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How do you decide which project you should be working on next, especially when you've got so many great ideas bouncing around in your head?

Well, in today's video, I want to show you a very simple tool to help you make the best choice. But first, I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Hygger.

Hygger is the project management tool which allows you to manage all of your tasks in any way, and in any view that you like. But what really sets apart Hygger from other software tools is its ability to prioritize. Do you want to view all of your tasks on a value versus effort matrix? Or perhaps you prefer the Eisenhower matrix and view all of your tasks from an urgent versus an importance category?

If you'd like to try Hygger for yourself, be sure to click the link in the description below.

So let's get some help on deciding which project we should start next. A number of years ago I read a book called "The $100 Startup." And near the very back of the book it included a Decision Making Matrix.

I decided to create my own matrix in a digital format so I could repurpose it, and I could also have it sum up some of the math and some of the numbers automatically.

Decision Matrix

So, how does the Decision Making Matrix work? Well, here on the left-hand side we have a number of different ideas, and these represent projects that I'm seriously considering undertaking in the coming year.

Now, it's best when using such a matrix to have probably a minimum of three different projects to evaluate, and probably not a lot more than maybe five or six. You don't want a huge list here; hopefully, you've already narrowed it down to maybe roughly four or five.

So I've got things like updating my website, building a new product, hiring more staff, buying a new customer relationship management system, and also writing a book.

And then in the next four columns, we have the different criteria in which we are going to be evaluating these projects. So first, we have impact. So how much of an impact will this project make on my business or my customers? And I have a nice little key here down below which gives you a description of each of these four criteria.

By the way, if you would like to use the Decision Making Matrix and use this for yourself, be sure to click the link in the description below, where you can have access to this exact sheet.

Now the second one has to do with effort, in terms of how much work and time is it going to take me to complete this project? And of course, we want to look at it from a scale of one to five in terms of what's going to cause a ton of work; we're going to give that a score of one all the way to five, which is going to cause very little work, almost no work. And as you can see here in the key down below, everything is going to get a value between one and five.

So let's continue on with profitability. Of course, that's important for any business or organization. Relative to the other ideas, how much money will this project bring in? So I'm going to start inputting my values, but just before I do, I want to give you one other handy tip that I typically use when I'm engaged with the Decision Making Matrix.

Of course here you can see that I've got an active total, which is automatically summing up these numbers here in the row to the left. But I don't want to be skewed by these numbers; I don't want to be influenced, negatively or positively influenced, by these numbers. So often what I'll do is I'll come up to this column here, and if I select the down arrow, I'm going to say hide column. And this can be very effective to hide that total column while I'm inputting these numbers. And it also makes it a little special for a big reveal at the end.

All right, so with profitability, updating my website, I'm going to give that maybe a two, might bring in a little more money. Building a new product definitely has more potential, so I'm going to give that a four. Remember, the higher the number, it's going to have the potential for the more amount of money to bring in for my business. Hiring more staff, maybe a three. Somewhere in the middle of the road. Buying a new CRM system, I'm also going to give that one a three. And writing a book, it certainly has the potential for more profitability, so I'm going to give that one a four in this particular case.

Now the last criteria that we want to use here is called vision. And this is something that I think we sometimes forget. Do these projects align with your business's mission statement, or the values that you have for your business? Or if these are personal projects, do they align with your personal beliefs? Right? Or your personal ethics?

So let's start off here with updating my website. It's sort of middle of the road, I think I'm going to give that maybe a three. Building a new product certainly does align with my vision, I'm going to give that one a four. Hiring more staff, though I do value a better work-life harmony, I'm going to give that one about a three. Building a new CRM system, yeah, it's important, but I'm going to give it a fairly low ranking. It's not really in line, there's nothing terribly special about that with the vision. And then writing a new book, you know, I might give that one a much higher one here. So I'm going to give that one five. Because I want to get my message out there, that's definitely in line with my vision.

Results

So now that I've given everything a score amongst these four criteria, let's go and reveal the total.

So if I go up here and hit this arrow, it's going to expand, and now I've got, oh interesting. I've actually got a tie. A 15 between building a new product and hiring more staff. And then on the opposite end, you can see that updating my website got a score of only nine.

Now, as part of a next step, it doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to engage with both of these projects. But what's so helpful about the Decision Making Matrix is that this is going to help me make the best decision. Maybe I love updating my website, and I get excited about that, but the Decision Making Matrix has told me that that's perhaps not the best use of my time right now. Especially compared to building a new product, or hiring more staff.

Again, if you would like to use the Decision Making Matrix, be sure to click the link in the description below, and plug in your own projects and see what you should be working on next.

And of course, I'd love to hear your comments and any of your feedback as to how you decide on which project you should be working on next. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Today's video was sponsored by SaneBox. SaneBox is the easy and all-in-one tool to help you keep your email inbox clean.

Now, at its core, SaneBox is about filtering, and it uses powerful algorithms to help you filter out unimportant email, so you can focus on what matters most. But some of my favorite features of SaneBox are its smart folders, things like SaneLater, which automatically moves distracting emails into a folder I can review at a later time, or also SaneNoReplies, which helps me to track and notifies me when someone doesn't reply to one of my emails.

And of course, all of these folders are smart. And so, it learns from your behavior over time, but of course you can make changes along the way so you can tweak SaneBox to get the most out of your inbox. If you'd like to learn more and try SaneBox for free, be sure to click the link in the description below.

You have a lot of email to write today. And many of those emails include questions in which you are wanting a response. So, how can you increase your chances of getting a reply to your emails? Well, that's what I'm gonna show you how to do today.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And today I wanna share with you four tips, four steps to help you increase your chances of getting an email reply.

And we're gonna get things kicked off with, of course, the subject line. Now, sometimes we are too brief with our subject line. And you wanna make sure to take just a few seconds to make sure that your subject line is optimized. Because if someone doesn't open up your email, well, you can guarantee you're not going to get your response.

So, two things to keep in mind with your subject line, number one, you wanna be specific so that the person receiving your message knows exactly what you're talking about or can guess what the contents are gonna be within that email.

But the other thing we wanna keep in mind is to keep our length in check. Studies would show that the optimal length of a subject line is somewhere between three to seven words.

It's hard to be specific with just one or two words but because we are dealing with emails so often on our mobile devices, we wanna keep it to seven words maximum so that the person reading it can see the full subject line and not get things hidden and again decide to move on to something else.

In my example here, I'm gonna be replying or sending an email to someone that I've already had a previous conversation with. I'm gonna be sending them a pricing quote or actually I'm gonna be following up with them about a pricing quote. So, my subject line is going to read Pricing Quote for Productivity Workshop. Oh spell it right there. So, very detailed of course here. It's about the workshop, and it's about a pricing quote. So, when the person receives this, they're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm within this three to seven-word limit.

Now moving on to the body of the message itself, now depending on who you're speaking with, the topic, and so forth, I could go through so many different examples here. You're gonna know how to write the optimal message, at least what words to include within your message. But just like we saw that there was an optimal length for a subject line, studies have also shown that there's an optimal length for the body of your email message. That's somewhere 50 and 125 words.

Now keeping your message below 125 words probably makes sense. You wanna get to the point so that that person doesn't have to sift through three or four paragraphs to find out what you're asking or what you're needing. But you also wanna make sure not to be too brief because when we send emails that are only one or perhaps two sentences in length, studies have also shown that people sort of scoff at them and they don't consider them very weighty or that they are very important.

If it's just one or two sentences, maybe this could have been included in a text or instant messaging. Often, we won't give them the weight that they deserve. So, you wanna shoot for about a 50 word minimum but also 125 word maximum.

Now I'm not gonna get into the details of the contents of my message because of course each and every email is unique. But tip number three has to do with the question itself.

Here you can see at the very end of my message, I said, "Can we set up a call for Thursday to discuss in more detail?" My tip for you here isn't so much to do with length but the placement of this question. Sometimes when you've added the question in the middle of a paragraph or even at the end of a short paragraph like this one here, it can get lost in the mix.

So, my tip for you here, whatever that key question is, is to put it on a separate line, a distinct line within your email. The reason being, is that it's so much easier to see. In fact, when this person first opens up this email, they may actually see this question mark in the corner of their eye even before they've started reading the entire email itself.

So, I have found it very, very effective to put your question on a separate line. You can catch them up to speed up here. You can give them some other content or backstory here. But when it comes to that key question that you're asking, try putting it on a separate line. It just makes it stand out that much more. Studies have also shown that we tend to reopen and touch an email multiple times.

And so, instead of getting caught up to speed as to what is the question or what do I need to do with this email, make it easier for the receiver that they can see that question on that separate line.

Now I could hit send at the point and hope that I get a reply to this email. But there's one final step, one final tip I wanna share with you, and that has to do with your sign-off. Now sometimes we sort of scoff and don't think that sign-offs means a great deal, but there's a lot of interesting research that would tell us otherwise. Some people might say things like cheers or take care or maybe even thanks. Thanks isn't too bad. It's polite. That can often increase your chances.

But let's go one step further. We're gonna put thanks in advance. Again, some pretty interesting research has shown that thanks in advance will greatly increase your chances of getting a reply. Of course, none of this is going to guarantee a reply, but there's something about thanking someone before they've actually done the request or before that they've answered your question.

It makes the person who's receiving this email almost feel obliged to send you an answer or to send you a request. So, you may want to experiment with including thanks in advance as a part of your sign-off.

So, in quick review, tip number one, in the subject line, let's be specific and keep the word count between three to seven words. Tip number two has to do with the body and keeping our message between 50 and 125 words. In fact, here in Outlook, I can go up here and click on the Word Count. Look at that, 63 words. I'm definitely within that particular range.

Tip number three has to do with the question and try putting it on a separate line. It makes it punch out and make it a little more distinct, easier for the reader. And last but not least, our sign-off, thanks in advance, helping that person to hit the reply button and give us an answer or give us a reply to the question that we've been asking here.

I hope you enjoyed today's video. I'd love to hear your questions and further comments about getting replies within an email. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Today's video is sponsored by Bridge24. Are you frustrated by the lack of reporting in tools such as Asana, Trello, and Basecamp? Well, with Bridge24, you can manipulate and view your data any way that you like.

Want an interactive chart of all of your cards and lists? How about having something that is print ready so you can share with others? Or perhaps you'd like to deal with your data in an Excel spreadsheet? Well, you can do it all with Bridge24. Be sure to check out the link in the description below for more details.

You already know that Trello is an excellent tool to manage your projects and all of your tasks, and there are many new features that you may not be aware of, so in today's video, I wanna share with you three new features. These are things that have just been released within the past six months, things that you probably are not even aware of.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress, and let's get things kicked off with a brand-new Power-Up called the Map Power-Up.

Map Power-Up

Now in order to enable the Map Power-Up, you need to go up to your menu here and select Power-Ups, and probably the easiest way is to just simply search for maps. I've already got it enabled here.

Here is the new Map Power-Up, and once you've enabled it, there's really nothing else you need to do. If I hit the gear icon here, my only other choice is to disable it.

So let's go back to my Trello board and see how the Map Power-Up works. So think about how often you need to be traveling somewhere or maybe you just want to reference the different places that are associated with a particular card.

If you can see here in my To Do list, I've got a few cards here, such as "Visit a new client to discuss training options," "Look at office space near Central Park," and "I want to check into my hotel." Perhaps I'm traveling on business, and so, I would like not only specific addresses but also a map so I can reference these places.

Now I've actually already added the map to these second and third cards. You can see that there's this little location icon listed here, but let's go up to the first card here and add one. So I need to visit a new client to discuss new training options.

I don't have an address. I'd rather just be able to click on a map instead. So on the right-hand side, under Power-Ups, we have this button called Location, and if I select it, it's just gonna bring up this search field, which is actually just searching Google Maps.

Now you can either type in the address directly, or if it's the name of a building or an organization, I'm just gonna type in Hulu for this example so I get a, you can see it's bringing up those results already, Hulu on 5th Avenue.

I'm gonna select it and boom! I've got a map right here within my card so I can reference it directly.

Now there's a few things you can do here. If I click on the map itself, it's going to expand, so now I've got a closer view of this map. I can dive in deeper into this map. That's great.

Now if I click on this link here, this little upward arrow, it's going to open up this map in Google Maps in a separate tab, and that could be helpful if I want directions. This is especially useful when you're using this feature on your Android or iOS device.

If you're using an Apple device or an Android device, this is gonna open up Google Maps, and you can have directions immediately to get to that location.

And if I choose to change the location, I can choose this last option to do so or just remove it here as well, but in this example, I wanna leave it. This is exactly the new client I want to go meet with, so I'm gonna leave it here within this card, but it gets better.

Now that I've got a couple of different locations here, you'll notice that there's this little Map link in the top right-hand corner. If I select it, now I've got all three of those locations here within the map, each of these little pins signifying those separate cards.

But if I click on them, I even get the cards themselves. So now I can see exactly, oh that's right, that's the office space there, and then, I gotta come down here, and I gotta visit this new client at this location. I even get things like the due date.

I can get the label. I can even expand that label here, if I wanna see what the label is, and then, last but not least, I gotta check into my hotel at this location.

Now if I click on any of these, I can actually click on this little bubble, it's gonna open up the card. I can add a description. I can check it off. I can do whatever I want with a regular card, and when I close it, it brings me right back to this map view.

I think this is really, really helpful, especially for those of you who may be making client visits or sales visits, even if you're using Trello for personal use, and maybe you're just doing some sightseeing, right? You're just touring around the city.

You can have your different locations here right on the Trello interface, and of course, this is best used on your mobile devices as well. So as long as you have the Map Power-Up enabled for that particular board, you'll be able to take advantage of this on your mobile device.

Well, let's get to tip number two, or should I say new feature number two, and this one has to do with due dates.

Custom Due Date Reminders

Now due dates are not new, right?

Due dates are a standard feature here within Trello, but it's what we can do with the due dates, especially when it comes to reminders.

So if I select the due date here, let's say for this particular task, I wanna do it before the weekend, I'm gonna select the 12th, but you'll notice something new down below, that there is a Set Reminder drop-down window.

In the past, the default reminder time would always be 24 hours in advance, and in some cases, this was a bit of a nuisance 'cause maybe you didn't want a reminder for everything that had a due date, and maybe you wanted a different reminder in terms of a different time period.

You want it a little closer to this due date, or maybe you want it a little further out. Well, Trello now gives us that option.

If I select this drop-down menu, the very first choice here is None, so I can choose to say I just don't want a reminder.

I'd like the due date, but I don't want the reminder, but all of the other options are within about a 48-hour period.

You can either set a due date for as early, or I should say as late as the exact time of the due date, so in this case, it's gonna alert me exactly at 12 noon on Friday the 12th, or I can stretch it out to a few minutes, a few hours, or even two days before.

That's longer than the previous default, so a lot more flexibility, and one of the nice things about this feature, of course, is that this does not roll over to every single card within your board.

Maybe I wanna be notified two days before for this particular card, but on a different card, I'd like to be notified 15 minutes in advance, right? Your cards represent different things, so now, you have the flexibility of choosing a different reminder time.

One other thing I want to point out here when we're talking about due dates is that, now in this case, in order for me to receive that reminder, we've got the due date there, I'm gonna need to add myself to this card, right? I need to assign myself as a member.

Otherwise, no one's gonna be getting this reminder.

However, there's another way that you can be notified of a card, even if you are not being assigned to that particular card.

Let me remove myself here for a second.

If we go down near the bottom of the card, you'll see that there is a Watch button, and this is one of those features that I think goes almost unnoticed amongst many Trello users.

If I select Watch, you'll notice that I get this little green checkmark beside it.

I have not been assigned to it, but if I close the card, there's this little eyeball icon. It means that I'm watching this card, and I will get those reminders.

Whatever that reminder duration is set to, whether it's the time of or two days out or 15 minutes, I will receive that reminder as well.

That reminder's gonna be applicable to anyone who is assigned or watching this card.

Another way to take advantage of the Watch feature is that you can watch an entire list.

So you can click up here on a particular list, and you can select Watch, and what that means, there you can see that icon again, this time in the list, is that whatever happens in this list, as things move in, as they move out, as things are updated, I'm gonna be notified.

I'm gonna be kept in the loop of what's going on here.

That can be really, really helpful if you're working on a board with a number of team members, but you're really only responsible or you just wanna keep a much closer eye on a particular step in your process or a particular phase in your funnel.

So this isn't something new. The Watch feature's been around for a while, but since we were talking about due dates, I thought I would mention it here.

Now the third new feature, and this is brand-new, that I wanna share with you today has to do with giving your users and giving people who interact with your board a little more detail about what's going on, and that's the About This Board section.

About This Board section

If we go back to the Show Menu here, you'll notice that there's something brand-new as our first option, and that's the About This Board.

Now it's front and center for a reason, because this is a place where you're probably gonna want new people to be clicking on, or at least they can go and reference this when they need a little extra help or maybe just a little bit of background information.

So if I select About This Board, there are three main sections to this area.

Number one is the Made By. You know, who created this board? Who is the administrator? Who do I go to talk to if I need some help or need some direction on this board? That wasn't always obvious prior to adding this feature. Now it's very, very clear.

The second section is the Description area, and this is, I think, really, really helpful. I've added a brief description here. If I select the Edit button, I can add a lot more detail here if I want, giving other people an overview of "Hey, this is what this board is about." This is how we're using this. "This is why we're using it this way," that type of thing. You can add it here in the description.

And then, last but not least, we have a section here which is sort of referred to as an Actions section. So it's telling people that members can comment on cards, and if you are the administrator, you can change some of those permissions, including changing the team, the default cover image, if it's enabled or not, Commenting and Add/Remove Permissions. They're gonna be found here as well.

So I'd love to hear from you next. Which features in Trello do not yet exist but are on your wishlist? What do you wish Trello would introduce in the coming year?

Make sure to let me know in the comments down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Do you wanna learn some new ways to get the most out of Google Sheets? Do you wanna learn some new functions so you can manipulate your data in an easier way?

Well then today's video is just for you. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

Use Sparkline to insert small graph

And let's get things started with tip number one.

Sometimes when you're dealing with an awful lot of numbers, and you know when you're dealing within a spreadsheet you've got rows and rows and columns and columns of numbers.

Sometimes it could be hard to decipher what exactly is going on here.

Well of course, we could create a chart within Google Sheets.

But sometimes a chart is overkill and you don't wanna take up all this real estate somewhere else in your spreadsheet.

Sometimes you just want a quick view of the data that is going on here.

So I wanna introduce you to something called Spark Line.

Now you can put this in any cell within your spreadsheet.

In this example I'm just gonna use this cell just below these sales figures 'cause I'd like to see if there's a trend, if there's a spike, what's going on here, and remember, if this column was hundreds, maybe even thousands of cells, I wouldn't be able to see that.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna press equals to bring up the functions here, and I'm gonna type in sparkline. That's right, sparkline.

I'm gonna select it and then all I have to do is highlight the area, the cells that I would like to include. I'm gonna hit enter, and look what's happened here.

Let me expand that cell just to make it a bit more square like. It's giving me a visual, just a snapshot, a visual line chart of what's going up here in the sales.

So I can see that there's been sort of three spikes including this last one, and maybe that's gonna help me zero in on what I should be looking at.

So again that is sparkline.

All you have to type in is equals sparkline, then select the cells that you'd like included in that data, and you're gonna get this nice little visual, which of course is dynamic.

If I change anything here then that visual's gonna change as well.

Share comments and notifications directly to others

Tip number two, this has to do with sharing, and in particular letting others know that you've added a comment.

You probably already recognize by using Google Drive or Google Sheets one of the benefits is that we can add a comment and share that with others.

So if I right-click on a cell I can select comment and maybe I want to ask someone, like what, what happened here. Like why did we get no support calls that day.

Can select comment and there's a little icon here letting me know as I hover over there that there is a comment included. Whoever, if I'm collaborating with others, this isn't gonna notify anyone else that I've added a comment.

They're gonna have to come in here and maybe the next time they're within this sheet they'll just hover over and happen to stumble upon this comment.

Well, there is a better way.

I'm gonna say delete so we can start off from scratch. I'm gonna go back to that cell and once again I'm gonna insert comment.

And you know what, I am gonna say what happened here. I'm puzzled.

But this time around I'm gonna use the plus symbol. I'm gonna use the plus sign, and that's gonna bring up my email directory here.

So now what I can do is I can start typing in a name or an email address. I'm gonna use this one here, my test account, and it's going to notify this individual of this comment.

Now it gets better. Down below you can see the plus mention. We'll add people to this discussion and send them an email directly.

But I can go one step further and I can actually check this box which will assign this comment to that individual, so they will be responsible for marking it as done.

Now this example, I'm gonna actually uncheck that, but I'm gonna select comment.

And what's happening right now is that Google is automatically sending an email notification with this comment and a link to this sheet so I can ask this person this particular question.

I don't have to email them secondarily with a follow-up email or, "Hey can you please review my comments?" Or something like that. It's actually built right in.

So don't forget the plus symbol if you want to call out someone directly within your Google Sheet.

Validate email addresses in Google Sheets

Now tip number three, we're gonna stick with emails.

But in this case what we wanna do is we want to clean up our emails and see if we actually have valid email addresses.

There's a good chance that you're dealing with information that is being submitted and maybe you wanna use that in a bulk email.

Maybe you have a mail client such as Mailchimp that you want to import this information, or maybe you just want to copy and paste a large number of emails into your own email client, such as Gmail or Outlook.

Well if you take a quick glance here you can see that some of these email addresses are not formatted correctly.

This one doesn't have anything in front of the at symbol.

This one down below does not have a domain name at the end of it.

And this is gonna make things really tricky when we go to import or when we go to actually email someone, if we want to copy and paste all of these emails.

So I wanna validate this particular column. You can see here I've added a title here. I call it Valid Email, and what we're gonna churn out here is just a list of true or false.

What Google Sheets is going to do with this function, it's gonna take a look at everything here on the left and tell us is there anything that is a false email address?

And then we can maybe follow up with the individual directly or see if our forms are formatted properly, maybe as we're collecting this information.

So the function this time around, we'll start with the very first cell. Again, we're gonna start with that equal sign, and it is isemail, -I-S-E-M-A-I-L.

So I'm gonna select isemail, and I'm just gonna start by selecting the one to the left here.

All right, so this one it says true. Yeah, that makes sense, right? It's got something in front of the at symbol. It's got a dot URL.

Now what I can do is I can just take this little icon here in the bottom right-hand corner and drag it all the way down and now it has analyzed everything here to the left.

And one, two, three, four, it looks like I've got four false email addresses. This is gonna spit back an error. It might not even let me send that bulk email if these are included in the to line.

So I can either get rid of them. I can go back and see if I've got the correct email address somewhere.

A nice and easy way to validate a long list of email addresses.

Create QR Codes within Google Sheets

Now, tip number four might just be my favorite in this tip five list.

And this time around it has to do with QR Codes.

Until recently I had no idea that you could do this within Google Sheets.

And you know, QR Codes are making a comeback. I think it was about 10 years ago when we first started seeing QR Codes and started using them.

And then they seemed to fade away. But recently I'm seeing them a lot more in posters, in marketing material.

It's so easy to scan a QR Code on your phone and then go directly to a website or a webpage.

So in this example here I've got about five website addresses. These are different pages on my own personal websites, simpletivity.com.

And maybe I would like to create QR Codes, a unique one for each and every page as a part of my marketing material.

Well, all I need is this special string here. We're gonna use the function which is called image, and then what we're gonna use is a special Google API to help us create a QR Code.

Now I don't expect you to jot this down or memorize what this full function is here. I'll be sure to include it in the description down below so you can copy and paste it yourself.

But first, let me show you how it works. So in this first cell, first what I need to do is copy, right? I need to copy this information here.

So I'm gonna copy this string of text, this function. And then I'm going to paste it into this cell below.

And to make sure that I can activate, I'm gonna eliminate that space at the beginning.

And the last thing that I'm gonna do is that it's actually referencing cell A1. In my case, the cell that I need to reference is A2. That's the first cell that I want to use.

So I'm gonna hit enter there. And boom, I've got a unique QR Code for my website address.

Just like we did before, when you drag a function or a formula, it's going to apply to everything below.

If you drag everything here in this column, it's gonna apply to everything on the left-hand side of the column that the first one was referencing.

So again, I'm just gonna take this, I'm gonna drag it to the bottom of my list.

And now I've got five unique QR Codes associated to all of these webpages.

Because these are images I can just right-click and say copy and now I can paste this anywhere.

I can paste it into a document. I can paste it into an email. If I'm creating a poster, if I need to send it to a designer who's gonna include it I can put it there as well.

So lots of great stuff. Let's just, just for fun let's just paste it over here in this cell. There's that image so I can put it anywhere.

Can you imagine having a long list of website addresses or something else here and you can instantly create new QR Codes for everything that you want in that initial column?

Clean up and trim name fields

All right, well last but not least let's move on to tip number five, something maybe you didn't know how to do here within Google Sheets.

Often we're dealing with a lot of information, and in this case we're looking at names.

And of course we wanna have as clean of information, clean data as much as possible.

And just by taking a quick glance of this short list, you can see I've got things like this first one's got some extra spaces.

I got a couple of things with extra spaces in front.

I've got someone like this one, Alvin Jimenez, has got too many spaces in between his name.

I think the same thing is happening here with Serena.

This is just hard to deal with. It's hard to look at as well, right? As I'm scanning through these names.

So what we're gonna do is we're going to clean up these names here.

And the function that we're gonna use is trim, T-R-I-M.

Once again, this first cell I'm gonna hit equals and type in the function trim, which removes spaces within the characters.

Now it's not gonna remove all the spaces because it's gonna recognize that these are names.

So it's not gonna move the moon, the surname, directly into the e of Elaine. It recognizes that there's a capital. They know that it's names.

So we're gonna say remove spaces so it can look proper.

So I'm gonna select this one, and let's start by selecting that first one again.

Of course, you could add the whole row here, but I like showing it as an example just how it's gonna deal with the first one and then how we can drag for the rest.

I'm gonna hit enter.

And look at that. The spaces are removed from the beginning of Elaine.

I'm gonna highlight that cell, and let's just apply it to everything else in this list, and now we've got a very proper, a very clean looking column here, where you see all of those extra spaces here in Serena and Alvin have been removed.

All the spaces have been removed as well.

I can go ahead and just get rid of this column altogether, if like, because I've got these cleaned names here.

Well, I hope you enjoyed those tips.

But I would love to learn from you, and I'm sure there are others watching today's video who would love to know what are some of your favorite functions or some of your favorite tips within Google Sheets.

Be sure to share them down below in the comments section.

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

‍

Hello everybody.

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

And today I'm talking to you from the road.

I just finished an all day workshop that I delivered yesterday right here in Spokane, Washington.

And I'm about to pack up my hotel room and head to the airport to head back home.

And you know this month, I'm spending an awful lot of time on the road.

So I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to pass along some productivity tips to help you stay productive while you're traveling.

Whether that's for business or maybe even if that's for pleasure such as a vacation.

So today I wanna talk about two things that I do as I am preparing to head out.

Whether I'm departing or whether I'm heading back home.

And that has to do with my boarding passes and making sure I'm at the right gate number.

Digital Boarding Pass

So number one, my number one tip has to do with your digital boarding pass.

We're pretty fortunate that most airlines have an online app or they can text message you a link to your online boarding pass, right?

You just have that QR code that you can use at the gate.

But you've probably seen that experience.

Either you've experienced this yourself or you've seen someone else fumble with their phone.

They can't find the email, they can't load that boarding pass correctly, they forget where that app is or it's not loading or refreshing properly.

Take a Screenshot

Well, to avoid that hassle, to always make sure that you have your boarding pass available, my first tip for you is to take a screenshot of the online boarding pass.

So you only have to reference it in your photos.

Your photos do not need to connect to the internet, your photos are gonna be stored directly on your mobile device.

So whenever you first get your boarding pass, I recommend that you take a screenshot.

Now, preferably, you can do this on your mobile device so it's got the same dimensions as you would.

You could do it on your desktop computer if you want to and then just save it to your phone.

Just have it on your phone.

But I tend to do a screenshot on my mobile device so it looks exactly like how it would or how it's supposed to be on the phone.

Google

Now, depending if you're an Android user, an Apple user, you may need to find out how to take a screenshot on your device but I would encourage you to learn how to do so.

If you don't know how to do so just yet, I'll see if I can post some links down below for some helpful resources.

The second thing is that when you get your boarding pass, when you first check in, perhaps 24 hours in advance, you often will not have a gate number.

Either they don't know what the gate number is yet or it may change.

Well, I like to rely on Google to always make sure that I know where I need to be in the airport.

All you need to do is find your flight number.

It usually starts with a two-letter code for the airline followed by four digits.

That's pretty standard, or at least here in North America.

And all you need to do is go to your Google Search bar and just type in flight and then follow it with that flight number.

Sometimes the flight number is all you need as well but if you include the word flight either before or after you, you are certainly gonna get the latest information directly from Google.

And sometimes it even provides you more information than the airline will provide you directly such as both, not only the departure time but boarding time, gate changes, if it's on time, if it's delayed.

I find that Google is sometimes, it's just a more convenient way and I can rely on it.

I don't need to go to a special website, I don't need to go to the airport website or the airline website.

I let Google do the work for me.

Conclusion

So those are my two tips for this week.

Look forward to more travel tips later this month right here on the Simpletivity channel.

And if you've got something that you'd like to share to help you stay productive or help you just stay on top of things when you're traveling, be sure to share it with me here in the comments.

Until next time, remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Google Tasks has come an awful long way over the last few years and in particular over the last few months as they have added new features to help you and I be more productive.

So in today's video, I wanna share with you my five favorite tips so you can get so much more out of Google Tasks.

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

And let's jump right in to tip number one.

Now, this is something that is more recent so you may not be familiar with these first two tips.

The first thing that Google Tasks has added recently is the ability to have repeating tasks.

So I can add a task here and let's just do something.

Repeating Tasks

Really basic like take out the garbage, something that I certainly need to do on a regular basis.

But before you hit enter I'm gonna edit this particular task and you will see that I have the ability to add a date and a time.

I wanna start with that and I wanna do this every Sunday.

Sunday evening is when I wanna take out the trash but you can see at the bottom that there is now a repeat function.

So I can choose to have this task happen each and every Sunday.

I'm gonna select that and I've got multiple choices, if I wanna do it by day, week, month or year.

In this case, I wanna do it every week and I want it to appear on the Sunday.

Yeah, I wanna start it on May 26th, I could change that there if I want to.

I'm gonna leave the time alone so it's just gonna appear at the beginning of May 26th, the beginning of Sunday and I'm gonna select OK.

And so now we have it there.

If I go back to my task with this, yes it's going to appear for this coming Sunday, May 26th but the great thing is I can see the little icon.

It's telling me that it's a recurring task.

This time if I go and mark it as complete, it is now gone from my task list but yes, it will reappear here in the coming Sunday.

So it's always going to come and show up when I have that repeating task.

Of course we always have the Completed area down below here.

So I can always go back in here, and if I want to remove that repeater, that's where I would wanna go into this Completed area and then I can remove future completed tasks.

But let me minimize that for now and let's get to tip number two which is also something which is rather recent, something that was recently added and that's the ability to add a specific due time.

Adding Due Date Time

Not just a due date but a due time.

So let's say I wanna email Susan later in the day.

First of all if I'm gonna update my time here.

This is something way in the past.

So let me bring it up to something a little more current.

Let's say I'm gonna email her tomorrow morning but I don't wanna just set it for the 22nd, I wanna make sure I do this before noon.

So I'm actually gonna come down here and select 'Set time'.

I could either enter it from a text based perspective or I can just punch it.

I'm gonna say 9:30 a.m. and I'm going to say OK.

Now the great thing with this is that I will have, there you can see it, it's just popped up here to the left on my calendar.

It will appear on my calendar as well.

As long as I have my tasks calendar enabled down here within Google Calendar, anything with a specific time will also show up here within that calendar.

So not only will I receive a reminder but I'll see it there on my calendar as well.

So another helpful addition, something that Google has added recently.

Tip number three has to do with using subtasks.

In many cases you may be managing a project.

Create Subtasks

Or even just a mini project here within Google Tasks.

So I'm gonna say, let's just call this one 'Mini-Project' for our example, shall we?

What I'm gonna do this time around, I'm gonna hit the edit button and we can see below Add date/time there is the ability to add subtasks.

So I'm gonna say this is Mini Task.

Mini Task one, really original Scott, Mini Task two and Mini Task three.

So I can have these other additional tasks, these things all work their way up are all a part of this mini project, I can add them here within my task list.

So something very very powerful.

Now, when you see the front of the task what you'll notice is that they do appear as individual tasks.

This is actually quite helpful because I can now go into Mini Task 1, for example, and I can give it a distinct due date, I can give more details, specific details for this particular task as well.

But it will keep them together.

So for example if I want to…

Let's give this a due date, let's give the Mini-Project a due date, for example, of let's say like maybe the end of next week.

I'm gonna come back out here as well.

So here you can see that Mini-Project there.

They're still attached.

Even though these ones have no due date, these are the subtasks, they're still joined.

If I open up this Mini Task here, I can still deal with it the way I want to but it's still attached to this Mini-Project up above.

There you see all of our tasks here below.

And I can start checking them off.

I probably would have done task one first but let's say I did task two first, I can see them all here within that Mini Project.

All right, tip number three.

It has to do with something that I'm sometimes surprised that I have to remind so many people about but it's very very helpful is don't forget that you can use more than just one list within Google Tasks.

By default, Google's gonna create this My Tasks list but you can see here, I have a new project list and I can create something else as well.

Let's call this one the Brand New List, for example.

And I can hit Done.

So I can separate my personal from my business.

Here's my Brand New List.

I've got nothing in here just yet.

So maybe I wanna start out and I'm gonna say New Task for Monday.

So I've got my brand new task in here but let's say that I created it here and then I forgot.

Oh no, brand new task list, I don't want it here, I actually wanted it in my tasks list.

Well, it's actually pretty simple.

If you go over to the edit function here, you can see you can change the list down below, right below the details, you can always move your tasks in between different lists.

So in this case, maybe I put it here by mistake, I'm gonna say, let's put it back into my tasks.

I come back out, this is empty once again and now I can go back here and find that one under My Tasks.

I didn't give it a due date, right?

There's my new task for Monday.

So I can find it down below as well.

Well, the last task I wanted to share with you today is maybe one of my favorites and something that you'll find very very powerful has to do with using Google Tasks with Gmail.

So if I go right here to Gmail,

Create Tasks from Gmail

Often we want to convert a particular email into a task and we can do that quite easily.

Up near the top of any of your emails, you'll find the little three dots that give us some more options and here we have a choice to add it to tasks.

So you can see it's automatically gonna up my tasks bar here and it's gonna add this particular task.

Now it's going to use the label here.

Here we go, under no date, it's gonna use the subject line of the email, it's gonna give that the title of the task.

So Winter is gone.

Something that I wanna here with this Sheetgo notification.

Maybe there are some things that I wanna look at here.

Now of course I can come in here and I can relabel this, right and I can say, let's just call this SheetGo tasks to complete, something like that, then I can add further details if I want to but the real bonus, the real plus here is that it gives me a direct link to this email.

So if I go back out here, you can also see that from the front and in fact I can access it from the front as well.

So I'm gonna just click on my inbox, I'm gonna get out of this particular email here just to show you an example.

So let's say as I'm going through my to-do list, I come across this one and say, oh yeah, I wanna review.

What were those tasks in that email?

I'm just gonna click on this link and immediately that email will appear here on the left-hand side of the screen.

So really powerful if you want to automatically attach an email to a particular task, you can convert it by just using the more options and selecting Add to Tasks.

Well, I would love to hear from you next.

Of these five, which one was your favorite?

Which one do you find is going to be most useful for you and do you have some additional tips that you'd like to share with others?

Please be sure to add them in the comments down below.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

How many times have you sent an email asking someone a question and waiting for a reply, yet you hear absolutely nothing?

Maybe a few days go by and then suddenly it dawns on you.

Oh, that's right, I should follow up with so-and-so.

And maybe even when you sent out that very first email you tried to set a reminder.

Maybe you added something to your calendar or something else just so that you could remember in the future, but then that person replied back immediately so that reminder was worthless.

Well, today, I wanna share with you a super cool Gmail extension which is gonna help you increase your chances of getting replies to your emails.

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

And today, I wanna share with you something that I've discovered recently called Rebump for Gmail.

Rebump is all about sending automatic replies to people who have not yet responded to your emails.

So, let me show you how Rebump works.

So, here, I've got an example email.

I'm wanting to set up a meeting with someone and I'm saying, hi, Ken, let's continue our discussion so we can iron out the details of this contract.

When would be a good time to get together?

Now, in a normal course of action, I would just hit send and hope that Ken would reply to me in a short amount of time, but I'm gonna use Rebump.

There's a little icon down here.

This is the Rebump icon and I'm gonna check this off.

But you probably wanna understand what on Earth is Rebump going to do after I hit send now.

Well, let me take you into the Rebump interface and explain to you what a bump actually is.

So, here we have what is called a bump sequence, and the way that this is designed is that if that individual does not reply to my email, there will be a series of follow-up emails coming from my email address, not Rebump but from my own email address, just giving them a gentle reminder.

So, here I have a default sequence in order, but keep in mind, all of this is editable.

You can change the frequency, the days out from each bump, you can change the messages themselves, and I'll show you how to do that in just a second.

But in this default example, after I send my original email, if that person does not reply to me within three days, Rebump will send this automatic email.

I don't have to do anything.

It's gonna do it on its own.

Hi, just wanted to make sure you got the email below.

Thanks!

Something pretty simple and straightforward.

Now, if we continue on with this bump sequence, if I do not receive a reply four days after bump one or, over here, seven days in total, right, this is seven days after the initial email, well, then a second bump will be sent, a second email.

Just checking in.

Wanted to make sure you got my email.

And there's actually four bumps in this complete sequence, day 14 and even day 21.

They're all worded a little bit differently.

And, remember, you don't have to have a four-bump sequence.

You don't have to use this text here.

It is all editable.

But the great thing is is that if this individual does reply to me before day three, none of these bumps go out.

Nothing additional will be sent.

Maybe it needs bump one and bump two, but let's say in between bump two and bump three, that's when the individual replies to me.

Once again, everything here is canceled.

So, it's not as if they're gonna be receiving reminders after they have followed up with you or after they've replied to you.

So, let me show you just how easy this is.

You can create multiple bumps, different bumps for different purposes.

I've created one here called Proposal.

So, if I go into my proposal bump, the one that I just edited not too long ago, you can see that I've changed the time frame, right?

When you're sending out a contract, you wanna follow-up in a shorter amount of time, so I'm saying after two days if I don't hear a reply I want them to send out this email.

And the other nice thing about Rebump is that you can actually add personalization.

So, here I've added the auto first name, right?

This is gonna be the first name from your email contacts.

So, hi, first name, I just wanted to check in and see if you've had time to review my proposal.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

And if we continue on to this proposal bump sequence, you can see that it's specific, right?

I've used… Let's just hit edit here for a second here just to show you that, again, you can add formatting to these emails very much like you would in Gmail itself.

Here I can change the days, right?

How many days from the previous bump that I want to add.

And over here, even to the right, here's some of that personalization, right?

The auto first name or auto last name if I wanna add that as well.

So, in this case, I've got a bump sequence which is very specific to a contract or for sending a proposal.

So, let's go back to Gmail for just a moment here, and I wanna show you exactly what's happening.

Now, let me uncheck Rebump for a second here, and I'm gonna check it again.

So, I'm gonna check it here, and I wanna show you up here in the Bcc line.

Whenever this box is checked, it's actually adding this unique email address, this special bump email address to the Bcc line.

Now, what makes this so important is not only is this is how Rebump works, but it allows you to use it on mobile.

I know a lot of times we install an extension for Gmail and we love it, we use it, but then we're disappointed that we can't use it on our smartphones.

Well, that's not a problem with Rebump.

All you need to do is use this email address in the Bcc line when you're composing an email on mobile, and the same functionality exists.

Now, I'm gonna uncheck it for just a second because you'll notice that there's a little drop-down here, bump sequence.

So, here you can see.

Here's the default and here's the proposal.

So, I can choose between the two which one I want to use.

In this case, I do wanna stick with the default 'cause I'm not sending a contract along.

I just wanna talk about the contract.

So, I've checked it and now I can send it and I can see what's going on.

Now, if I go back into my Rebump account, you're probably wondering, "Well, how do I manage all of these Rebumps?"

Well, here we go.

Under the emails tab within Rebump, here you can see a list of all of my active bump sequences, so these are the emails that I have sent out.

It shows me the date, recipient, subject, all the important information I need to find out which email is which, and then it's also telling me where it is in the sequence.

So, the last bump is actually the original email.

None of these have actually been bumped, but it's telling me when that person can expect to receive the next bump.

It even has a nice visual indicator here that as it goes through the bump sequence, these little circles will light up and change color so you know exactly where they are in that sequence.

And, of course, I can just select cancel here if I don't want these bumps to happen at all.

If I just wanna cancel it, I can select that.

I can do it in bulk as well here on the left-hand side of the screen.

Now, I also wanted to make sure that you can customize when your bumps are sent out.

Because I know some of you are probably asking, "Scott, I deal with business people.

They're typically dealing with me during business hours.

"I don't wanna send this out at three in the morning.

"I don't wanna send it out on the weekend."

No problem, Rebump has you covered.

So, here you can adjust a number of your bump settings, including bump days and times.

So, I'm gonna uncheck Sunday and Saturday and then I'm also gonna check this one.

So, I only wanna send bumps between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Of course, I can change these if I want, but now I can ensure that my bumps will be sent out during typical business hours and a typical business week.

They're not gonna be receiving something at Sunday morning at 2:30 a.m., and of course the client's gonna be thinking, "Why on Earth is someone sending me a reminder at this time of the day?"

So, I encourage you to check out Rebump for Gmail.

Rebump comes with a 30-day free trial.

You can try out all of the features within Rebump, including the ones I've shown you in today's video.

If you do like the extension, if you do like the service, Rebump is only $5 a month afterwards.

I hope you enjoyed this video.

I look forward to your questions and your comments below, and remember to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

Do you wish that you could read more in a shorter amount of time?

Or maybe you just want to find a way to commit to finishing that next book that you pick up.

Well, today I want to show you a very simple trick to help you do just that.

I'm currently in the middle of reading this book, Atomic Habits by James Clear and I'm really enjoying it, however, because I borrowed this book from my local library, I need to complete it within the next two weeks.

Well, I'm going to do that with the help of this little bookmark, which I create for almost all of my books.

I'm gonna show you what it is, and how you can create it for yourself in just a few minutes.

So, let's dive in.

To make sure that I can finish a book within a specific timeframe, I take just a couple of minutes to create a reading chart, or a reading guide, to make sure I can hit that specific deadline.

Now, you can do this in any type of spreadsheet tool.

Here, I'm within Google Sheets, but you can use this in Microsoft Excel, or almost any other spreadsheet tool.

Now, the very first column, we're gonna create a date column here.

So, I'm just gonna call this date.

Let me just type that in here, date.

The next column we're gonna call day, because I do find it helpful to see the day of the week.

And then, this last one, I'm gonna call page min, as in page minimum.

This is gonna be the minimum page number I need to read to in order to reach my goal.

So, over here in the date field, I'm gonna type in today's date, which happens to be 2019.

It is May the 14th and I'm gonna put it in this date format.

This is usually what spreadsheets like the best.

It's easiest to work with.

And then, if I select this cell, you'll notice in the lower right-hand corner there's a small square or a small dot.

If you click and hold and then drag this down, I'm gonna drag it down 14 cells, because I wanna finish this in two weeks, and let go, you can see that it will automatically increment each date.

And even if I was to go over the month of May, it would successfully know the date and keep going onward.

So, this is gonna be helpful to keep me on track, but I find it's also helpful sometimes to know the day of the week.

So, today is Tuesday, I'm gonna put in Tue, just an abbreviation of Tuesday.

And then I'm gonna do the exact same thing.

I'm gonna click and hold on this little dot here and I'm gonna drag it all the way down and release, and again, now I've got my days of the week.

Now, I'm gonna clean this up just a little bit.

I'm gonna select this cell and I'm actually going to center it, just so it's not right up against the date.

And how about, actually, I take our headers here and I'm gonna bold that, just so they stand out a little bit more.

Now, the last one is crucial.

This is the minimum page number I need to be on in order to reach my goal.

But, in order to do this, we just need to do a little bit of simple math.

I'm gonna go over about two cells and just so you can see what I'm doing, I don't usually put in the title or the name here, but I have 256 pages in the current book that I'm reading.

And, so the next one I'm gonna put down below is the pages per day.

Again, I don't usually do this, but I just wanna type this in so you know exactly what these numbers represent.

So, here's the total number of pages here.

In the cell down below, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna select the equals sign, because I'm gonna put in a very simple formula.

I'm gonna say equals, I'm gonna select the cell above, which is my total number of pages, and I'm gonna say divided by 14, right?

'Cause that's exactly two weeks.

I'm gonna hit enter and it's gonna give me this number.

18.2857 so on and so on.

Now, that's a bit of a messy number, but don't worry.

We're not gonna have decimals over here in our page minimum.

So, we're gonna go back to this page minimum column and we're gonna use this cell.

We're gonna use this number.

So, in the very first cell, on day one, I'm gonna put in another formula, a very simple one.

I'm gonna put equals and I'm just gonna reference that cell, okay?

I'm just gonna reference that cell over here and I'm gonna hit enter, so now we've got that number over here.

But, you know what?

I hate how this is gonna look, right?

We don't want all of these decimal places.

I'm not gonna read like, you know, one-third of a page, of page 19 in this case.

Let's keep it nice and clean.

So, if I select this particular column here I can go up here and you can decrease the decimal places.

So, I'm gonna do this, it's not only gonna do it for the number that I have in there, but any future number, it's gonna remove the decimals as well.

So, on day one I just need to make sure that I've read about 18 pages.

Now, the only thing I have to do next, well, there's two quick steps.

I'm gonna go down to the second cell and we're gonna type in another formula.

We're gonna say equals, and we wanna start with the 18, right?

So, I'm gonna say equals this.

I could really either reference the one above or, actually, sorry, I have to reference this one because it's gonna follow it all the way down, so I'm gonna say equals, I'm gonna select this cell and then you need to select F4 on your computer and what you wanna do, is you wanna hit it two times so you get that dollar sign in front of the cell.

That means it's gonna follow that cell all the way down, because we're gonna start adding pages on top of one another.

I'm gonna select plus because we're gonna add something to it.

And what we're gonna add is this number over here, right?

We're gonna add our 18 number over here.

I'm gonna select this, but we also wanna hit F4 again.

This time we're gonna hit it just once, where we get that double dollar sign amongst the, in front of the cell and in between the cell so that we are always adding this number, all right?

So, we've got our dollar sign C2, plus dollar F dollar three and I'm gonna hit enter.

So, it looks pretty simple, and you know, you might be saying why did you put in that complicated formula, or for those who are more advanced in Excel, it's not a very complicated formula.

This is basically just doubling that, right?

And because there's decimal places that's why it's not exactly doubled.

It's 37 instead of 36, well, this is the reason why.

Now, just like we did with the day and the date field, I wanna come here, I wanna select this little dot and I'm gonna drag it all the way down to my last day.

And look at that!

It happens to add up precisely to 256 pages.

So, now, I can print off this little guide.

I could have a digital copy as well, but I like it as a bookmark, especially when I'm reading a physical book.

Now, as I go through, and let's say I get to this coming Sunday.

I can glance at my bookmark and say, I need to read to at least page 110 in order to stay on pace, in order to stay on track to reaching my goal.

If I'm behind, maybe I'll need to read a few extra chapters or a few extra pages.

If I'm ahead, well, who cares, right?

If I finish the book early that's great.

But I find this has been a very, very useful tool to make sure that I finish a book within a particular timeframe and, in many cases, just read a book faster.

Even if there's not a due date, even if I don't have to return it to my library.

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's video and I hope that you're getting in as much reading as you would like.

I credit a lot of my expertise and really a lot of the joy in this life to reading a variety of books.

I'd love to hear your input and your feedback on today's video and any other tips that you may have in enjoying reading more frequently.

Thank you so much for watching.

I hope you give this video a thumbs up and subscribe right here to the Simpletivity Channel.

Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.

In fact, it's very simple.

You spend an awful lot of time on your phone.

Don't lie.

You probably don't go much more than 15 minutes before doing something with your mobile device.

So, doesn't it make sense that we should spend just a few minutes to optimize the arrangement of all of our apps on our home screen?

Well, in today's video, I'm gonna show you how to do just that.

I want to show you an easy, three-step method so that you can quickly and easily find the information and find the tools that you use the most.

So, let's dive in.

‍Step 1 Anchor Apps

All right.

So, here we are on the home screen of my phone.

The very first step that we want to take a look at is the bottom of our screen.

This is where you have the opportunity to anchor four, maybe five apps that will always remain visible at the bottom of your screen so that even if you swipe to another screen, to the left, to the right, those four or five apps will remain the same.

Now, when you first got your phone, they probably had a few defaults there.

Remember, you can always change those defaults.

You want to think of not only the most used apps but the ones that you want to conveniently access because most of us are accessing our apps with the thumb of the hand that we are holding the phone, and that makes it extra convenient with those apps at the bottom.

So, in my case, I've got both my phone app and my text messaging app. I've got email, maps, and a timer—a timer, which I use quite frequently. That's why I actually have it in the right corner. I'm right-handed. It's very easy for me to get to.

So, focus on what you want in that anchored area.

Step number two, let's take a look at rearranging the rest of the apps on our home screen.

Now, at first glance, you may notice that I don't have a single folder listed here at all.

Folders

The reason being is that I find that folders tend to be a very inefficient way of organizing your apps on your mobile device. It forces you to go in and out of a variety of different folders. And although it may seem to make sense to group all of your social media apps in the same folder, chances are, you use one or two of those social media apps much more frequently, much more often than everything else.

So, I think you'll be better off putting your most used apps on your home screen.

So, how have I organized my apps and how do I encourage you to do the same?

Well, starting from the bottom and working our way up, you can see that I've grouped things together in rows—or at least for the most part, they're either in rows or maybe in a squared group.

Rows

So, the first row we see here, I've got a variety of Google things, Google apps that I use frequently, Photos, Google Podcasts, and Chrome as my web browser, something that I use most frequently.

It's actually very easy to get to. It's central down low with my right thumb. So, I can easily access it.

The next row above it is sort of my notes, projects, my project management, and task list items. I've got a habit tracker, I've got Keep notes, and I've got Trello. So, I've got those three things grouped together as well.

Now when we go up to the next level, I sort of mixed a few different things together. Let's start on the right-hand side. Here you see I've got my three most frequently accessed social media apps: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Yes, I could have put them in a folder, but I want direct access to these tools. So, by grouping them together, it's very easy for me to find them on this list.

Left Hand Corner

Now on the left-hand side, I've created more of a square grouping, a two-by-two grouping.

Here you can see I've got a stretching app, I've got a timer app that I use when I am presenting, I've got Stocard, which is where I can place loyalty cards and that type of thing, and then I've got Guitar-Tuna.

Yes, I'm a musician, I'm a guitar player. So, every once in a while, I need to tune my guitar or maybe one of my children's guitars. So, I want to have access to that as well.

These four, I grouped together as functional tools. They have a purpose to them, but they're more functional. They're not related in that I would use them together or one after another, but I know exactly where to find them in that group of four.

Upper Right Hand Corner

Now continuing on to the upper right-hand corner, these are apps that I use less frequently than the ones down below. Remember that's by design because if you're using or touching your apps with your thumb most often, you want to put the most frequently used, the ones that you click on the most in the lower half.

Top Right Hand Corner

But up in the top right-hand corner, I've got both a banking app Tangerine, I've got a calculator side by side, and then I've got a few things related to weather, not just the Weather Network, but I've got my Nest thermostat, I've also got my Ring doorbell,

so some of my smart home technology. And then on the upper left-hand corner,

I've got the Play Store app.

Widgets

As you can see, I actually have space for two more apps here if I want, but I don't feel the need for that right now. The last thing that you'll see here on my home screen is that I've got a widget. That brings us to step number three. Don't forget to use widgets. If you have the capability of adding some additional functionality here, do so. You can see that I've got a calendar widget here in the bottom right-hand corner.

That's why I don't have a calendar app visible.

Using Widgets

I can click on this and go directly into my calendar app. I'm gonna jump back out here. I can scroll through my items, I can click on something in particular. For example, right now, yes, right now (laughs) I'm recording new videos. So, I can actually click on those items as well. Very, very convenient.

But I want to show you another great way to use widgets. If I scroll to my secondary screen, this is my primary home screen, this is secondary screen, I've got a few other apps, and yeah, I actually do have a couple of folders, but they are on my secondary screen. These are less frequently used apps.

You'll also notice that I have an email widget here. This is actually the Gmail widget for Android. What I love about this is that although I have my Gmail app available to me, it's anchored down below in that middle position, I find a much quicker way to browse my inbox is just a swipe.

Just a swipe over and I can glance, and then I can swipe it out of the way. I don't have to wait for the app to load. I don't have to click on anything. I find that swiping is much more efficient. I can quickly see things here.

And I can click either directly on one of those messages. I can also click on the little pencil icon and start composing a new message immediately from that screen.

Investigating Widgets

So, you might want to investigate widgets. In order to do so, at least on an Android device, you just need to click and hold on an empty space in most cases.

And then down below, you're gonna see an area called widgets. And if you click on that, depending on what types of apps you have installed, you'll have a variety of different widgets available to you.

You might want to experiment with them. You'll see here that they'll show you how many squares or how many spaces it will take up. Some of them will have a variety of widgets for you to choose from.

Summary

So, those are my three tips for optimizing your home screen.

Start with the anchored area, most likely at the bottom of your screen. Number two, when it comes to individual apps, I would encourage you to think beyond just folders but to group like-minded apps together, whether it's in rows or maybe in quadrants as in groups of fours.

And last but not least, don't forget widgets, whether it's this calendar widget as you see in this example or having a particular widget on another screen that you can quickly just swipe over and glance and then you can get back to whatever it is that you're doing.

I hope you enjoyed today's video and I'd love to hear your input on how you organize your apps on your mobile device. Be sure to leave me a comment down below. Thanks again for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

In a recent video, I asked you what would you like to see next here on the Simpletivity channel and I got an amazing response. One of those questions, one of those requests came from Zelphia, who says that they want to learn how to create a calendar task/event from info in an email. And many of you seem to agree because this received an awful lot of up votes.

So in today's video, that's exactly what we are going to tackle.

Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. Dealing with email and your calendar, often, we are switching back and forth between a number of different tabs. And we often start out by receiving an email and we'd like to convert this into a calendar event. Perhaps we want to send a meeting request or just convert some of the information here into a task. Well in today's video, I'm gonna show you how to do just that.

So let's start off with one of these emails, and these are fictitious of course, but hey, Scott, how does 3:00 pm on May 9th sound to you? I'm receiving an email from someone. They're suggesting a date or maybe I want to suggest a date, whatever the case may be. How can I quickly and easily create an event in my calendar?

Well the feature wish has been around for quite some time, but it seems to get hidden, is right up here. These three little dots. You may be more familiar with things like archive, and delete sending things to the trash, even the new snooze button, or the more recent snooze button, but all the way over here these three dots, we have some more options available to us. And one of them is to create an event.

So right from within the email, if I select create an event, what it's going to do is actually open up another tab. I'm gonna show you an alternative method, but this one is gonna open up another tab, and it's gonna do some great things for me.

As you can see, it's going to put the subject of that email here as the title of the event or the event name. And if I scroll down below, you'll see in the description, I have the email itself. Right here's the question, here's the person who sent it to me. So I have all that information at the ready.

Now this can be very helpful in some cases if the subject line or that information in the email is relevant, or in many cases, maybe you just want to scrap it and retitle it yourself, but many times I've received an email and the subject line made sense or was close enough that I could use it right here. I wouldn't have to do much editing.

But I'm gonna say, I'm just gonna call this something really simple. I'm gonna say meeting with Scott. I'm gonna change the title here.

But when it comes to the description, this can be quite helpful because at least it's a reference point for the person that you're inviting. It can be a reference point for yourself as well, in terms of why did you set up this meeting, and if there's an email thread, for example. If there's other pieces of information here.

Now by default, Gmail or Google Calendar will typically just pick the next available slot, like what's coming up in the next 30 minutes. So you will need to decide you know to change the more appropriate date, in this case, we're meeting on May ninth and we're gonna meet at three p.m. If it's an hour or if it's a half hour, you can change that here.

The other thing that you want to remember is that by default, by selecting create an event, it's going to automatically include the person or persons who sent the email. So this includes other people who may have been on the two line or in the CC line. You may have multiple people here.

So make sure to keep that in mind. If you are wanting to create a meeting with that individual, maybe it's just one of the three individuals on that email, or as I'll show you later, if you're creating a task, you'll want to take them off immediately. But it is going to come over here automatically. So that's great. That's one less thing for me to do.

I can hit save. It will prompt me do you want to send invitations? And this is I think a great prompt. I know it may be a little frustrating that you get this so frequently, but I think it's important, especially if you forgot, especially if you forgot that it added other people to this invitation, oh that's right, there's other people on that line there as yes so yes I am gonna say send.

That event is now created. Here it is on my calendar. And they will be sent an invitation as well.

But let's look at an alternative method.

So let's go back to our email here. I'm gonna go back to a different email this time. And here we've got big project with an early deadline. And this person says, let's set up a call so we can discuss this situation in more detail. Can you please send me an invite?

So we've already talked about creating an event here. We don't want to forget about the little sidebar menu here, on the right-hand side of your screen. And of course, calendar is one of those options.

So if you don't want to leave the comfort of Gmail. If you want to create an event directly without opening up a new tab, all we need to do here is click the calendar icon, and we're gonna expand this little mini menu here. And you can view this in a few different ways. You can view this in either the day view, as we're viewing now, or the scheduled view.

I don't have a whole lot here, but here's that meeting that we just created. I actually prefer the day view myself, but you can choose the default that's best for you.

So let's say I'm gonna set up another meeting on the ninth. In this case, all I have to do is select when I would like this meeting to take place. I'm gonna click right around the 11 o'clock mark. And now what it's going to do is that it's already brought in that subject line again.

We see similar behavior here. It's brought it automatically. I'm gonna leave that this time because that is maybe a little more relevant than the question that we saw in the previous example. The time is already what I want.

Remember I selected that on a previous screen. Now in this case, it doesn't bring over anything further in the description. So I'll have to add that myself. And under guests, it doesn't bring anyone else over either.

Now, again, this might actually be preferable to you depending on how you like to work. This is a little bit quicker in that it doesn't have to open up another tab, in some cases, but you can see we don't have all the same information that is brought over either.

So if I need to add another guest, then I would just need to click on that icon or click on this area and add this guest in this case. So let's do that. We've got the person there. And so now we can see that we've got both myself and that other individual.

I can do further editing if I want to open up another tab. But in this case, everything looks pretty good. I'm gonna hit save. And I'm gonna get the exact same prompt that we saw before.

And I'm gonna say yeah, let's save it, just send it over. This expanded calendar, this little mini calendar on the side will continue to stay visible, unless I hit the X, right. Unless I minimize this myself, which again you might like as you're dealing with your email and as you're adding other projects along the way.

It's a great tool to see just a quick snapshot of your day, again without having to go back and forth between tabs.

Now the two methods that I just showed you remember can also be used for tasks, because long-time subscribers of the Simpletivity channel probably know that I recommend using your calendar as a very, very effective to-do list.

So what we just did there can be replicated for tasks.

So let's take this first example again. This case, I'm gonna close the tab that we created later. If I say create an event, typically what I will do in this case, it's gonna bring over that information, and it's really this stuff down here, the description, right the body of the email that is what I want, but I'll convert it as an all-day event, is what I'll do. I'll convert it as an all-day event, and then I'll select which day I'd like to complete that task.

The one really important thing that you need to watch out for here if you are creating tasks in this way, is that remember it's gonna automatically bring those individuals over.

So I'm gonna have to remove that individual if I just want this to show up on my task list. But yes we're gonna leave that tab there. But there's another way that you can do this as well. It might be fairly obvious that I could go over here to my tasks pane, or my tasks view, and I could open it up, and I could just say add task, but let me minimize that for just a second.

Because if we go back to the little three dots, the little more options here, we also have add to tasks. So if you happen to be a Google Tasks user, you can select that option, and then what it's gonna do, it's gonna open this up once again, but let's see if I scroll down.

Here we go, here's the can we meet Thursday. So it's added it under my no dates.

Right, these are the things that are due or have been due in the past. But it's gonna bring it in here as a new task. The subject comes over, but I think the really valuable thing is that it creates a link, a direct link, to that email itself.

Right so if I go about my day, and I'm working away and I see whatever this task is and I've probably will rename it in something that's more actionable, I can always go back and click on this, and immediately here to my left, it's gonna bring up that original email.

So if I need to go back and retrieve an attachment, or find a link or something along those lines, then I can access it there as well. And remember you can always access your tasks and view your tasks within Google Calendar as well.

Thank you so much for watching today's video, and don't forget, if you'd like to see one of your questions answered, just let me know in the comments down below.

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