of these blue underlines and red for a spelling mistake, but here in the top right-hand corner, I've got my ProWritingAid icon. And if I select this to turn on Realtime checking, it's gonna take a look and give me a variety of different suggestions.
Here again, we see those blues, some yellows, and some reds as to where we can improve upon. But if we want to go even further, at the very top of the menu, I can click on ProWritingAid, and now I've got all of these reporting options available to me again.
Helpful reports to improve your writing
So let's take a look at two more that I think you might find helpful as well. The first one is called Echoes.
If I click on Echoes, it's gonna take a second to analyze my text. What Echoes does is it highlights any words or phrases that I may have repeated within a short timeframe.
Maybe I've repeated it one after another in a few different sentences or short paragraphs. So if I open up this option here, the first one is "exercise."
Now in this case, this article is about exercise, so that's probably okay. But the second one here is "first thing," and let's take a look at that.
In this paragraph, I've got "first thing" right after one another, then I've got "first thing" in the following paragraph, and "first thing." It doesn't need to be that way.
I might be boring my audience by using that same phrase, that combination of words, time and time again. So it's highlighting where I can improve my writing, not just the readability but make me a stronger writer over time as well.
The other one that I think is most helpful, regardless of what type of thing that you're writing, whether it's email, social media, or otherwise, is sentence length. Sometimes, if you write too long of a sentence, it is very difficult for someone to follow your train of thought and what you're trying to convey to your audience.
So in this case, I'm pretty good. Most of my sentences have received a blue here, but I've got a couple of reds which are highlighting sentences that are perhaps a little too long.
Maybe I can shorten them up. Maybe I can break them into two to make it that much easier for those people who will be reading this content.
Now, if you'd like to learn more and try ProWritingAid for yourself, be sure to click the link in the description below. And I'd love to know from you, what type of writing are you involved with on a day-to-day basis?
Are you producing articles? Are you revising sales copy, or is most of your writing related to email or social media? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
The Google Side Panel Will Blow Your Mind!
Where to find the Google Side Panel
- Have you ever been using Gmail or Google Calendar and then wandered over to the right-hand side and wondered what this side panel is all about? Or perhaps you have opened it up yourself and said to yourself, "Okay, that's nice, "I can see those things, but can it do "anything else for me?" Well, in today's video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know about the Google side panel, including how you can make connections between different apps.
Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you're wanting to get more out of your technology and your applications, I invite you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.
So, first and foremost, what is the Google side panel? Well, it's available in three different Google apps, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. Specifically, within Drive, Sheets, Docs, and Slides. And you should see this panel by default whenever you're within one of those apps.
How to view the Google Side Panel
But just in case you don't see this panel, come all the way down to the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. It may look something like this, where you have nothing here. All you need to do is come down here and say, Show Side Panel, and then you should see this little sliver on the right hand side.
Now, in most cases, you're gonna see either keep tasks or maybe something like your calendar on the right-hand side, but it does depend on what you're viewing at the moment.
So here I am within Google Calendar and the great thing here is that I can take notes, I can search through my notes, for example, I can go to my tasks and I can check things off all within the same screen. I don't have to go back and forth between different apps.
I find what's really helpful, if you do use Google Tasks is that you don't have to crowd up your Google Calendar with the tasks up here at the top, you can uncheck that calendar view and just manage your tasks over here on the right-hand side.
But let's go back to keep, because I wanna show you
How to connect Keep Notes to Calendar Events
how you can actually make a connection between these things. So, for example, let's say I'm gonna open up this HR interview and maybe there's some questions that I have for this meeting, but they're specific to me.
I don't wanna add them here on the description of the meeting, 'cause I don't want everyone else to see it. If I come over here and say, Take a Note, even before I start writing that note, look what happens. I've created a link to this particular event.
So I'm just gonna type in just a few pieces of sample text. I'm just gonna say New Note, and I'm gonna say, Done. Here at the top, you can say it is now related, New Note. I thought I said, note, new note is related here
at the top of the screen. So even when I go to close this, you can see it's added that note and I can go to a different event and so to speak, but when I opened this one up, once again, here, you can see the related note.
No matter when I've created this note, it's gonna jump the top and show me that note, whenever I have selected this particular event. So this is fantastic for creating your own agenda or even taking meeting notes when the meeting is in progress.
How to use Maps Side Panel with Google Calendar
Now there's another side panel app, which I find very helpful here within Google Calendar, and that's the Maps View. So if I come over here to Maps, I can do many of the same things that I would do in a new tab. I can search for a place and I can see this miniature view of the map, but it gets better. Let's look at this event over here,
which is titled Walk with Kevin. Let's say, for example, I have forgotten exactly where we were walking and how to get there. If I click on this event and then click on the location, it's going to immediately show me that location here in the side panel view.
So, no, I don't have to go to a new tab, it's not gonna launch anything new for me, I can read about it, I can view this location here. I can even click Directions and get those directions brought up in front of me and remind me, "Oh yeah, it's only gonna take me about 12 or 15 minutes "to drive to that location."
So again, I don't have to go anywhere if you have any event or appointment, which has an address on it, you can pull it up and view it right here within the map view on the side panel.
How to use Tasks Side View with Gmail Messages
But let's jump into our Gmail because I'm sure you wanna get the most out of this when you're dealing with your email as well. So, as we said before, the same functionality exists with Google Keep, you can create a note and attach it to a specific event here, or a specific message within Gmail.
I'm not gonna show you how to do that again, but what I do wanna show you is how you can take advantage
of Tasks here within the email view. So let's say for example, I'm gonna open up this email and I wanna create a task around this message, but I wanna come back to this message, right? I don't wanna just create the task, I wanna be able to come back to this message and make an identification, be able to link it together.
Now, what we don't wanna do is actually come up here and say, Add a Task. If we add a task up here, it is not gonna have a connection with this email. And that's fine, not all of your tasks need to have that connection, but if you do want that connection to be made,
you need to come up here to the top of the email and say, Add To Tasks. And what's gonna happen here is down here under No Date, because we haven't given it a date yet, you can see that it has brought in the subject line of this email and it has created that link.
So now I can come in here and I can edit this name, right? I can say that this is a new task for me to accomplish here. I've given it a different name here, but I've created that link to this email. And you can see I've got a few other examples here as well.
If I wanna go directly to this task and say, "Oh, what was that all about?" I can click on that and it's gonna bring me to that email. Can we meet on Thursday?
What was that task all about? I can click on that and it's gonna bring me directly to that email. Let's go back to that one that we just created, I can click on it, and here we go. Now I remember now I know what I need to do with accomplishing that task.
So not only can you view your task list on the same screen as your email, but you can create those connections as well.
How to create Events in Side View from Gmail
If we open up the calendar view, this is also very helpful if you're about to set up an appointment and say to yourself, "Oh, I don't know if I'm busy. "You know what, today might not work, "let's look at tomorrow, tomorrow is a lot more free."
I could probably create a meeting for this individual here, but it gets better. If I say that I want to create this meeting, let's say at 2:00 p.m, I'm gonna click on 2:00 p.m. on my little calendar here.
Again, it's gonna bring over the name of that email, the subject of that email, which I can edit if I want to, but this is what I find really handy is if I come down here to Add Guests, I can add anyone I want, but the very first option it says Based On Your Email.
Well, yeah, I want this meeting to be with myself and the person I'm talking to here. So I'm just gonna say, yeah, add that person. Here we are, I'm the organizer, here's the other individual. I can edit all of my other changes, all of my other options as I would, if I was in Google Calendar and then hit Save.
I'm going to say, Don't Send it This Time and there's my calendar appointment created directly
from within Gmail, including some of the information that I have here with this particular message. But maybe the best tip or the best option here
How to view Contacts in Gmail Side Panel
with the side panel within Gmail is the contact form. So here you can see I'm still within this email and it's showing people in this thread. Now I could always go back to all of my contacts and I could hit the search bar and search for a particular contact.
But by default, when you open up an email, it's gonna bring up the contacts that are related or are a part of this message. So if I click on this person here, now, I've got
all of their contact information at my fingertips. I've got their email address, work number, I've even got notes here at the bottom. If I want to use this as sort of a mini
or a simple CRM system. But here's the one that I find most useful, is Recent Interactions. I'm going to click on the More here, and you can see, I've got a couple of calendar events that are coming up.
I can click on those and it's gonna launch the calendar right away, but I can also see some of the messages that we've been involved with as well. So if I go here to let's get the team together, it's gonna immediately pull up that message.
Oh, September 2nd, did we have an email on that day? I can click on it, and immediately it's gonna bring up that message as well.
So you can see, you can quickly go through your history and review other calendar events and other messages right here on the right hand side.
How to send Drive Text to Google Keep
Now let's jump over to Google Drive. And in this example, we're gonna look at a document at a Google Doc, but again, these same features and functionality are gonna be available in Sheets and also in Slides.
So if we come over here, we can view our calendar if we want to, but I think keep is the real winner when you are using Docs or something within Google Drive. So for example, let's say that I want to get some of this bit of text from the document and I want to inject it or bring it into Google Keep.
Maybe this is a lengthy document, but there's some really good nuggets in there, that I wanna keep, or I want to review for later. All I need to do is come over to my document and highlight the piece of text that I want to bring over.
I'm gonna right click, and I'm gonna say, Save to Keep. Now, you don't actually have to have the Google side panel open for this to work, but it just a, this is a really great example of how we can see this in real time.
So I'm gonna say, Save to Keep, and here you can see on the right hand side, it's brought all of this text directly into my Google Keep.
And so now I can go and review it later, I can edit it, I don't have to be here within Google Documents. I can go over here and change that text and do whatever I want with it outside of Google Docs.
How to bring Keep Notes into Drive Docs
But the other nice thing is that it works both ways. In that example, we saw how we could take information from the Doc and send it to Keep, what about the other way around? Let's say I come down here to my team meeting notes and maybe these are things that I want to add to an agenda, or I want to add to my document.
Well, all I need to do is select that note, come up here to the menu and I'm gonna say, Add to Document, and immediately it is brought into my document. So I could have a large collection of notes, I could even have images over here in Google Keep,
and now I can bring it directly into my document. So another great way in which you can sync those two things together. Now, the other thing that I wanna
How to add more Side Panel Apps
point out when it comes to the Google side panel is that you can add more apps
than just these standard Google ones that you see here. You'll see at the bottom of the Google side panel, there is a plus button which says, Get Add On. So if I'm here within Google Docs and I add that or open it up, you're gonna see that there's a large collection of additional extensions that I can add to this.
Now, keep in mind, these are unique depending on where you launch this. As you can see in this case, I've got things like charts and Doc to Form and Easy Bibliography, things that are pertaining to a document, right? Things that are gonna help me here within my document.
But if I go back to Gmail and I hit that plus icon, I'm gonna see a completely different set of extensions. Here I've got things like Zoom, right? If I wanna create a Zoom meeting really quickly and add that link here, I've got like a Trello extension, If I wanna quickly convert an email into a Trello card.
So each one has its own set of extensions really useful so that you can be more efficient with your Google apps.
Now, if you're wanting even more tips on how to get the most out of Gmail, I invite you to watch the video down below where I show you seven settings you need to know and maybe change, to get the most out of your email.
Thanks so much for watching, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.
Organize Anything Quickly with this Amazing Database
Why a database can help you
- Sometimes a project management tool, or a task manager is overkill. Sometimes all that you need is a good list, table, or simple database. So in today's video, I wanna show you an app which is going to allow you to customize anything that you want,
no matter if you're using it for business, or maybe even for personal use. I wanna introduce you to Memento Database. So, let's look at this on my mobile phone. Now, Memento is also available for desktop, but I think I have found it more convenient
using it on my mobile app, especially when I'm taking pictures of inventory, and other things that I wanna keep track of.
Overview of Memento Database
So let's launch Memento here, and right off the bat, you can see the libraries,
or otherwise known as databases here. And I've got a few different examples here that I'm gonna show you here today. The first one here is Office Inventory, because I'm setting up a new office, and I wanna keep track of my expenses, I wanna keep track of everything that I'm adding, and also maybe when it comes to things like maintenance, I wanna see how long I've had something as well.
So if I open up Office Inventory here you can see my simple list so far. A few different items, which I've purchased over the last few weeks. Now, the great thing about Memento is that you can add as many, or as few fields as you like.
And as your lists, or as your inventory grows, you can go grow with it, and you can add more complex features, you can add relationships between different tables or different libraries.
One of the things that I love the best here is that I can sum up certain fields as well. So, even before I dive into one of my entries here at the very bottom you can see I've got three entries,
and it's a total of $965 dollars. So for example, maybe I want to set a particular budget, and I don't wanna exceed that budget, I can always see that running total here.
Editing Fields in Memento
So let's take a look at an example here. I'm gonna open, put up my standing desk for example, and I can categorize it by furniture type, I can input the cost here. And what I really love is you can even take a photo of these things on the fly.
So let's say you are keeping track of inventory. Maybe you have a small warehouse, or maybe you have something else that you're wanting to keep track of, you can quickly and easily add that photo here as well.
But I can add other fields. I don't have to always be looking at them at the same time. If I hit the Edit button here, here you can see I can add a serial number, I can add a barcode so I can actually scan the barcode directly in here if I like, I can add other information that I want at any particular time.
Let's open up another one here on my list here. It's my mechanical keyboard. So again, similar to what we saw before, I've got a picture and some basic information, but let's say I wanna add the purchase date 'cause I wanna know when I purchased this item.
So I'm gonna open things up, and if I scroll down to the bottom, I've already added this earlier. It's a purchase date. So I'm gonna open up my calendar, and I purchased that last Tuesday, so I'm gonna hit Next. If I want to, I can select a particular time,
or you can just leave it at the default there, and then save that particular entry. Now, you'll notice that it actually didn't allow me to save that's because there's a required field on this page.
It's something that I added not too long ago, and that is the cost of that device. So again, every single aspect of Memento is customizable. I can go in and actually edit that and say, no, no, no, I don't need to make that a required field, but if I'm using this for budgeting purposes, yeah. I wanna make sure that I add the cost.
Creating a new database in Memento
So in this case, I think this keyboard was about $65. In this case, I'm gonna enter in 65 and hit Enter. So now that is added, if I go back to my entries, yeah, now I've just exceeded a little over a thousand dollars just on these three items.
Most of them were that standing desk. Okay, let's take a look at a few other examples here as well, and how quickly and easily we can create our own libraries from scratch. So Memento actually gives us a number of different templates so that we can get started off with them.
So here you can see they've been categorized in a few different places. I'm actually gonna click on Personal here for a second, and I'm gonna come down and I'm going to say, maybe I want to keep track of all the restaurants that either I've eaten at recently, or that I would like to start eating at.
So I'm gonna select Restaurants, I'm gonna select Next, and here I already have my table, or my library ready for me to enter. If I click on it, you can see that I have no entries yet, but because we're basing this off of a template, I'm going to assume it's got some great information there ready for me already.
I'm gonna hit the plus button. And let's just say, I ate at a place called, Macks the other night, what type of cuisine? Again, this is all pre-populated. So I can go in here, and edit this or change it as I like.
It was a cafe, I'm gonna give it a four star rating. I said it was last night. So I'm gonna say it was last night and average price. Now this is kind of interesting, you know, what was the price of my meal, for example? I also like this feature that when it comes to adding in certain numerical fields, you actually get a calculator, built right into the application.
So let's say, I do have to figure out either the tax, or I need to break it out of a receipt
or something like that, I can do that. I can say, well, the, you know, the total bill was $67, but then I have to subtract the other person's entrée. And then we shared an appetizer, for example. So let's take out another $8 there. And so, okay, it's 36, and it inputs it right there in that numerical field. So I'm gonna hit Enter there.
Adding new fields to Memento Database
There's my first entry there. But let's say I wanna change things up a little bit. Let's say that there, that was a little limiting the number of fields that we added there, maybe I want to say quality of service, not just the food.
Maybe I wanna break out the difference between the food and the service. So in the top right-hand corner, I can go in here and edit my library. So here you can see the number of fields, you see the about the five different fields that we already have in there, but let's add a new field ourselves.
So I'm gonna hit that plus button here, I'm gonna select Field, and now, here are all of the different field types that I have to choose from. And we've got everything from color, to a map,
a barcode, hyperlinks, a variety of different things here that we can add to this particular entry. I like that star rating. So I'm gonna choose a star rating in this case.
And when it comes to service, maybe I want more than five stars. Maybe I wanna go all the way up to 10 stars. It's also gonna help me maybe differentiate between the food and the service when I go to rate it, I can select default stars. I can say required.
There's that required field. I'm gonna leave it off in this case, but everything from my display options, to the font size, all of these great things here. Now, before I create this, remember I've got to give it a field name.
So, I'm gonna say, Service. I'm just gonna call this one Service just alone. So you can rename any of these fields, customize them the way that you like. I'm gonna hit Enter on this case.
And the last thing that I'm gonna do here, is that I wanna move it up, right? Because here it's gonna be the last one here. I think I'm gonna put it under Ratings. I'm gonna drag this up here to under Rating, and then I'm gonna hit that check mark again. So this time when I go into Macks, you can see there's that service rating, but now, I need to go in,
and actually give us a service rating. So I can say, you know what? It was a, it was pretty good, I've had better. So I'm gonna give it about seven stars out of 10 there.
Now what I can do going forward, like you saw in my office inventory, is I can calculate that data. So if I want to average out the quality of the service, or that my food rating amongst these different items I can do so as well. Memento is going to give me that power, it's going to give me that ability.
Viewing relationships between database tables
Let me show you how you can create relationships between these different tables as well. So for example, you'll see here that I've got a library called Team, and maybe where, this is where I've kept a collection of all of my team members.
I want to keep their either addresses, or maybe I wanna know what inventory they have, at their home office as well. If I'm a business owner, I wanna keep tabs on who has a laptop?
Who has other pieces of equipment, as a part of working remotely, for example?
So here, if I click on my own name, for example, you'll see, I've got my role as the owner. I've got my photo and down below, you can see that I have my Yeti microphone, and the dollar amount as well. Now, where did we see that before?
We saw that in the office inventory. So if I select that, it's actually gonna open up
that entry and now you can see I'm actually in that inventory library at the moment
down below, you can see that I'm the owner. So, I can and make these custom relationships between these tables within these databases.
Pulling in data from the web into your database
Again, another great feature, you can make it as complex or as simple as you like. Now, the last thing that I wanna show you here within Memento database is how you can actually pull in information directly from the web, if you like.
And this is particularly useful if you're wanting to use things such as product information, or maybe if you are collecting a personal list of data or a personal collection.
So for example, here for example, I've got a list of movies to see, for example, and I've put a few different things here on this list. Now I didn't go in and grab the year that the movie was released. I didn't go in and grab that screenshot of the poster. No, I let Memento do the work for me. It's pulling in that information all at the same time.
So for example, if I hit the plus button here, let's say I'm gonna add a new movie
that I would like to watch. So in this case, I'm just gonna start in typing in the name of that movie. And in this case, I'm gonna type in "Vertigo", for example, and when I typed that in immediately, it's bringing up the one that I want, the Hitchcock classic "Vertigo".
So as you can see now here, it's not only brought in the poster, it's brought in a link, to some ratings, it's given me a tagline, it's told me the genre, it's given me a description where it was made, the duration.
All of that information is just brought in directly. In fact, if I go to the cast, it's gonna show me the cast as well. I'm just gonna hit Enter here. Here you can see that it's been added to my list, but now I've got all of that information at my fingertips.
So I can go and use this whenever I like, I can keep track of things and give my own personal rating as a part of my list. So, if you're looking for a quick, easy, and customizable way to keep track of your inventory, or your own personal list, I would encourage you to check out Memento Database.
You can find out more information in the description below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video. Be sure to subscribe and give this video a like, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
How to use the Zoom Whiteboard & Annotations (Tutorial)
What you will learn
- If you wanna get the most out of your Zoom meetings, you need to know how to annotate, and use the whiteboard feature, whether you're a teacher, a trainer, or you just wanna make your presentations that much more engaging.
I'm gonna show you everything that you need to know, about annotating and using the whiteboard right here in Zoom. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
How to launch the Zoom whiteboard
And let's get started with how, we launch annotation or a whiteboard here within Zoom. So down below, we need to start by selecting Share Screen, and here you have to make a decision.
Do you want a plain canvas that's for that purpose, we would choose the whiteboard, or do you wanna share your screen and maybe share a file or a website, and start to mock up things or allow your participants to contribute as well? Let's start with the basic version first.
We're gonna click on Whiteboard and then select Share. And essentially this is going to give us a complete blank canvas.
Annotation tools and how to use them
It's pure white, we can do a number of different things here. We can use the Text feature here, and start entering things. Maybe we want people to enter in their name on the screen or tell them how they are feeling today. Something along those lines,
we can use the drawing tool here to, maybe choose a different color here, and we can start to draw silly little things,
or highlight certain things on the screen as well. I'm not gonna go into the details of every single tool here. Most of them are self-explanatory, but I imagine one of the things that's on the top of your mind is,
How to enable or disable participants from annotating
how do I enable others or prevent others from participating, from sharing on my screen? In order to do so, you need to come up to your toolbar and select Security.
And here's a section called Allow participants to. Now there's a long list of things here,
and you can see currently, anyone who has joined my meeting, can annotate on my shared screen. But if I want to prevent them, all I need to do is to click this option,
and now they don't have that option. They can not contribute to this whiteboard sharing.
But I'm gonna go back here, I'm gonna enable it, And I'm gonna just grab my phone as my fake participant here, and let's see, let me grab a different color here, and I'm just gonna do a little squiggly line so you can see, that I didn't use it with my cursor here on my main computer.
I actually used it as a participant. Now, as a host, what you can do is actually hover over, and see who has contributed to what? Now this is maybe not the best example, 'cause I'm using the same user name, on both of my devices.
But even if someone else has shared content on your whiteboard or your shared screen, you can click and drag and move things around. I find that this is most helpful when you're asking people to contribute text, maybe like a brainstorming session, and you can take their texts just like this, and drag it and group it together and put them in a different order.
This is much more effective than using the chat window, which is just linear, and if you have a number of people contributing, it might just get lost, this is a great way to group things together.
Now, note, if you do come back here to Security and say disabled shared content for others to annotate on your shared content, it will not remove what they shared already.
How to clear Zoom annotations
In order to do that, you wanna come over here to the Clear option. Now you've got three choices here. You can Clear All Drawings, meaning you're gonna return,
to a 100% clear canvas. You can say Clear My Drawings, to the things that I have contributed, or you can say Clear Viewers' Drawing. So if I choose this last option here, you can see it's gonna remove that blue squiggly line, because that was from a participant.
So you've got quite a bit of flexibility here, when it comes to controlling annotations here within Zoom. But you know what? The whiteboard is not always as useful, as you may think it is.
How to annotate a shared Zoom screen
So I'm gonna actually start a New Share. In this case I'm gonna share my screen, and I'm gonna open up a file here on my computer, because maybe you have something
That you wanna share with others, and you wanna highlight a few different things, or you want others to participate as well. I find this is often even more useful.
So here I'm gonna come up here in my toolbar, and I'm gonna select Annotate, which is gonna give me the exact same menu, the same thing that we saw on the whiteboard option. So now what I can do is I can use things like this, a Spotlight function, and I can say, well, his shirt is a different color over here. The rocket boosters or thrusters
are a little bit different than over here. The Tesla deco is different over here. I can use that same spotlight feature and use these arrows to click into certain areas. I find that that's a very helpful one as well.
Again, when you're sharing your content, you can allow others to annotate as well. So all of the same rules apply, as what we just saw on the whiteboard side of things as well.
How to undo, redo, or erase annotations
Now don't forget as you're drawing and as you're adding and contributing different things here to your screen you can always use Undo or Redo as well, right? If you wanna go back just a few different steps. The other thing that you can do, of course,
which is very crucial, is that you can come and use the Eraser function. So maybe there's just a few specific things, that you wanna get rid of,
How to save Zoom annotations
you can do so as well. Now, when everything is finished,
when you are done contributing or adding or brainstorming, maybe you'll want to actually save your annotations and everything that's been mocked up here on the screen. So your final option just to the right of Clear is Saved.
And you can choose to either save it as a PNG file, right? That's an image file, or you can choose to save it as a PDF, if you want to use it for later. So a lot of powerful things that you can do with annotation, and using a whiteboard right here within Zoom.
Now I'd love to hear from you next. If you're already using the annotation features, I'd love to know what you're using it for. And I'm sure many other viewers, would love to learn from you as well. Be sure to share your Zoom experiences, in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you give this video a like and subscribe,
right here to these Simpletivity channel. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
7 Useful Websites You Should Be Using Right Now!
Website criteria for this list
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
In today's video, I wanna share with you seven helpful websites to help you be more productive, help you save time.
In some cases, they can even help you save money.
So today we're not looking at applications; we're looking at websites that require no sign in, no email address, nothing for you to install.
These are places where you can just get in, get out, and get on with the rest of your day.
Time and Date Calculations
So let's get started with website number one, and that is TimeAndDate.com.
TimeAndDate.com obviously is going to give you the accurate time and time zones across virtually every area on the earth.
But there are two particular areas that I use this website for, on a regular basis.
Number one is their calculators section.
For example, there is a date-to-date calculator.
Let’s say I'm managing a project, and I want to know how many days are left between now and the end of that project.
All I need to do is come here and select today, or I can select any other date from this calendar if I want to.
Then over here, let's say that I know that I need this project to be finished by February 19th.
I could give an estimate in terms of the number of weeks or the number of days between these two, but if I want to be more precise, I just need to hit this calculate duration.
Now I know it's exactly 79 days from today until this date, February 19th.
It also gives me a few alternate time units here, such as 11 weeks and two days if I need to know how many weeks are out as well.
Another calculator I use quite often is the add and subtract calculator.
For example, I’ll hit today, and in this case, maybe I want to know exactly how many days it is, maybe not 120, right?
These are maybe some more common values, but let’s say 67 days from now.
I’m going to hit calculate and, oh, perfect, it's Sunday, February 7th.
I can get very, very precise with those calculations.
Easy Polls
Let's move on to website number two, which has to do with polling.
How often have you wanted to quickly ask a question to either a small group of people, such as your family, or friends, or your work team?
Maybe you want to share something on social media but don't want to restrict it to just a particular platform.
That's where Polls.io comes in.
As soon as you get to the polls.io website, you can immediately start creating your quiz or your question here.
So I'm gonna say, what is your favorite app?
I asked that one earlier, and down below, I can add some options here, maybe Trello, Asana.
It’s remembered some of the things that I put in just a few moments ago.
Here I've got my very simple poll.
I’m going to say, create this poll, and it’s going to bring me to this page.
All I need to do is copy this link.
I can either copy it up here in the URL, or I can hit the share button and copy this link as well.
I can choose to embed it or share it directly to some popular social media platforms.
But in most cases, what I find is most helpful is just to copy that link.
I can copy it to the clipboard, and now people can start to vote on this poll.
I could send it in a text message.
I can send it anywhere that I like, and I don't have to come back here and log in anywhere to see the results.
All I need to do is remember this URL or copy this URL and remember it for later.
If I say vote, I'm gonna say maybe monday.com is my favorite at the moment.
I’m going to hit submit, and immediately I can start to see those results come in.
Background Sound & White Noise
Now, the next one on our list has to do with productive focus.
Perhaps you are working in a very noisy environment and want to be able to drown out the other noises around you.
Whether that's a noisy office or perhaps you're working remotely from home, and you don't want to hear your kids, or the pet, or maybe your partner who is very loud on their zoom call in the room next door.
That's where Noises.online comes into play.
A very, very simple website.
You can see a variety of different icons here, which represent soundscapes you can enable just with a click.
You can also combine various ones together as well.
For example, if I click on brook, you can hear a little rumbling brook going by.
You can almost envision that you're camping or maybe fishing by a small river.
If I want to combine that, I can combine it with a bonfire.
Here, we get some crackling.
It sounds like a pretty large fire.
Yeah, that is certainly a bonfire.
If I want less fire, all I need to do is click this a few times, and each click should reduce the level or the sound of that.
As I'm combining these noises, I can really customize what I want.
You'll also notice in the top right-hand corner, they always have a pick of the week, and this one is called cafeteria.
If I select that, it sounds a little bit like a noisy cafeteria or maybe a coffee shop.
You see they've actually combined a coffee house with cocktail voices.
So you've got some of that banter in the background combined with that coffee shop ambience.
If you really enjoy these sounds, all you need to do to favorite yours is hit this pin.
What it’s going to do is give you a unique URL.
You can bookmark it into your browser.
If there’s a particular sound or sound combination that you like, you don't even have to come back to the website necessarily and create it again.
You can just copy this, save it somewhere, or bookmark it to your browser, and use it in the future.
Focused Writing
Now, the next website on our list is something that is very, very dangerous.
So proceed with caution.
It's actually called The Most Dangerous Writing App.
And I think that is very true.
This is an app that I've actually used quite frequently over the last several years.
Let me explain how it works.
Sometimes we get into a bit of a writer's block or a writer's funk.
I know for myself, I'm very much a perfectionist.
So when I need to write something that's more of a long format, something that's gonna be several paragraphs in length, like a blog post, for example, I can start by writing the first one or two sentences.
Then I stare at those two sentences and I overanalyze.
I say, how could I say this differently?
Meanwhile, I should really just be dumping out all of my thoughts and try to write as much as I can, 'cause I can always come back and edit, and rearrange that.
So if you ever have those problems or that type of difficulty, then The Most Dangerous Writing App may be for you.
Yes, don't stop writing, or all progress will be lost.
Here’s how it works.
You can either choose to do it with a prompt or without.
The prompt is gonna give you a sort of a beginning sentence.
This is really more designed for someone who is writing fiction.
So in most cases, you're gonna wanna use this if you're writing anything business-related, a blog post, maybe marketing content, or maybe you just want to use this for brainstorming ideas.
But before we get started, make sure you choose if you want to look at the amount of time that you are writing or the amount of words.
If we click on this little link, we can either choose the number of minutes that we would like to continually write, or we can choose the number of words.
In this example, I'll just use something very simple, like 75 words.
Now that I've chosen my session length, I'm gonna click this button, start writing without prompt.
The nice thing is that it gives me a nice big blank canvas.
I don't have ads, I don't have distractions.
Like I said before, I don't have to even sign in to use this app.
As I start writing, everything is looking good.
But if I pause, you'll see what's going to happen.
It’s gonna start to fade a little bit.
Eventually, if I don't keep writing, it's all going to vanish.
There's about a five-second timeframe between when you stop typing and when everything is going to go away.
And yes, when I click this box, nothing is there.
I can start again, but everything that I just wrote is gone.
So, if I start again, if I start again and I pause, and I pause and I see the fading, I can, no, no, I'm not done.
I'm not done.
I want to keep writing again.
But if I pause for too long, once again, everything is going to vanish and it is all gone.
Once you've hit that limit, whether it's a minute length or whether it's a number of words, then it’s there for good.
You can go and copy and paste this into a word processor or wherever else that you would like to do it.
But this has actually been very, very helpful, both from a brainstorming point of view and also when I just need to get my thoughts out and not worry about it, right?
You can always come back and edit it later.
A great tool if you ever get stuck with your writing.
Amazon Deal Finder
Now, next up on our list is not only going to save you time, but it's designed to help save you money.
This is called CamelCamelCamel.
Yeah, it's probably a name of a website that you're not going to forget anytime soon.
What it has to do with is following and tracking prices on Amazon to make sure that you are getting the best deal, or at least be confident that you're getting a very good deal as you are shopping online.
So here in the search bar, you can either type in or copy and paste a URL from Amazon.
But I'm just gonna click on this popular products for this quick example.
Here, it's gonna show me a list of products that are popular on Amazon right now.
Let's take a look at these Sony noise-canceling headphones.
It's telling me that it's a good deal.
Well, why is that the case?
Right now they're on for $229.
But below I can see that the list price is $349.
The average price of these headphones on Amazon has been $304, so yeah, that's a pretty good discount.
If that's the average price that this has been listed, and now I can get them for $229, that does seem like a good deal.
You can click on these products and go into even more deeper history.
For anyone who loves charts like myself, here you can see the full price history of these particular headphones.
Yeah, you can see that for much of its time, it’s hovered around that $350 mark.
But you can see all these dips, right?
All these peaks where the sale prices have gone on, where maybe there's been a black Friday or a special sale.
In fact, you can see Black Friday was just a few days before this particular recording.
That was probably the lowest price ever at $221.
If I get it today at $229, I'm pretty confident that I am getting a very good deal.
Better yet, without signing up, you can enter in any email address and choose what price drop you are looking for.
If I click on this, it gives me a couple of helpful presets.
If I want to wait until it's closer to $218 or any price drop from now, or I can just type in any number into this field and hit track.
It will send me an email alert as soon as that price gets to that point.
Not only helping you to save time, but helping you to save money as well.
Remove Image Background
Then the next website I wanna share with you today has to do with images, and in particular with removing a background.
This one’s really easy to remember.
It's Remove.bg.
Yes, the B-G stands for background.
How many times have you had a picture of yourself or someone else, or maybe a product, but you didn’t like the background image?
You wanted to put something else in the background, or maybe you just wanted to keep it plain, just like you see here in this particular example.
With Remove.bg, you don't have to log in, you don't have to sign up.
You can quickly and easily do this for yourself in just seconds.
All you need to do is select this upload image button, and I'm gonna go and select my headshot here, which you can see, I've got a dark background here from the studio where I took this picture.
All it's gonna do is remove that background in a matter of seconds.
I didn't have to select the area.
I didn't have to trace anything, and look at the results.
I think that's pretty fantastic.
I'm sure you've come across some programs where there's some ugly shadowing or some things that are clipped between maybe the face and the clothing or something funny going on around the hair.
But if I toggle between the original and removing the background, it's almost seamless.
This is almost perfect.
Now I can go and take this and put this where I want.
If I want to go further, I can click this edit button and choose other backgrounds to put behind it.
It has a few defaults, but of course, you can select your own photo to put in the background.
Or maybe you want to keep it simple and just add a particular color to it.
In this case, I'm gonna select yellow, nice and bright.
Maybe I'm promoting something in particular.
This is the branding for the client that I'm working with.
I can add that to the background of my photo as well.
So quick and easy, nothing to download, nothing to install.
Remove.bg and sticking with pictures.
Professional Stock Images
I wanna share with you where I get many of my stock photos absolutely free.
For me, I like to go to pexels.com.
Now there's an awful lot of places that you can go online to get free stock images.
But what I love about pexels.com is that I just find that the quality of these pictures is so much better.
I'm gonna click on tech here, just to show you some examples of some of their technology photos.
I’m sure that you've come across some free stock image websites, and many of the pictures just look like they're coming from amateurs, right?
Like they don’t look very professional.
These are great photos that you can use for social media.
You can use them for your marketing.
You can use them for your branding.
Keep in mind, some of these images may have been used hundreds, if not thousands of times by other users.
You may have come across that already, but let's say I kind of like what this is doing.
If I click on it, on top of that, if I scroll down now, I'm getting a bunch of other images, either from the same photographer, or things that are similar or related to this particular image.
Great quality images and things that you can start to use right away.
Now I'd love to know which websites help you on a daily basis.
Be sure to share them with me and with others in the comments down below.
If you would like to know the 10 apps that I use every single day, be sure to click on the video here to the left.
Thank you so much for watching today's video.
Make sure you subscribe right here to this Simpletivity channel.
Remember being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
Can Your Email App Do All of This? (Spike)
What is Spike?
[Narrator] Email really hasn't changed that much over the last 25 years.
Yeah, there's been some minor improvements, but for the most part, email looks very similar to what it did in the mid-'90s until now.
In today's video, I want to introduce you to Spike.
Spike is doing email completely differently, and the great thing is, you don't need a new address.
More than that, it allows you to communicate in a much more natural way—in a way that you're probably already used to using through things like instant messaging and Slack.
But it also brings everything else together, including notes, tasks, and calendar.
So in today's video, I want to give you a full tour of Spike.
What email looks like in Spike
And at first glance, you probably think that I am dealing with an instant messaging app here on the right-hand side of my screen.
But here's the surprise: this is actually an email thread.
I am going back and forth with someone via email, both using my Gmail address, and they, in this case, are using their Hotmail or Outlook address.
I haven't invited anyone to use Spike with me.
I don't have to make sure that they have an account or anything of the sort, but I have a much cleaner view of what's going on—a much more concise view of what's going on.
So I want to give you a full tour of what Spike is doing.
Spike inbox and email view
Right here on the left-hand side, it may look like this is just my inbox, but it's actually so much more.
It's got a combination of my emails—here's an email, for example, something that someone sent me here, and I've just replied here on the right-hand side.
But as you can see, it's gotten rid of all the fluff; it's gotten rid of all the extra stuff that we're used to seeing when it comes to email.
Let's just get to the messaging and get on with the rest of our day.
But more than that, if I scroll up, take a look at what else it has included here.
It's got everything else I've communicated with this individual.
I don't have to do a search, I don't have to do a filter, I don't have to come over here and type in a search for their email address—it automatically brings all of those conversations together.
And again, this person here is not a Spike user.
In fact, they don't even know that I'm using Spike on my end; it's coming from my Gmail address.
In fact, whether you use Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or almost any other email service, you can use Spike, and you don't need to sign up for anything new, such as a new email address.
If I want to reply and just say, "I'd like an update soon, please," I can do so very much like a text message.
I can send it off, and then on the other end, it's just going to look like it's coming from my email, but it keeps everything here nice and tight together.
Spike calendar view and sync
Now, Spike is so much more than just email communication—it also syncs with your calendar.
So here, you can see I've got an agenda view of what's going on for my day.
I can see upcoming meetings that I have to attend to here, and I can create new meetings right here from within Spike as well.
I don't need to open up a new window, and I don't need to go back and forth between a variety of different areas—I can do so right here.
And don't be fooled—these are not Spike events; these are actual Google events because I'm using my Gmail account in this case.
So whether I want to use my traditional Google Calendar interface or if I want to manage my meetings in here...
Spike groups and team chat
I can do so as well.
The next thing I wanna show you here is fantastic for keeping your group or your team all on the same page.
Now you're probably familiar with instant messaging tools like Slack or perhaps WhatsApp where you need to create a channel or a thread and invite your team members to join as well.
But of course they have to have a Slack account or they have to download a certain app in order to be involved in that group discussion.
Well in this case you don't have to invite anyone to anything.
You add the members, just add their email addresses here and you have them all here within your group.
So although this looks a lot more text based or maybe Slack based, everyone here just using their email addresses.
In fact they have no idea that they're a part of a Spike group so to speak here as we're conversing back and forth.
Let me show you how this looks like on the end user who's conversing with me in this case.
So I'm gonna switch over to this Outlook account and in this second one here you can see this Re-Design Project Team.
So if I open this up, it just looks like a pretty traditional email, right?
This is just an email thread we're having our conversations as you can see on the previous screen but it's just an email to the person who is receiving this.
Remember that reply that I sent to that other email December Online Conference.
If I open this up, it just looks like a regular email.
Yes, there's a little addition here just letting them know that I happen to have written it within Spike but for them, they don't have to sign up for anything, they don't have to do anything special they're just receiving those messages.
Let's go look at some of the other benefits.
Read receipts and visibility in Spike
Of the tools here within Spike.
You'll notice here on the right hand side I've got this little green eyeball content.
That means that I know that this individual has seen these messages.
So for example, if I wanna add something to this message, do you have a minute to talk about this project?
So here you can see I've got a different icon I've got this little check mark it has been sent, but I know that they have not read it yet they haven't laid eyes on it in this case.
So this can be really helpful right?
We're used to this when it comes to our text-based messaging especially on our phones to see when someone has read it.
Well, this is built in even within an email interface.
If we go back to Outlook here, here is that project discussion, it's a new message here.
I'm gonna open it up remember I'm the other person or acting as the other person.
Now I have read it let's go back to Spike and see what happens.
Yeah, Spike knows they've laid eyes on it, they have read it, so now I can follow up with another question if I want to there.
Spike contacts and message history
The other great thing here is if we manage our messages within Spike and let me open up this email again, is at the very top, not only can I scroll through all of our messages, all of our conversations over history but I can also click here on contact info and on the right-hand side I've got a summary of all of the files and attachments
which we shared with one another. I've also seen all of the threads here down below
so I can quickly and easily click on one of those messages and go directly to them.
And again, I'm just replying or forwarding these messages as I would a regular email.
Spike notes and task manager
Now beyond scheduling group messaging and managing our emails, you can also manage your notes and tasks.
If I click on my profile picture here you can see there is a notes section.
So if I wanna go through here and record some HTML notes and do some proper editing down here below I can do so and well.
And yes, I can share this with other people as well so I don't have to go to another application to manage all of my notes.
Spike also includes a relatively simple task manager as well.
So if I wanna keep track of my tasks and add additional information I can do so here as well.
Spike priority inbox
But in order to be a true all in one solution you wanna be able to see everything on the same screen and that's exactly why here are my priority inbox you can see I've got a combination of things.
At the top we have this group message that I've been managing here with myself and two members, I've got this individual email that I'm going back and forth with this person here and then I've got a couple of tasks listed here and including some meeting notes.
Why? Because I created these today, these were the last things that I interacted with or where I updated something so why not have it at my fingertips rather than going back and forth always having to come back up here.
No Spike makes it nice and easy so we can come here and review our most important work.
So if you are looking for an easier way to manage all of your communication and do so in a much more versatile and easy to use interface I would encourage you to check out Spike.
Thank you so much for watching today's video and remember to subscribe for more tips and tricks to help you with your day.
Remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
How to use Trello Templates (Card & Board Tutorial)
Why Trello templates are important
[Scott Friesen] This video is brought to you by Pipedrive.
Pipedrive is the easy to use CRM designed to increase your sales.
Stay tuned to the end of the video to learn more.
(zoom)
If you wanna save time managing all of your projects here in Trello, or starting your projects in just a matter of seconds, this video is for you.
Hello, everyone. Scott Friesen here, at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And today we are talking about templates.
In this video, I'm gonna show you how to use both card templates, board templates, and also, to get some inspiration from other people's templates.
So, you don't have to start from scratch.
You can take what other people have used or learned from, and start applying it within your own Trello environment.
How to Create Trello Card Templates
So, let's get started right here at the card level.
And let's say here, I've got a demo board and I've got an Ideas list here, and I've got a New Idea card.
And let's say that for myself and my team, I'd always like a few things to happen when we start or create a new idea.
I want it to have this new project label.
I want it to have this brainstorming document attached.
And I want us to ask ourselves these questions: does it add value? Will our customers benefit? And are we excited about it?
But I don't wanna have to add a new card and then like, oh yeah, I gotta remember to add the checklist, and the document and that type of thing.
I just want this to be available to me each and every time.
Well, all I need to do is open up this card, scroll down near the bottom under Actions and say, Make a Template.
Now you'll see a few things change here.
Not only does the template get a nice green check box, but when you go to the top, we get a nice header telling us that this is a template card.
Now this is important, because whatever we change here now within this card is going to be applied to the template when we use it.
So if I close this, you can see on the front, there's a little icon here as well.
It's sort of a light blue, telling us that this is a template.
How to Use Trello Card Templates
And there's a few different ways in which we can start to use it.
So, number one, if we open this card again, you can see this big green button saying, Create Card from Template.
Perfect, if I click on that, I can give this a new name.
I can say, this is a New idea for the fall of 2021, for example.
And I can choose what I want to keep or leave off.
Now, in most cases, when you're creating a template, you wanna keep all this stuff, right?
This is all the things that you added to the template, but I can also choose to put it in a different list right off the bat.
I'm gonna say Create Card.
And now we're brought to this new card, which has everything that we input before.
It's got the document, it's got the label, it's got the checklist.
And I forgot to mention that I also included myself, because maybe I want to be attached to every new idea as well.
But there's another way that we can create templates as well.
You can see at the bottom of every single list, there is an icon.
Now this is a create from template icon, so if I wanna create that card in one of these lists, maybe I wanna put it right under Task List.
I'm gonna select this one, and now you can see all the templates that I have available to me on this board.
So, here's that New Idea Template.
Same thing as before, I'm gonna click on it, I can give it a new name and give all these things, keep all these things down below as well.
How to Hide & Manage Card Templates
Now, you don't have to keep your templates visible, because this might be confusing.
In fact, someone, even yourself, might come in here and start editing things and then forget that, oh yeah, this is a template card.
So, what you can do, is you can actually choose to hide your templates.
So, in this case, I'm gonna come over here to this little edit stylus, and I'm gonna click on it, and I'm gonna choose Hide from list.
I'm gonna select that option and it's gone.
It's no longer visible to me here on this board, but it's not actually archived, nor has it disappeared.
You can see if I come back to the Create from template option, there it is.
I can still use it, along with my other template cards as well.
Now, if I wanna edit these templates, I come down to the bottom, select Edit Templates, and now you can see I've got both an edit icon, but also a delete icon.
So, if I really truly want to delete any of these templates, I can do so at this level, or if I just wanna make a tweak.
So, let's come down to this one, I'm gonna say edit.
I'm gonna come in here and say, you know what? Actually, I'd like this HR label to be attached to it as well.
Perfect. I don't have to hit save or anything like that. I can just close it at this point, and now going forward, that label will be available to me.
So, this is a really quick and easy way for you to get started on a new card, especially if there's a few different types of cards that you use most frequently within a particular board.
How to Copy Existing Board Templates
But next up, let's talk a little bit about inspiration, and maybe piggybacking on someone who's already created a fantastic board, and you wanna be able to make use of it as well.
So, if we come up here to our Home screen, you'll notice that on the left-hand side, there's an area called Templates.
If we click on Templates, it's gonna bring us to a vast library of great Trello templates that we can take advantage of.
Now on the left-hand side, along with the top of the page, we have a few different categories that we can dive into, or if there's a specific template that you're after, you can just type it here into the search bar.
I'm gonna click on Marketing for this example, just to see some of the other templates that are available to me.
And it gives us some helpful identifiers here, in terms of how many people are actually using it, and how many people have actually viewed that template.
So, if I scroll down here, and let's say I'm looking for an editorial calendar, I'm gonna click on this one here.
What it's gonna do, is it's gonna give me a bit of a description about this template, so I can read a few more details about what it's about, and who it was designed for.
But I can also come down here and see a preview of this entire board.
So, I can scroll over, I can see the types of lists, the types of information that's included.
Now, if this doesn't give me enough detail, what I can do is actually come down here and say View Template, which will open up the board.
And now I can actually open up these cards and I can see, wow, this is a really helpful checklist that they have as a part of this calendar.
These are the types of things that I would like to use in my own editorial calendar.
It's got the checklist, it's got the list, it's got everything that I want. I might make a few tweaks.
Maybe I don't need all of these lists. Maybe I want to revise the labels, but you know what? This is gonna save me so much time.
So, at this point, all I need to do is come up here and select Create Board from Template.
And I can give it my own name, right? I can say, well, this is Scott's Editorial Calendar.
At this point, I can assign it to a team. Again. I can choose whether I want to or not keep the cards and the template cards, but that's kind of the whole point of using a template, and I can say Create.
Now it's gonna take a second to create this board.
And now it's my own.
Now I can come in here and change the labels. I can start removing some of these example cards that they've laid out for me, but I can start using this template right away.
How to Create Trello Board Templates
Now the third thing I wanna show you today, is how you can create your own board template, because there's chances that you have some processes or some boards that you use on a regular basis, and wouldn't it save you or your team time if you already had them in order?
So, let me come up here, and let me go down to my Customer Success Template.
I've already taken a few minutes to flesh out a few lists and a few marching orders, a few descriptions here at the top of each list, along with some custom labels.
Now, let's say that this is the type of board that I want my team members to use for their various clients, their various customers.
So, we're gonna have a number of these boards, but I don't wanna have to write this out, or for them to write out this information each and every time.
And of course, your board may have a lot more detail involved in it as well.
So, once I have my board in place, all I need to do is come up here to Show Menu.
We're gonna come down here to More, and I'm gonna select Make a Template.
So, it's gonna tell me that it's gonna turn this board into a template for others to copy.
I'm gonna say Make a Template.
And now you can see at the very top of my board, I've got the same green button, so members of my organization and even myself, right, maybe I have a few template boards that I just wanna use in my personal life or my personal projects, I can do so as well.
One thing that I would recommend, and you can see that Trello encourages us to do so as well after making the template board, is to add a description down below, because as members of your team may be searching or looking for various boards, this can be helpful to tell them what this board is designed for and who should be using it.
So now I can repurpose this board again, and again and again.
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7 Outlook Calendar Tips Every User Should Know!
Intro
[Scott] This video is brought to you by Woven.
Woven lets you access all of your calendars in one place and gives you powerful scheduling tools to help you save time.
Stay tuned to the end of the video to learn more.
Do you wanna spend a lot less time managing your schedule?
Do you wanna look like a pro when it comes to managing your Outlook calendar?
Well, in today's video, I'm gonna share with you seven of my best tips for managing your calendar here within Microsoft Outlook.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
Go To Date Keyboard Shortcut
And let's dive right in with tip number one, we're talking about a shortcut key, which will allow us to go to any date on our calendar.
All you need to do is select Control + G on your keyboard, and you're gonna get this go to date dialogue that pops up.
Now, at first glance, you may think to yourself, oh, do I have to type it in, in this format? Absolutely not.
Let's say I want to go directly to November 27th. I'm just gonna type in November 27th, hit enter on my keyboard and boom, here I am at Thanksgiving or I should say Black Friday for this particular year.
Let's hit Control + G again and let's say I just wanna go to the next Saturday on my calendar. I'm just gonna type in S-A-T, hit enter on my calendar and here I'm already selected for the next Saturday from today.
So no, you don't have to put things in, in a particular date or a particular date format as you see here.
How about February, 2021? I'm gonna hit enter and boom, there I am taken to the second week I think it's chosen the ninth because today is the ninth, but it's brought me exactly to February, 2021 and I can even go back and just say today, if I'm somewhere else and hit enter and it's gonna bring me back to today.
So it's gonna save you a lot of time, that's Control + G on your keyboard.
Now tip number two has to do with viewing time zones.
Viewing Multiple Time Zones in Outlook
In particular, viewing multiple time zones here on the left-hand side of your calendar.
Of course, by default, it's gonna show your local time zone, but what if you work closely with someone else or with clients or colleagues in a different time zone?
Wouldn't it be nice to have one or maybe two additional time zones here on the left-hand side?
In order for us to do that, we need to go up to File and then all the way down to Options. It's gonna bring up this dialogue and on the left-hand side, we wanna select Calendar.
Now we wanna scroll down just a little bit here to Time Zones.
Now there's a few different things we wanna pay attention to here. Number one is that we can add labels to our time zones, including the existing one. So just in case you want to remember, maybe I wanna type in here Pacific, just so I know the difference between this particular time zone.
But here, I can show a second time zone. So I'm gonna tick this box here and it's already selected Eastern for me, and that's perfect. I often work with a lot of clients on the East Coast, so I get to select the Eastern time zone. And just so it's easier for me to see that on my calendar, I'm gonna type in East, it's gonna keep it nice and short so I can see it on my calendar.
All I have to do is come down here and say, okay, and now on the left-hand side, I've got two of my time zones. I can see my local time zone here, which is gonna show up in a bold here, but I also have got my Eastern time here.
So when I'm looking at my calendar and thinking about making an appointment, making sure that, oh yeah, 2:00 PM is fine for me, but maybe that's a little late for some of my colleagues on the Eastern time zone.
Now next on our list, we wanna look at viewing our calendar in a different way.
View Outlook Calendar from Email Inbox
And in particular, viewing our calendar when we are dealing with email, because let's be honest when you're here within Outlook, you're probably spending an awful lot of time here in your inbox rather than just your calendar.
But it can be time consuming to go back and forth, right? To click over here, click on the calendar, come over here and then click over here and then go back to your view here within your inbox.
Well, you can actually view a mini view of your calendar and actually see your entire schedule right here from within the email portion of Outlook.
In order to do that, we wanna come up here to the top and select View. And then on the right-hand side of your ribbon, you'll see this Layout area here.
Now there's one that's called the To-Do Bar and it's maybe not the best named label here because it's gonna show us a lot more than just our task lists. We can choose to show our task list as well.
But if we select on this option, we have three options. Calendar, People, Tasks, or Off. In this case, I want to select Calendar and now on the right-hand side, I've got a miniature view of my calendar, but it gets better than that.
Not only can I go up here and select certain dates and see what my schedule is like, but as you can see, if I go in today, it's actually showing me an agenda view of my calendars. So I can quickly see what's coming up today and what do I have for the remainder of the week.
And let's say, I need to change this consulting session, or maybe I just wanna see more details about it. All I need to do is click on it and it opens right up here. It doesn't take me to the calendar, right? I haven't switched to the calendar view, but it's opened up this event. I can add the location, change the date, add invitees, do everything that I would regularly do.
And when I'm done, I can hit Save and Close or I can just close it here, if I just wanted to find out more information and I'm back to this view.
It still gives you a lot of real estate, a lot of room to deal with your email and view your inbox, but a helpful little view so you can see your email here within Outlook as well.
Share Your Outlook Calendar via Email
We're gonna stay here within the email side, even though this is a video about calendar tips, I wanna show you how to share your calendar with someone via email.
So all we need to do in this case, I'm gonna select Home up here to get to our traditional or default format here. And I'm gonna create a new message. And it really doesn't matter who I'm sending this to in this example, I wanna come down here to the body of the email itself. And so maybe I'm gonna write something and tell them that, "Hey, just look below. This is what my schedule is like for the next week. What's your availability or which of these times works well for you?"
So in order to do this, what we need to do is come up here to Insert and you can see in this first section here under Include, there's one called Calendar. So I'm gonna select this one. You can choose the particular calendar, if you manage multiple calendars. I'm gonna use my default calendar here and you can also include the date range. So in this case, I'm gonna say the next seven days, and I can choose the amount of detail that I'd like to include as well.
So I can include limited details, full details or availability only. This is probably the one that you want to use most often because it's gonna basically just show free and busy. It gives us the other ones like tentative, working elsewhere or out of office. So they're not gonna see your specific meeting names or invitees or anything like that. You can also say show time within my working hours only, which is probably pretty smart, right? You don't want someone to pick a time that's outside of your working hours.
There's a few more advanced options here, but in the most part, I typically just use it at this level. I'm gonna say Okay, and what's gonna happen is that within the body of that message is gonna be included a miniature calendar. In fact, it looks very similar to what we saw in the email view, but as you can see, it's just showing free and busy, free and busy so they can take a quick glance and see that, okay, on the 10th, I'm available in the morning for about an hour and a half, only a half hour window here, and then most of the afternoon. So they can get back to me and say, "Hey, Scott, that’d be great. Let's meet on the 10th at 3:00 PM." Or something like that. I've given them enough details. But again, they don't know the specifics as to who I’m meeting with or the titles of those meetings.
Now I'm just gonna close this one and show you an example of what the person on the other end will receive. And this is what I think is really neat 'cause they actually get sort of a dynamic link here. If they want to look at this mini calendar and say, "You know what, I'm really wanting to meet on the 13th." They can click on this 13th. That's gonna jump down here and they can quickly see my free and busy information. So a great way to share your availability with someone outside of your organization.
Now let's jump back to the calendar itself because this next one is something that I was not aware of, but I find it so powerful.
Automatically Apply Colors to Outlook Events
And it might just change the way that you look at your calendar. It has to do with color coding or other things that you'd like to do for your calendar and make it happen automatically. So you don't have to waste your time picking up a specific color or category for every meeting that you create or the ones that you receive from other people.
So here you can see in this example. I've got green as my default color here for a number of meetings. Maybe purple is for personal things such as this lunch and anything related to a consulting session is red. But instead of wasting my time typing in consulting session and then changing it to red or receiving a consulting session appointment, check this out. I'm gonna create two different meetings just so you can see this in real time.
So let's say I'm gonna create a new meeting here. I'm just gonna call it a New Meeting. So I haven't done anything, right? I'm just gonna say new meeting. I'm gonna say save and close. There's my default color green, but I'm gonna create another meeting over here. And this one, I'm going to call, Consulting Session. Again, haven't done anything, but just giving it a name. I'm gonna hit, save and close. And this one is red. Hey, what happened there? I didn't pick red. No, that's because I'm using conditional formatting here within Outlook that whenever that term, consulting session is included in the appointment title, it's going to make the appointment red so it stands out.
So in order to make this happen, we wanna come up to our ribbon and select View. And then we wanna select View Settings. And within this view settings dialogue, we wanna come down here to Conditional Formatting. So here you see this first rule that I've put into place. It's called Consulting Session. This is actually just the name of it. We're gonna select our condition elsewhere, but here you can see I've selected the color red.
Now let's add a new one so you know how to do this as well. I'm gonna select the add button and we're gonna give it a name. In this case, I'm gonna call it a Trello Meeting, okay? 'Cause I wanna give any meeting that has Trello in the name, I wanna give it the color blue, just like the application Trello. So I'm gonna call it Trello meeting and I'm gonna pick this color blue here as the color I want to use. Now remember, this is just the name. We actually haven't specified the condition just yet.
In order to do that, we wanna come down here and select the condition button, which is gonna open up a new dialogue. So here at the top, I'm gonna say search for the words Trello. And I can choose if I want it to be only in the subject only, if I want it in the notes fields, if I want it in other places as well. In this case, I only want it in the subject. Now it's using the term subject because this is the exact same menu that you can use within the email side of Outlook. But remember subject essentially means the name of the appointment or the event.
Now I can choose other options in terms of what it was organized by, who it was organized by and other attendees. There's more choices in advance, but let's keep it simple for this example. I'm gonna hit okay in this case and I'm gonna hit okay once again. We're gonna hit okay a third time here just to close this dialog off and let's test it out and see if it's working. So here on Friday, let's create a new event and I'm gonna say, this is a Trello meeting with Bob, for example. I'm gonna hit save and close.
Convert Any Email to an Outlook Calendar Event
And automatically it's received the blue label. Next up on our list, we wanna look at quickly converting any email to an appointment because let's be honest, you're probably spending a lot more time here on the email side of Outlook than the calendar itself. But let's say someone has sent me a message like this, and they've included a lot of good data or information in it. And I wanna be able to create a meeting so we can talk about this. So in order to convert this to an appointment,
all I need to do is take the email, click and hold, and I'm gonna drag it over the calendar icon here on the left. When I release it, what's gonna happen is it's going to create a new appointment with the subject of that email is now the title of the appointment and everything within that email is going to be listed below. So here's that table I was talking about earlier. It's all there for myself and whoever I invite
to this meeting, we can now reference it together, either in advance or during the meeting itself. So I'm gonna close this one out. Again, you can drag any email,
just click and drag hover it over the calendar icon and it will automatically convert it,
getting you set up to create a new appointment.
Add Public Holidays to Outlook Calendar
Now next on our day has to do with adding important dates to your calendar, because I wanna make sure that you don't miss anything important, especially if you're dealing with someone perhaps outside of your country or outside of your faith or geographic region. And that has to do with adding public holidays to your calendar.
Here you can see I've got both some Canadian and US holidays listed here, but I didn't add these myself. No, I wanna let Outlook do the hard work for me. So in this case, what we need to do is go up to File. We're gonna come back down to options and yes, we are going to select calendar here.
And under the second menu calendar options, we wanna come about halfway down and here you can see we can add holidays to the calendar. So if we click this button, we're gonna get a dialogue here. Now there's a combination of both countries. There's some religious holidays. There's a variety of different things. Some things may be specific only to Vatican City, for example. There's a variety of different things that you might have to search through here but all you need to do is select the few that are important to you. The ones that you would like to add and hit Okay, and they will be added to your calendar.
Now, if you'd like to access all of your calendars in one place, I recommend that you check out Woven. Woven allows you to bring in all of your Google and Microsoft calendars into a single view. They also allow you to create custom tags so you can keep track of everything that you're doing in a given week. I especially like their template feature, so I don't have to type out the same thing again and again. It also comes in with some very powerful scheduling tools, so you don't have to use third-party apps. If you'd like to check out Woven for yourself, go to woven.com or see the link in the description below.
10 Productivity Apps I Use Every Day
Productivity app categories
With so many amazing productivity tools available to you and I, you may be asking yourself, Scott, what do you actually use on a day to day basis? Well, in today's video,
I'm gonna share with you 10 productivity apps that I use every single day. Now I've broken them down into 10 different categories. Everything from project management, to notes, to scheduling, to even things like social media and feedback. So let's get things started and let me show you what I am actually using.
Project Management - Trello
Number one, we're gonna start with project management. And this probably isn't a surprise to many of you, but my project management tool of choice is still Trello.
Day in and day out how I manage my business, and also how I manage other projects when I'm dealing with clients, whether it's short-term or long-term,
I am using Trello. I still feel it is the quickest and easiest way to start a new project, especially if you are collaborating with others that may not have much experience
with a project management tool.
Meetings - Zoom
Now, number two on my list, we're putting in the category of meetings, and this might also not be a surprise because I produced a number of Zoom videos over the past year. And certainly with the pandemic of 2020, more and more of us are using Zoom on a regular basis.
Now I actually started using Zoom about four years ago, and I used it because I found it was the easiest tool to send a link and for having my participants join quickly and easily, and I still feel that it's the easiest way from a host perspective to manage a meeting.
Zoom has only gotten better and better over the last several months, as they've included new features and new technology.
To make it more secure, and also to make it easier to use as well. Now let's stick with mediums for a second
Scheduling - Calendly
And let's talk about scheduling.
What I am using on a daily basis is Calendly. Now I have to admit for a number of years, I hesitated to use Calendly as a part of my business operations. But since starting to use it a little over a year ago, it's hard for me to envision going back.
You can see here on this example, Calendly is doing exactly what I want it to do, it has booked me for my available times through the end of this month. So whether you are wanting someone to book you for a paid session or a consulting session like you see here, or maybe you just need a more convenient way to set up times so that you can send out a single link and others can click and see your availability.
Now Calendly makes it really easy for you to create a number.
Of different meeting types depending on your purposes. I also especially like Calendly extensions, which I use within my Gmail client in particular.
Notes - Google Keep
Next up on my list, we've got to take a look at notes and note-taking.
And still, my note-taking tool of choice is Google Keep. You may find this surprising because in comparison to apps such as Evernote, or Microsoft OneNote, or Notion, and many others, Google Keep is relatively simple. But that's precisely why I have stayed with Keep. When I am writing down new notes quickly and easily, I want it to be fast, I want it to be quick, and I'm usually not taking really lengthy documents or writing a blog article, for example, here within Google Keep.
These are usually short notes and short checklists that I want to use in short order. They may only have a short lifespan as a part of it. And in particular, I find that Google Keep is the fastest and quickest mobile app amongst the major note-taking tools. Again, chances are, you're gonna have that great idea when you're on the go. I want something quick and easy that I can use.
Capturing - Adobe Scan
Now next up on our list, speaking of mobile apps, is something that I am using on a daily basis, and that is Adobe Scan.
Now, I try to run a paperless office as much as possible. I produce very, very little paper. But of course, I still will receive papers on a semi-regular basis. And one of the first things I want to do is convert it to a digital format. Well, Adobe Scan is a free app that allows me to do that quickly and easily.
And I know this is a very competitive market. There's a variety of free scanning tools out there. I have not found something that is easier and has better quality at the same time. I can count on one hand how many times I've retaken the photo or retaken the scan when using Adobe Scan. It quickly and easily finds the edges of the paper document that I'm scanning, adjusts the contrast very easily, and it's very quick and easy to convert this to a PDF or to share it via email or via a link.
However, I'd like to share that document. So, Adobe Scan—a great tool that I'm using on a very frequent basis.
Extension - Boomerang
Now, when it comes to creating this list, I specifically wanted to leave off things like email or calendar, because for many of us, that's just a given. And for many of us, you may not have a choice, whether you're a Google user or a Microsoft user when it comes to email and calendar.
But I wanted to show you an extension, which is perhaps the most valuable app or the most valuable tool on this entire list. It's something that can be applied to both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook users, and it's right here at the very bottom of my email. Boomerang is something that I have been using for several years now and has absolutely transformed the way I deal with email.
Now, Boomerang does a variety of different things, but it's this Remind me function, which I use every single day. So here's the scenario: I'm reaching out to someone and asking them a question, and I really want to make this meeting happen by the end of this week.
So, before I hit Send, I'm going to come down here where we have this Boomerang addition, and I'm going to check this Remind me option. And I'll say, you know what, please remind me tomorrow afternoon if there is no reply. I have a few other options here if I want, but usually, if no reply is my default.
What this is going to do is that if this person does not reply to me by tomorrow afternoon, this exact email is going to reappear in my inbox. That's going to be my reminder, that's going to be the trigger as to, that's right, Scott never got back to me. I should give him a call or send him a follow-up email.
However, if this person does reply within this timeframe, nothing else happens. I don't get any other clutter in my inbox. As I said before, I've been using Boomerang for several years. It's transformed the way that I deal with email. I encourage you to check it out, available for both Gmail and Outlook users.
Focus - Scirocco Take a Break Timer
Another tool that I've been using for many years, and it probably looks that way because the UI has not changed much in that time, is the Scirocco Take a Break Timer. I encourage all of my clients to use a timer in some way, shape, or form to increase their focus, to discipline themselves, to focus on a particular project or a particular task before moving on to something else.
Let me just open up my Take a Break Timer, just to show you what it looks like here. I like to work in 50-minute intervals. So if I just hit the play button here and I can minimize it, it's out of the way. And when that time is up, it's going to jump up in front of me and let me know.
Now, I can't ignore it. Of course, I can always minimize it, but at least the reason why I like it on my desktop rather than just using my phone or a smartwatch is that it's going to appear right here on the front of my screen. Let me just open it up again. It's going to appear over top of every application that I have opened at that moment. So I have to at least acknowledge it.
And I think it's really important that we take micro-breaks throughout our day. As you can see here on the left-hand side, it does look like it was created perhaps in the 90s and it hasn't changed a whole great deal. But you know what, that's the other bonus of this, is that it doesn't take up any real memory or power, it's not gonna suck anything from your machine. It's simple and basic, and it just works and it works very well. So I'm going to continue to use the Scirocco Timer.
Now, it is only available for PC users, but you can find a variety of other good timers for Mac users as well.
Feedback - Slido
Is something that I'm going to put in the category of feedback. And for that, I am choosing an app called Slido. Now, you may have used Slido in the past as a participant. If you've attended a conference or maybe you've attended a virtual meeting where the host wanted to get your feedback, you may have used Slido.
I am using this on a very regular basis to get that feedback anonymously from my participants when I am hosting meetings, giving training, or just wanting to go through a brainstorming session. The great thing is that your participants do not have to install or download anything. They just need to go to slido.com and you give them the meeting code or the meeting hashtag, like you can see here in this example, and then they can participate directly from their phone or their browser, or whatever machine that they're on.
And the great thing is that they can ask questions anonymously, because no one likes to feel like they're asking a stupid question, right? Well, they can do it from the privacy of their own device and do it without giving their names so you can collect great feedback questions, get a feel for what the room is thinking about, or feeling about. And it's also a great way to make your virtual meetings that much more engaging as well.
You can also create polls and quizzes within Slido as well. And I've often seen how excited people get as they participate in a dynamic poll. These things are changing at the same time, often it can be great for us for a good laugh and keep things nice and light, but you can also address serious topics with Slido as well. You can get a lot out of Slido just with the free version itself, so you might want to give Slido a try.
Sharing - Google Drive
Now, next on my list is not Drive, well, it is Drive, but it's maybe not what you are thinking.
I'm not putting Drive under the category of file management, but instead I'm putting this under the category of Sharing.
I don't create as many documents within Google Drive as you may think, but I upload an awful lot of documents right here to Drive, because I find it's just so much easier to share those documents with others.
Remember, you can use Google Drive to share any type of file, it doesn't have to be a Google based file.
So whether I want to share something with people specifically, and set their limits as to what they can do with that file, and if they're going to be a viewer, or an editor, or just a comment.
But the other great thing with Google Drive sharing is that I don't have to just share it with a restricted number of people, I can also create a public link.
So many times I've created a document or a file that I wanna add that link within an email.
Maybe it's an answer to a frequently asked question. I just wanna send them a link to a document, I can do that here within Google Drive.
I don't have to create a webpage or something special like that.
I can just create a public link and share it right here from within Drive.
Social Media - Hootsuite
And then last but not least on my list, we can't forget social media.
And whether you run your own business or not, you have a need to be engaged and to post content to your favorite social media channels.
And for me, I use Hootsuite on a regular basis.
Here you can see I've got a few different feeds that I have some content already written and ready to post.
Here's my Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page here.
So Hootsuite is great to save time where you can create one piece of content like you see here, but it's actually gonna go out across multiple platforms.
I just have to write it once and it's going to go out at different, I can choose to have it go out at different times, but go out across different social media platforms.
Or you can be more specific as you can see down below, each of those platforms are going to get a different image, a different quote, because sometimes we want to be very specific depending on where we are posting.
Now it's true there's a number of other social media managers out there as well, but Hootsuite is very feature rich.
I have barely scratched the surface myself, but it helps me save an awful lot of time with managing my social media.
Question for you
Now, I wanna hear from you next, what is on your top 10 list of the apps that you use on a daily basis?
What saves you the most time?
What helps you be most productive?
Be sure to let me know and share it with others in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video.
If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up.
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.
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