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Would you like to build great looking landing pages with no technical ability and do it absolutely for free? Well, in this video I'm going to show you how to build a landing page just like this with Google Sites. This video is sponsored by Pipedrive.

Pipedrive is the easy to use CRM that has one key purpose in mind to help you grow your business and get more sales. Click the link in the description below to try Pipedrive free for 30 days, plus get 20% off your first year.

Landing Pages

whether you're inviting someone to buy something from you or to opt into an email list or some other lead magnet. Landing pages are so crucial for every business, but that means we need to be able to create them in a matter of minutes, make sure that they load super fast, and hopefully do it at a reasonable price.

Well, the great thing about Google Sites is it allows us to do all three of those things. And what I mean by a reasonable price, I mean absolutely free. So here I am within my Google Sites account, and we are going to start with a blank screen.

Yes, there's a number of different templates that you could get started with, but I'm going to show you how easy it is to create a great landing page starting with a blank screen.

Landing Page Tutorial

So if we hit that little plus button here, we are going to be given a title screen. But the first thing that I want you to do is come up here over to themes. Now there's a few different themes for us to choose from.

I recommend that you start with impression because compared to some of the other themes, it's really going to make things jump out and stand out. And let's start right there with our headline.

The headline might be the most important thing as a part of your landing page. So in this example, I'm going to be promoting a webinar. So I want to give it something catchy and punchy upfront.

So my headline's going to read, "The one webinar you don't want to miss", but I don't like the layout. I don't like the text covering three different lines. Well, no problem. All we need to do is just simply drag it to a position that we prefer. 

And now that's much easier to read and remember, Google sites, of course, is responsive, so this is still going to look great even on a small mobile device such as our phone.

Now this red shade here is completely customizable, but let's come back to that in just a moment.

Next, we want to add two very important parts to any landing page. One is an image and two is a subheader, along with a brief description as to what it is we are offering or why someone should click that sign up button, that buy now button, whatever it is that you are offering.

Now, we could do this one at a time by clicking text box and images, but I think it's much easier and also much faster if we make use of content blocks. 

So I'm going to select content block, and immediately it's going to bring it below my header, below my banner image here.

So I can click on this plus button over the image. I'm going to select upload, and I'm going to select the image that I want. Now it's going to try and fit the placeholder that was already there, but no problem.

We can adjust, we can crop, we can edit this image the way that we want. In my example, all I need to do is stretch the lower part of my image just like this. And now my image is fitted perfectly.

Now on the right hand side of the screen is where I can add my sub headline along with some key bullet points. Now, after entering in the information that I want, I'm not very pleased with the size or the layout. 

Remember, it's using this theme along with its fonts and its sizing. But don't forget, everything here is customizable. So maybe this subheader, I don't want to be the title. I'm going to come down here and select subheading.

So now it's not only a lot smaller, but it seems to fit with a better subheading right here as well. I want to make it a little bit bolder though. And maybe let's bump up the size of this. Yes, that looks a lot better for my needs.

And then down below, I also want to punch up this, "You will learn", I'm going to make that a little bolder and punch that up to font size 14. So now I've got something that looks and feels a little bit cleaner.

So now we have something that seems to fit the style and the overall feel of this page. Now of course, the fourth component might be the most important on any landing page, and that is the call to action. 

Typically, we want to include that in the form of a button, which is going to take them someplace else. Or maybe you want to embed something on this screen such as the sign up to your email list.

In this case, we're going to come back up to insert, and if we scroll down, we have all of these other options and features which we can include. I'm going to select the button option, and I'm going to say, sign me up now.

And then down below, all I need to do is add the link to where people will go when clicking that button. Now, just as with other components of our landing page, we can make edits to that button as well.

If we don't want it to span the full width, we could just make it a standard button size. If we don't want it to be filled and maybe we just want it to be outlined, we can make those changes as well. 

Personally, I find that the filled option and the full option is the most impactful, but will also look the best on various screen sizes.

Now we're almost ready to preview our page and see how it will look, but there's one last component that I would encourage you to include, and that is some social proof, here down below, it looks like a great space where I could put some reviews or maybe some things that people have said on my social media accounts just to encourage them to sign up for this particular webinar.

So once again, we're going to come up to insert, but this time we are going to select images and I'm going to select upload. And I'm going to go and grab this piece of social proof. And for this tutorial, I'm simply going to duplicate it two more times and then I'm going to drag it over here.

Of course, you wouldn't put the same testimonial three straight times. This is just a placeholder for today's demo. 

Now the last thing that you may want to do is either change the color of this page and also enter the name of your business or your website. Sometimes it can be very comforting to let people know that they've landed on something that is specific to your business or your brand.

So up here in the corner, maybe I'm going to type in something like Simple Solutions, or alternatively, I could also add a logo. And then if we're not wild about this red color here, we can go back to our themes.

And here in the lower right hand corner, we can choose one of the default colors below. See how that changes the look and feel of the screen. Or we can come here and enter in our custom hex code.

And don't forget, other elements here are editable as well. If you want to change the image here for the header, you could upload your own or simply give it a solid color. 

But when you're ready to preview, all you need to do is come up here to the top of the screen, select this little laptop mobile icon, and it will give you a full preview of what your landing page will look at, including the button that we've created down below.

And if you want to see what it will look like on a mobile device, you can preview it here as well. When you're all done and ready to publish, come up here and select that publish button.

The only thing left to do is to add a web address. So in this case, I'm going to save seven free web apps, and it looks like that is available.

I'm going to select Publish, and now I can go ahead and share this link with whomever I want, put it wherever I want, link it to wherever I want, and they will come to my custom landing page.

So the next time you want to create a great looking landing page and do it for free, make sure to do it right here within Google Sites. 

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.

Linktree is the easy and free way to create a micro page. So, you can share all of your most important links, whether that's your website, a checkout page, or maybe a link to book a call with you, you can do it all with Linktree.

So, in this video, I'm going to show you a complete tutorial on how to get started and set up your Linktree page, so you can get more clicks and get people to where you want them to go. 

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Choose a username

So, to get started with Linktree, all we need to do is select sign up for free.

And the great thing is, is that we can get so much out of Linktree without having to upgrade, or use their paid service.

But we'll go over some of those differences a little later.

So, I'm going to choose to sign up with my Google account. You can choose to do so, or you can just use an email and password if you like. Now, the very first thing that you're going to need to decide is maybe also one of the most important, and that is choosing a username.

This is going to be the end of your Linktree link. 

This is what others are both going to see and click on, whether you put this in an email, in your social media bio, if you put it really anywhere online, maybe send it via text message. So, you want to be careful in selecting a username.

Now, of course, it has to be unique. So maybe I want linktree/simple, that is already taken. Maybe I would like simple Scott.

The good news is that that is available. So, that's what I'm going to use for my example. But take your time here and select something that is rather short, the shorter the better.

If you can use your actual business name, or the handle that you use somewhere else, all the better, but take your time with this first step.  We are going to select continue at this stage.

Choose a plan

And now Linktree wants to know a little bit about ourselves just so they can personalize the experience. So, let's go ahead and we're going to tell them our name. And since I'm using a business example here, I'm going to say that the company name is Simple Solutions.

I'm going to select continue, and I'm using it for business purposes. You don't have to make as many selections here. In fact, I'm going to leave everything else down below here as optional and hit continue.

We can always change these settings and customize it for our needs later. 

Now, next up, Linktree is going to ask you which plan you would like to subscribe to. By default, they are going to select the pro plan. But when you're just getting started, I recommend that you start with the free plan.

In fact, for many of you, the free plan may be all that you need because you can add as many links, and linked apps within a free account. Yes, you won't be able to see the analytical data as you would in other paid plans, but for many of you, that may not be necessary.

So, let's continue with that free option. I'm going to come down here and say, join for free.

Style your page

Next up, Linktree is going to ask us how we want to stylize our page. And this is very important so we can match our own branding, or give something that looks a little unique.

When someone lands on our Linktree page, we want it to look inviting. We also want it to match our logo, for example, or maybe our profile picture, so they know it is one of our links and that they can proceed with clicking on one of the options down below.

So, they give us a few defaults here which are really not worth your time. So, immediately I would encourage you to select to add a profile image. I'm going to upload my logo, so that it's front and center that they can see it here when they land on this screen. 

If you don't have a logo, or if you are using this for personal use, you may want to upload your headshot, preferably something that people are used to seeing in other places.

So, if you are putting this within your X bio or LinkedIn bio, Instagram bio, for example, when they come here, you want to give them the confidence that they know it's the same person, or the same business, or organization.

Now, down below, we have the choice of choosing a different background theme.

And there's a few different combinations here if you like more of a darker background,a lighter background, this one might work well for me because blue is my color.

So maybe I'm going to select this one, but don't worry, all of this is editable a little later on.

Linktree interface

Now, after we are happy with the style that we've selected, we are brought into the Linktree interface.

So, this is where we have a few different menus here at the top, including links, probably the most important, appearance, where we can go back and change some of the settings that we just set, analytics, which for the most part are only going to be available to those on the paid version. We have limited analytics here within the free account and some other settings as well.

Now, just before we jump to the links, we may want to start with some of our social media icons, because one of the main purposes of using Linktree links is, so that you can showcase other options, other pages, other places in which people can connect with you online. 

So, what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to go ahead and add a few different icons. Maybe for example, I want to add my Instagram link. 

So, all I need to do in this case is just add my Instagram handle.

I don't actually have to go ahead and copy and paste that link. I'm just going to say, add to Linktree. So, here I've got that icon and you can see here on the right-hand side, we have a preview of what it will look like.

So, if people click on that Instagram icon, they will be taken directly to my Instagram page. Let's go ahead and add one more icon. And in this case, maybe I want to add my email address if I want them to reach out to me directly. 

So, all I need to do here is type in my email address. I'm going to use this fake address in this particular example, and once again here you can see I have this email icon, which will be displayed here.

Now once we start adding links we may want to decide if we want these icons near the top of the screen, or if we want to push them down to the bottom. And you have that option here in terms of the position.

It doesn't look like it's at the bottom, but what it means is that our links are going to be displayed here in between our Linktree address, or our Linktree handle and the icons that we add here.

Adding links

So, with that, let's get to the meat and potatoes of Linktree, and is adding our links. Now, you'll see that Linktree tries to help us out by giving us a bit of a checklist. The first step here is to add three links.

Now, technically you don't have to add three links, but if you're adding less than three links, Linktree is perhaps not the service meant for you.

The whole purpose of Linktree is for you to share a single link, something that is short and clean, again, in a variety of different places, and then give them the ability to access other things.

Four, five, could be as many as 10 different links on that screen, things that might be more relevant to them. 

So here, all we need to do is select add a link and we can really choose anything that we want. Now, the easiest way to do this is to simply copy and paste the URL of any of the pages that you would like to add.

So, to get started, I'm going to begin with my website.

So, all I need to do is paste or enter in my website address and select add. And it's going to add that link here on the right-hand side. Now, it's automatically pulled over some information, including the tagline to my website.

And in this case, that's not what I want to see. Number one, it doesn't look like it's a website and it's not really enticing people to go and click on this. No worries, we can change and edit that here on the left-hand side. 

So instead of having this tagline, maybe I'm going to put something as simple as website. They're already on my Simple Scott, or my Simpletivity Linktree page. So, I don't need to say simpletivity.com.

I can be a lot more direct and say, this is the website. Or I could say something like, click here to learn more. Whatever I want to say, I can add that here and it will appear within my Linktree page.

Now, you'll notice that there's a number of different options that we have down below here, including the ability to toggle this on or off. But let's go ahead and add two more links, so that we have a few more to play with, and then I'll show you how you can optimize these other options.

So, I'm going to add another link here. I'm going to go and copy and paste my YouTube channel in this case, and I'm going to select add, and let's add a third one here. 

Maybe I want to invite people to subscribe to my newsletter. So, you'll see now that we still want to go back in and edit some of these.

YouTube.com doesn't sound very enticing, so I'm going to come here and edit this, and maybe I'm going to use the proper capitalization, and say YouTube channel, so they know exactly what they're getting at.

Now with my last entry here to subscribe to the newsletter, you'll see that it pulled in part of an image from that landing page. If I actually go to the landing page, it has tried to pull over this image, but because it's so rectangular, we're only seeing a small portion of it.

So again, not very inviting, not very pleasing, but the good news is, is that we can edit or add additional icons to make these buttons stand out that much more, make them that much more inviting for people to click on. 

So, what I'm going to do in this case is I'm going to come up to this subscribe to newsletter, and I'm going to select the thumbnail option here, and I'm going to say change. Now, we have two choices here.

We can either go to our computer and upload our own thumbnail, or we can drag something in from maybe one of our other social media profiles, or we can choose an icon which has already been created here.

This is called choose from tabular icon. So, we can choose from a library. So, in this case, since it's a newsletter and it's a productivity newsletter, I'm going to see if they've got something related to a check mark and they do.

I'm going to go with this circular one here. So, now I've got a nice clean circle check mark beside it here. Next down for the YouTube channel. 

Once again, I'm going to say set that thumbnail and I could upload my own here if I wanted to. But once again, let's see what they have for YouTube. They do have a YouTube one, so I can continue with that nice clean theme.

And lastly, let's do the same here for our website. I'm going to select change and let's see what do they have for something like a website? Well, I guess this is very close to a website.

I don't know if it's the most enticing, but at least it is directly associated with where they are going, or what they will expect to see. So, you can really customize both the labels, and the images for each and every one of your links.

Now, two other things we want to keep in mind as we continue to add and edit our links here within our Linktree page. Number one, pay attention to how you want to order your links. Here on the left-hand side, we can simply click and drag, so we can reorder our links here. 

Maybe I want them to go to my YouTube channel first and the website is not as important, but you'll also notice here on the right-hand side, we have the option to toggle links on or off.

So, you might want to go ahead and add a large number of links, everything related to your website, all of your social media platforms, your email address, your lead magnets, your shopping carts, your booking pages, just have it all ready to go.

But then you can choose to toggle things on or off. So, maybe if I don't want them to come to my YouTube channel since most of them are finding me there, I can simply toggle it off. It will be removed from my Linktree page, but I haven't lost any of my setup.

I haven't lost the URL or the image that I chose. Later on, if I want to enable it, I simply need to come back in here, select that toggle, and now it is back and will appear on my screen.

Adding a header

Now, just before I go and start sharing this link with others, I want to pay your attention to something that is almost hidden here, and that is the ability to add a header.

So, by default, people are going to see your selected profile image, your name, remember, this is the name of your link, so in my case, it is Simple Scott, and then your links down below, in addition to any other icons that you may choose to add.

But sometimes it can be helpful to add a short bio, or a short description at the beginning of your Linktree page. And to do that, we want to select add a header. So, here we have the option to add a headline tag, or title.

Now you are limited to only 35 characters, so you need to be able to make this very, very short. I might say something like, get more done and enjoy less stress. 

So, they know again, that it's something similar, it's something that falls in line with the rest of my branding. Or you could change it to something like, click below for more info, or get your free resources below.

And you can have a link to the different lead magnets or the different free guides that you may offer. So, this header section can be very valuable. Even though you're limited to just a few characters, it can tell them just a little bit more about their expectations, or what you want them to do next.

Now that we've set up our style, we've added some links and added a brief description, you're ready to start sharing this with others. And all I need to do is select copy URL and I can paste it where I like. 

Now here on the desktop, this is what users will see when they click this link.

They have access to the three links in addition to the icons that I have listed down below. Now, of course, Linktree is really maximized for mobile use because we want to share a lot of valuable information in a relatively small amount of real estate.

So, this is going to look even better, be that much more helpful for users who click on this on your Instagram profile, on your X-bio, on your LinkedIn description, really wherever you include that link. But now they are just one click away from a resource, or a page that you want to send them to. 

So, now that you know how to get started with Linktree, I would love to hear from you next. What other questions do you have, and where do you plan to include your Linktree link? 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.

Every single month, I need to create the exact same meeting. But we never meet on the exact same date. It's going to have the same title, the same meeting location, the same description and details, and even the same guests here.

So how can I make this easier on myself? Well, what if I just use a simple keyboard shortcut like this? And in just one second, absolutely everything is filled in the way that I want: the name, the location, the details, including important links, and everyone that I want to add to this meeting.

So how did I do this and how can you do this in so many other applications? Let me show you how.

For years, I've been recommending that you make use of text expansion tools so that you can not only save a whole lot of time but you can also cut down on errors and mistakes.

So for example, if I ever need to include my meeting details, all I need to do is hit two keys on my keyboard and I can insert my Zoom meeting wherever I want. Maybe there is a standard reply that I use for my consulting clients.

Oh, no problem here. If I even want to address them by their proper name, I can insert that into an email, into a form, or really anywhere that I want on the web.

Now, in today's example, I am using Text Blaze, a free browser extension which allows you to create snippets so you can quickly and easily input the information that you want and then create your own custom shortcut key.

So let's return to my initial example where I had so many different things going on and filled in in just a split second, all with the use of a keyboard snippet. So let me show you exactly what is going on and how you can build the same thing. 

So to get started in my example, all I need to do is open up a new blank calendar event.

This is so we can tell Text Blaze exactly where we want to put certain pieces of information. I'm going to go back to my Text Blaze dashboard and I'm going to come up here and select create a new snippet.

And at the bottom of my list here, you can see that that new snippet is displayed. Now, the nice thing is that Text Blaze does allow us to organize our snippets into multiple folders so we don't necessarily have to have just a long list here.

Now, our first step is to give that snippet a name. And in this case, I'm going to call this one a calendar event. Now, the label just describes your snippet and is really only for your purposes.

The more important thing you want to think about is what is the shortcut key going to be? Now, you can really create any combination of characters or letters. But in my case, I've decided to use a forward slash in front of all of my snippets.

Now that we have a label and a shortcut, next we just need to tell it what we want it to do. 

Now, in this case, if we go back to our calendar, when we first open up an event, the cursor is already going to be placed here. So the very first thing I need to do is give it a meeting name. So I'm going to call this one Meeting with Tim.

Let's say that Tim and I need to meet once a month but not on the exact same date or week of the month. So that's going to be the name that I give the event. Next, I want to come over here to the right-hand side and tell it where to put the cursor next.

And for that we're going to be using the click element. Now, Text Blaze has a number of different elements that we can choose from here, including adding advanced calculations, inserting tables, and even simulating keyboard presses, which we're going to get to in a moment.

So here I'm going to select click element, and you can see that it has added it here within my snippet. With the click element inserted into my snippet, I'm going to select from website, and it's going to instruct me to open up the other tab, or a new tab if I'm starting from scratch, and tell it where I want it to click. 

So going back to my Google Calendar, you will notice two things.

Number one, you will notice that wherever I place my cursor, you are going to see a highlight of yellow. This is so we can zero in exactly where we want that cursor to go next.

The second thing you will notice is that we are given a bit of an instruction here at the bottom of the screen, telling us to select that particular target. So I'm going to come up here to location, I'm going to select it, and here I can confirm by saying insert it into the snippet.

Now, don't worry if you've selected wrong or incorrectly. You can continue to select a different space on the screen. But let's go back and select that location and say insert into snippet. Now, it has taken that piece of information.

That's where the cursor will go next. So in terms of a location, I'm going to say that this is a phone call and maybe I want to include my phone number so that they have it at the ready. 

Next up we're going to come back to our click element. I'm going to say select from website. Let's go back. And this time, let's go to our description. And I'm going to say insert into snippet.

And here is where we can include our meeting details. In my example, maybe I want to remind them to review the budget numbers before this call. Next up, we're going to return to that click element. Yes, you get the picture.

Select from website. We're going to come back here and I'm going to move over to the Guests area and say insert into snippet. And here I can add as many different email addresses as I like. For our example, I'm just going to insert the one.

And this time I'm going to actually add a simulated keyboard press because as you may know, when you start to enter in email addresses here, you do need to hit enter on your keyboard in order to actually add them to the invitation.

So coming back to Text Blaze after entering in my email addresses, and I could separate these with commas if I wanted to add more, I'm going to say key press. So I'm going to select select the Enter key. And now it's going to simulate selecting Enter on my keyboard. 

Now, best of all, when using Text Blaze, we don't have to wait to finish our entire snippet here before we can go and test it out. So let's return to our calendar event. Let's place the cursor at the top where it would be anyhow when we first open up this event.

And I'm going to select forward slash C-R snippet trigger. And here in just a split second, it's added everything that we've wanted exactly where needed: the name, the location, along with the phone number.

We have the description. And yes, Jane has been added as well. But why don't we just add a few more details so we can make this even faster? For example, we can tell Text Blaze to hit the save button once we've added these details here.

And as you may know, if you're a Google Calendar user, we are going to be prompted to send out invitations to those users. Well, we can add that functionality to our snippet as well. Going back to Text Blaze after the Enter key, let's come back to the click element.

And this time we're going to come up here and select that save button. We're going to say insert into snippet. Perfect. 

So now that I've proceeded with hitting the save button, here is the prompt. And we also want to tell Text Blaze to select send at this point. So I'm going to come over here. And once again, we're going to select the click element, select from website.

And this time we are going to select that send button. I'm going to select insert to snippet. And now I think we are done. So let's return to our Google Calendar main page. I'm going to select the time where I want this meeting to happen.

All I need to do is select forward slash C on my keyboard. And now I'm instantly returned back to my calendar with that event created and with all of the details that we wanted.

So think of the number of places, the number of forms, the number of things that you do on a regular basis where this could not only save you so much time but will ensure that you get the correct details.

Next, let's take a look at an example where we are wanting to collect information from a certain website because rather than just inserting the same information within a form, this time we are going to be pulling or scraping information from a particular website. 

In this example, I'm wanting to create a list of different softwares, along with their G2 scores, how many reviewers gave that score, and what is the top industry within those areas. Now, all of this information is going to be coming from the G2 website.

And this would take an awful lot of time for me to do manually, to come into each and every product, to scroll down, to copy and paste the name or type it in manually.

I would have to hover over this just to get the specific score and then I'd have to scroll down and find out what the top industry is represented here. Well, what if I could just come back to my spreadsheet and just enter in forward slash G2 and I've got all of that information inserted in just a second.

What if I came back to G2 and say that I wanted to, oh, I don't know, maybe get the same information from Asana.

As soon as I have Asana pulled up, I'm going to use the exact same snippet and now I've got that information input as well. So let's return to our Text Blaze account. And let me show you how to set up this type of snippet. 

Now, remember, we are not actually doing anything in particular with Google Sheets. In fact, we could use this snippet within any other application. What we are doing is telling it where to pull that information from.

So here we're going to be using the insert website information element. By selecting this, I'm going to come down. And we have a number of different options to choose from. But in our example, we're going to say website contents text.

I'm going to select that and we are presented with a very familiar select from website button, where we now go to that particular website. And just like we saw before, you will see that highlight of yellow.

Well, first things first, I want the name of the product. So I'm going to select that and say insert into snippet. Because I intend to put this into a spreadsheet, I want to use the key press element next and select the Tab key.

Remember, that's going to push the cell over to the right so we are ready to insert that next piece of information. Back in Text Blaze, what we are going to do is again select website and then website contents text. And we are returned to our screen. 

This time I'm going to scroll down a bit further and I'm going to select the 4.3 and then insert to snippet. Once again, we'll want to simulate a Tab key so it pushes it over into the next field. And next I'm going to select insert website.

And for this I'm going to return to the top of the screen and I'm going to select this review option here and select insert into snippet. We will hit that simulated Tab key press once again.

And then the last one we are going to choose from, website contents text, we will be returned to our tab. And here I want to select that top industry. So I'm going to select this area here and then insert into snippet.

And now we should be ready to go. So now if I return to my spreadsheet, all I need to do is select forward slash S and that information is automatically put into my spreadsheet. And don't forget, when you're here within your Text Blaze editor, you can click and drag these elements around as well.

So if you do put things in an incorrect order or perhaps you need to add an extra click element or a simulated key press, you can always do so without starting from scratch.

So now that you've seen the amazing ways in which Text Blaze can save you time, what kind of snippets will you create next? Be sure to let me know and share with others in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Oh no! I'm running late for this meeting and I really want to let the other five participants know that I'm going to arrive late.

But what do I do? Do I pick up my phone and try to send off a text or an email? Do I open up my email client here on my browser? Do I click on the event, hit this email tab and I'm still going to have to write out a message?

What if I could do all of this with just a single click? Well, I've discovered a faster way to do this and so many other tasks with a free extension. For example, all I need to do is select alt+B on my computer and I'm going to select hit Send.

This is going to send a message to the participants of my next meeting, letting them know that I'm running a few minutes late. So what is this cool free extension and how do you use it to save time? Let me show you.

So in my first example, I used a shortcut key on my keyboard to bring up this dialogue. This is Bardeen, a free browser extension which you can use to connect a number of different applications, but more importantly, execute very specific actions.

And no, you don't have to create your own from scratch. It comes with an extensive library of pre-built actions with some of your favorite tools whether it is Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, maybe it's a project management tool like ClickUp, Asana or Trello.

And of course, things like ChatGPT is built right in. So here within my Bardeen dialogue, I have a number of different playbooks which I have created or saved to my account. Now, a playbook within Bardeen is something that you initiate.

So as you saw in my example, I hit send to send an email to all the participants of the next meeting about running late. That's right. You saw that. I didn't even have to select the specific meeting.

It was just going to automatically look at the next upcoming meeting and send an automated message. These are things that I am going to trigger on my own but Bardeen also has autobooks where you can set up schedules if you want certain things to execute on a recurring basis or a recurring time.

So for example, here I have an auto book, which is going to text message me all of my week's meetings on Monday morning, giving me a summary of all of those meetings in advance. And of course, I can edit this to my liking.

Maybe I'd like to receive this every morning. Maybe I'd like to receive it on Sunday. Maybe I only want to receive the next three days meetings. Whatever I like, I can set it up here.

But before we dive into the details, let's take a closer look at some of our options here within Bardeen. Now, one of the easiest ways to access Bardeen is by selecting alt+B on your keyboard, an easy keyboard shortcut which will bring up your dialogue.

But of course you can also click on it here within your extensions, within your browser. And if you don't like this compact view, no problem. We can expand things out so we can see things in more detail.

At the top of the screen, there are three main sections: playbooks, autobooks and the last one is a scraper. Now, if you're not familiar with that term, scraping means when we are taking information from a particular website.

So if you're wanting to collect the contact details or the work history of a number of LinkedIn profiles for example, and then put that into a spreadsheet, this would be an example of how you could use that tool.

You can also use scraping functionality within our autobooks and our playbooks as well. But let's get started with the basics with our playbooks.

Now, while I've already created a number of playbooks here, you're probably going to want to get started with the explore button where they've categorized a number of different actions based on theme such as product development, personal productivity, or meetings or it has also broken it down by various apps.

And here's a little bit of Bardeen magic. If you don't see what you are looking for, don't waste your time browsing through the library. You can just come up here and tell Bardeen exactly what you're looking for and it will build it for you.

So in this example, I'm going to say create a Zoom link for my next calendar event and then add it to the description. So that's fairly detailed. It doesn't have something in the library. I'm going to let the Bardeen AI assistant build it for me.

It's going to analyze what I just wrote and then look at this. It has created this playbook just for me.

That's right. Building your own custom automation can be as simple as texting a friend, but you know what's even better is that Bardeen is smart enough to give you suggestions based on the website or the application that you're currently in.

Here I am within a Google sheet, and if I pull up Bardeen and go to the explore tab, you can see that it's going to give me a number of suggestions specific to Google Sheets.

Maybe I want to get a list of competitors and summaries and SEO keywords from a list of URLs in Google Sheets. And remember, while these are all prebuilt options you can edit any of them or if you choose, you can start from scratch.

So regardless of the different or multiple applications that you have involved and the types of actions that you want to perform, you'll be able to do so right here within Bardeen.

Let's take a quick look at one that I modified not too long ago so I can get valuable feedback from my YouTube videos. So let me set the scene. Here, I am looking at one of my YouTube videos and I noticed that there's 87 comments.

That's an awful lot of comments to go through and there's probably been a lot of new comments added since I published this video two months ago. Well, to make my life that much easier I'm going to use this particular action, this particular playbook, so I can get a summary of all of those comments and see are they negative, are they positive, are they neutral and what other valuable data can I get from this video.

So I'm going to select this and immediately it's going to crawl or scrape through all of those comments on this screen. Now again, you can adjust this to your liking. In this case, I've told it to limit it to just the last 50 comments but I could choose a much larger number if I want to.

This would probably take me roughly 20, maybe 30 minutes for me to go through every single comment, read it and decide what is best. But here it has only taken less than 30 seconds. And now I have a spreadsheet with all of this information, including the sentiment.

So if I sort this from A to Z, I can see that there's a couple of mixed comments. There's a large number of neutral comments and there are quite a few positive comments as well.

And I'm quite pleased that it has not identified any specific negative comments but there's other valuable pieces of information here too. So for example, which of these comments received the most likes? Well, I can sort from that.

I can see when exactly it was published. I can do so much more here. And it took me only a few seconds to pull that information and put it into a Google sheet. So think about other things that you need to accomplish as a part of your work or as a part of your business.

What currently takes you 5, 10, 20 minutes to accomplish that you could set up in Bardeen and accomplish in only a few seconds? Now, I know you may be thinking that editing and action or creating your own maybe difficult but Bardeen keeps it very, very visual so you can understand completely what is going on.

Going back to our first example here, I'm going to say open in builder, and we can visually see what is happening when it's sent that reminder. The first step was to find the next event, then find the email addresses of those participants and then send that email.

And remember, everything here is editable. So if I come here and select the subject, I can change that subject, I can add and copy other people on that email. I can edit this to my heart's content.

And if after sending the email I want to add another action, all I need to do is hit this plus button here so you can tweak or adjust your playbooks or your autobooks as much as you like.

So if you'd like to start adding simple automation that will save you a whole lot of time, be sure to install the Bardeen extension. To do so, just go to Bardeen.ai or click the link in the description down below.

And if you have some favorite automation tips that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

When you look at the very top of your web browser, does it often look a little like this, a mess of different tabs, which can often be confusing and waste a lot of your time as you're trying to find that website or that application that you need right now?

Well, what if instead, you could simply drag your cursor to the left of the screen and have access to all of your favorite productivity apps, including access to all of those tabs, but in a much easier manner? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you a free Chrome extension that does all of this and so much more.

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

And it's a fact that most of us spend much of our day here within our browser, going between apps and websites and other tools that we need to get things done but we can often waste an awful lot of time by trying to find that particular tab or that particular app that we are looking for.

Instead, wouldn't it be easier.if we just had one-click access to everything that we need here on the left-hand side? Well, with the Manganum Chrome extension, we can do just that.

Not only can we access all of our open tabs, our recently closed tabs, and our full history, but we can create a custom space just for us so we can have our most-visited tabs, our favorites, and, yes, our bookmarks, so if we'd like to gain even more viewing room, we could get rid of the bookmarks bar here and access them here on the left-hand side, but it's so much more than just a tab or bookmark manager.

We also have direct access to our calendar, our tasks, our notes, and even our text messages. So let's take a look at these features and see how they can help you to be more productive. Now, if you're already a Google Workspace user, you're probably familiar with the Google side panel.

So here when I'm within my Gmail account, I can also access my calendar on the right-hand side. I can also access things like my notes and my tasks. But you know what? I only spend a small portion of my day within Gmail or within a Google app.

I'm spending so much more time in other tools that help me get things done, and I don't have that side panel available. But with the Mangano extension, we always have access to our calendar, our notes, and our tasks here on the left-hand side, so I can see, at a glance, what is coming up in my day.

I can also choose to be notified when a meeting is upcoming. So for example, here you can see there's a little one-hour indicator, meaning that my next meeting is happening in about an hour, giving me a subtle hint that perhaps I need to prepare and make sure that I don't miss that call.

But you're probably saying, "What if I want access "to all of these things at all times, "and I don't want to just reveal it "by dragging my mouse to the left-hand side?" Well, good news because with Manganum, we can do just that.

Here in the top right-hand corner of our Chrome browser, we can choose to show the side panel, and now we have access to all of Manganum's features at the click of a button, and no, they won't go away when we switch tabs or if we're doing something on the active screen.

Here, I have access to all of my Google tasks, so no matter what I'm doing on the active screen, I can check things off here on the right-hand side, or in the moment, I can quickly add a task as well, all without never having to leave the page that I'm on.

And perhaps I'm referencing something here as I'm adding that task. But what if you don't use Google Tasks and you use another popular app such as Todoist or TickTick? Well, good news, if we come up here to the dropdown, you can see that you can integrate Manganum with both of those apps as well.

So regardless of your to-do list preference, you can have access to all of those tasks here on the right-hand side. Next up, we have access to Google Keep, which, again, is great because I'm usually taking my notes  outside of a Google application.

Not only can I reference all of my existing notes, but at the top of the screen, I can easily take a new note and copy and paste and bring in data from the screen at hand.

But one of the newest additions to the Manganum extension also might be one of the most helpful, especially if you're a Google Drive user.

Here I am within my Google Drive account, and yes, I have access to some other apps on the side panel, but what I always find frustrating with Google Drive is if I come here and want to open up this file, it's going to open it up in a new tab, and then I have to go back to the original tab, and I'm going to open up this file.

Okay, now I've got two drive files open, but I also have the drive screen open as well. Before I know it, I have seven new tabs available to me, and I'm not interested in many of them.

But here within Manganum, if we click on the Drive tab, not only do I have the ability to search for any of my Drive files, but when I click on one of these files, it opens it up in the exact same tab so I can quickly go between these different files

without adding any new tabs, without adding any extra baggage to my browser.

I can go back and forth between the files that I need to or I can view my file structure here from the side panel as well. Now, at this point, some of you might be saying,

"Scott, aren't there other browsers "that have much of this same functionality,

"including the ability to quickly access other apps "and have a side panel, "and it's built right into those browsers?" And the answer is, yes, you're correct. In fact, a browser like Vivaldi would be a good example of a tool that does include many of these features.

However, if you're already happy with Google Chrome, you already have all of your extensions set up, and you have your bookmarks listed in the way that you like.

In addition, you're using Chrome across multiple devices, including your phone and tablet, and perhaps others, do you really want to switch to a brand new browser across multiple devices and have to relearn its functionality when you can add a few new superpowers by installing a free extension? Of course, the answer is going to be different for everyone, and you'll have to answer that for yourself.

But if you're already happy with Chrome, if you already have it set up across your devices,

adding this free extension is going to cause the least disruption to your workflow

and to your productivity. So if you'd like quicker access to all of your tabs, websites, and favorite productivity tools, install the Manganum extension for free at manganum.app, or click the link in the description down below. And if you have any questions about this app or other extensions, be sure to let me know down in the comments.

Thank you so much for watching this video, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Are you really impressing anyone by sending them a slide deck or a PDF? What if instead you could send them a page like this? Not only does it look a lot more professional and like a website, but it has a handy navigation menu so they can quickly jump to certain areas that you'd like them to focus on.

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to set this up without having to create a website.   

How to Impress your Clients

So in order to make this happen, I'm using a tool called Walling. And best of all, it's not only free,but you don't need any coding experience or knowledge of HTML. Walling allows us to drag and drop or copy and paste virtually anything that we want, including images, including embedding videos.

We can even have complete timelines, like in this example, where I am creating an event page and embed maps and other elements. We can even include buttons.

So this could become a landing page if you wanted to or you could simply just be sharing your work. And when I'm ready to publish, all I need to do is come up to the top, hit Publish, and I can copy this link.

Now, when I send it to anyone on the web, they don't need a password. They don't need a login. They can come to this event page and see everything I've put together. And yes, they can interact with the elements on the screen.

They can go and click this button and jump to my registration page. They can see our sponsors,

but they can also quickly and easily navigate the entire screen, the entire page here on the left-hand side.

And you know as well as I that when you share something with someone else, typically via email, we are opening those links on email. Well, best of all, it is dynamic. So as the screen changes, whether they're viewing it on a tablet,

whether they're viewing it on their phone, everything here is responsive. So no matter what you design here, it's going to look great to that end user.

Creating your own Wall

So let's jump back into Walling and get started with creating a new wall of our own.

On the left-hand side here, I'm going to select New Wall.

And we can either start with a blank space or we can start with a number of many templates. So these can be a great place to get started whether you want to share a project plan, you want to share meeting notes and invoice, number of different reasons and great examples

that can get us started in just a matter of seconds. But for our example, we're going to start with a blank wall just to show you how easy it is to get started. So perhaps in this case, I want to send a project proposal. So I'm going to give it a simple title here.

Now, Walling divides its screen into sections. So after our title, let's get started with a bit of a heading section here. I'm going to Select Template, and I've got a number

of different layouts to choose from. I think I'm going to start with this one here, this sort of Heading template. Now, just so we can see how things look, it's always going to input some sample text here, but we can easily copy and paste and revise this as we go.

And if I come over here and want to choose an image, I can quickly search for something from Unsplash. So I don't even have to upload or prepare my images in advance. In this case, let's say, I am designing a workshop for this company.

So I'm going to select this image here. And of course, I can come and copy and paste information either directly from my website or some other document into this space below. Don't forget that everything you see here is customizable.

If I want to make this heading stand out a little bit more, maybe I'm going to come down here and choose a different color such as this blue just so it stands out that much more.

Next, I want to jump into the three options

Adding new sections

which I'm going to give them. So I'm going to come down here and select New Section. And once again, I'm going to select template. Now, one of these first two are going to be ideal. Since I already have some images here on the front of the screen,

I'm going to select this one here and I'm going to give them options one, options two, and options three. But in order to make them a little more distinct, let's go ahead and change their colors as well. So all I need to do is right-click on them. I'm going to give this one sort of a green shade. I'm going to give this one more of a yellowish shade.

And over here, let's choose this shade as well just so they can really zero in on the differences between those options. But of course, whenever you're sharing information with someone, you typically want them to take action. And that's another great thing about Walling is that we can actually add clickable buttons if we need to.

Here under Option 1, I'm going to select Insert. And here's just a sample of the number of things which we can insert within our wall. I'm going to select Button in this case.

First, let's change the button text. I'm going to say Select for the button.

And then down below, all we need to do is paste in where we want them to go. So do we have a registration page? Do we have a sales page? Do we want them to book some time with us? Whatever that next step is, you can paste it in here as a part of that clickable button.

Now, here, I can see that that button is transparent so it's not really going to stand out. So let's go ahead and edit this button and let's give it a different shade,

something that will stand out across all three of these colors. So I'm going to select that one here. If I want, I could just go and duplicate this button two more times.

And then at this stage, I can simply click and drag these buttons to where I want them to go. So yes, I want that button to go over here and I'm going to put this at the bottom of Option 3.

The only additional step I'll need to do is to change the link, making sure that they are going to the appropriate place. But already in just a few minutes, we've got something that is much more colorful, much more engaging than a PowerPoint, a PDF, or some other static document which you have to attach to an email.

Now, we've got something living, breathing, and something that is a lot more inspiring

Sharing project progress

to share with our clients. Lastly, let's create another section which is really going to wow our clients by adding something which is a little more dynamic.

Now, in this case, I want to show the progress of this plan and where we are going because this can serve a dual purpose, not only an opportunity to sell or to communicate, but this could also be a place where I update the status of this project.

So here within my template, I'm going to select tasks board which is going to give me a very simple Kanban style board. Of course, I can edit any element here. I'm going to start by giving it a section title called What's Going On so they can always stay up-to-date.

And then here, I can give as many or as little details as I want. So maybe we need to find a workshop site.

That's something that we need to be doing. Maybe we need to interview the customers who are a part of this workshop, but there are some things we're already engaged in such as reviewing the initial survey, something like that.

And maybe we've already completed something at this stage as well such as selecting the date, something along those lines. Now remember, I can come back in here and edit this and update this as often as I choose.

But when I'm ready to share, all I need to do is come up to the top and select Publish. Here, I am given my unique link. I'm going to say copy that link. Now, when I share this link with others, this is exactly what they will see.

It's colorful, it's beautiful, it's easy to navigate. And they can also use the navigation screen hereon the left-hand side. So if you'd like to share your work with your clients or others in a matter of seconds and wow them without sending a PowerPoint, be sure to check out Walling.

To learn more and to sign up for free, go to Walling.app. And if you have any other questions, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

- [Scott] Would you like to make it easier for people to book time with you and to not have to spend extra money on a separate calendar scheduling tool? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up and use Google Calendar's free appointment schedule feature.

(machine rasps) (air whooshes) To get started with creating a number of slots

Creating an Appointment Schedule

in which people can book you, all we need to do is click on Google Calendar. Now, although we could add a title right off the bat, I'm going to come down here and select Set Up The Schedule, and on the left-hand side of our screen, we are going to be given all of the options that we need.

Now, when it comes to adding a title, you want to remember that this is what others will be seeing on their calendar as well. So, in this example, I'm going to call this a one-on-one with Scott so they know exactly who they're meeting with and what type of meeting it going to be.

Next up, we need to decide what is the appointment duration. So, for example, is this going to be a 30-minute meeting, a full hour, or some other custom length? In this case, I am going to leave it at one hour. And then we have our general availability section. Now, this is arguably

the most important step in the process, deciding when we are going to make ourselves available. Now, because I selected 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. on this Tuesday, that is going to be selected here, but we don't have to keep that.

You can click anywhere on your calendar just to get started. You'll notice that there is a plus button beside every day of the week, so let's say I want to make myself available on Wednesday afternoons.

All I would need to do is hit the plus button beside Wednesday, and now, I can adjust the time. You'll see that by default, it's going to add 9:00 to 5:00 p.m, but I've got other commitments, and maybe I only want to make myself available in the afternoon.

So, I'm going to come over here and I'm going to select 12:30, and I'm going to say I'm going to make myself available till 3:00 p.m.

So, this is the timeslot. This is where others will be able to choose an appointment time for themselves. And once you've created a slot, you'll notice that there's some other options available to us as well.

The first is this little no sign, meaning unavailable all day. I would select this if I wanted to remove this option. So, let's say I no longer want to keep the Tuesday option.

I'm going to select that, and now it is removed. But you'll also notice if you have a minimum of two days selected, let me go back and select a time period here on Tuesday, I then have an option to copy this time to all available slots.

Now, this doesn't mean it's going to copy this time to every day of the week, but let's say I want to make myself available 12:30 to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday as well. Here, I would select Copy Time to All, and now the exact same block has been entered here.

Let's say I want to do that again for Friday. First, I would need to hit the plus button just to enter some time there,

and then I could come up here to Wednesday, say Copy Time to All, and once again, we have the exact same timeslot. Keep in mind, you cannot adjust these times by clicking or dragging on the calendar itself.

You do need to make these adjustments here within the Appointment Schedule panel. In addition, keep in mind that you're not limited to just one time period per weekday. Here, you can see I've created a timeslot for Tuesday morning, but I'd also like to make myself available later in the afternoon.

All I need to do is come here and select the plus button again, and now I have an additional timeslot for that day. So, I'm going to come down and select 3:00 p.m, and no, it cannot finish at 1:00 p.m.

I'm going to make myself available to 5:00 p.m. So now, I have two different timeslots for the same day, and I can continue to customize this as much as I like. Note you do not have to have your schedule repeat weekly.

At the top of General Availability, you can select this dropdown and say Does Not Repeat, and then this schedule would only be applied to the specific dates, so you do have that option available.

Lastly, when it comes to this section, you may want to double check that it is in your correct time zone when it comes to scheduling these times. Now, below this section, we have some very important options available to us.

The first is the scheduling window, and by default, it is set to 60 days in advance to four hours before meaning that someone can book me out two months,

60 full days in advance, but they cannot book me any sooner than four hours from now. Now of course, if I select this dropdown, I can change these options. The first option we have available

is if this scheduling window, if the settings within this section are available immediately, or if you only want to apply them to a certain date range. If that is the case, you would select this radial button here, but down below, we can adjust our maximum time in advance.

So, maybe I don't want people to book me out 60 days in advance. Maybe 30 days in advance is good enough for me, and four hours is maybe too soon. I may not check my email that frequently, so therefore, I want to make sure that I have enough time to prepare for the call.

So, I'm going to say the earliest they can book is eight hours from selecting my schedule. Now, you'll notice that you can actually turn off either of these options, but I would caution you ever to do so.

By unchecking this first option here, they could essentially book you any time into the future, yes, even six or seven years from now, so I would recommend keeping this on, and if you unchecked this option,

this means they could book you literally minutes from now depending on your availability.

So, keep these two checkboxes checked, and then set the days and hours to your desire. When you're finished with the scheduling window, you can minimize this and you can still see what it is set at here.

Now, below the scheduling window, we have the adjusted availability, and this means if you'd like to make yourself available or not available on a specific date.

Adjusting Availability

By selecting Change a Date's Availability, we are presented with a small calendar, and let's say on September 20th, I know I'm not going to be available. So, here is my standard time, which is dictated by what we selected up above, but I'm going to come over here and select Unavailable All Day, and by selecting that option, you can see that everything has been removed from the 20th. T

he rest of my schedule will remain the same, but because I'm planning to take this day off, I don't want someone to book me on that date. But we can also add other additional dates as well. Let's say on that particular Monday I want to make up for lost time, so I'm going to create a one-off availability.

Here, I'm going to select Change a Date's Availability once again, and I'm going to select the 18th, and instead of saying unavailable, I'm going to hit the plus button, and I'm going to say I want to make myself available from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Now, this is only going to make me available for that particular day, and not on any other Monday, because up above, I've selected Unavailable.

Next, we have a section called Booked Appointment Settings, and this can be really helpful when it comes to making sure that you don't go over time or leave someone waiting. This gives us the ability to add some buffer time in between our appointments.

So, for example, how confident are you that you will be able to wrap up this meeting exactly by the top of the hour and not leave someone waiting who has booked you next? In this case, we can select a buffer time and adjust the minute duration, so visually, we can see the difference as well.

I can be booked from 2:00 to 3:00, but my next booking won't be available until 3:30. This gives me a little extra time if I need to prepare for that next meeting or if I feel that my meeting may run a little late.

We can also check the box down below, which is Maximum Bookings Per Day, meaning that you could make yourself available for an entire day,

but only limit yourself to perhaps two bookings at a time. For example, here you can see that I have four booking slots available on Tuesday the 19th but if I select the number two and have this checkbox selected, as soon as any two of these slots have been booked, the other two will no longer be available.

They will no longer be shown to those who have access to my booking page.

Next, we have the option to check which calendars will it check for availability, and this is where we are limited. By default, it is only going to check my primary calendar for any conflicts,

meaning if I create an event for this Tuesday morning, it will be blocked off and no one will be able to book me at that particular time. However, if I am using multiple Google calendars, it will not be checking any of those additional calendars.

If I want that functionality, I would need to upgrade to Google One Premium in order to add additional calendars.

Lastly, if we want to change the color, we can do so, and maybe I want these to stand out, so I'm going to choose this yellowish color so I can see that it differentiates from everything else on my calendar.

Adding Details

When we're happy with these settings, we can select the Next button, and now we are presented with options that both the user will either need to fill out or details that we will include in the event itself.

So, number one, we still have the option to change the title of this booking if we like. Down below, we have the booking page photo and name. Now, your booking calendar will show both the image and your name as listed within your Google account.

You don't have the ability to change this otherwise, so if you'd like to change either of these, you'll need to go into your Google account to adjust or edit your photo and name.

Down below is the location and conference information. So, for example, is it going to be a Google Meet video? If you select this option, it will automatically create a Meet link after the booking, but you can also choose an in-person meeting.

Here, you would be required to add a location, such as an address or if you're wanting someone to meet you at your office. Our third option is a phone call, where, no, you don't have to include your number, but those who are booking will be required to provide their phone number.

And then lastly, we can select None or To Be Specified Later.

This would be your best choice if you are using a video conferencing software outside of Google Meet. So, for example, if you are using Zoom, here in the description is where you would add that Zoom link,

or any other information that you like, and of course, we have some basic formatting available to us here as well, but here, you can include other details that perhaps they need to prepare for or what they can expect from the meeting.

Next, we have a booking form in terms of what is the required information that someone will need to fill in.

Now, the first three options will always be required, first name, last name, and email address, but the phone number, although included here by default, does not have to be included. So, for example, I'm going to remove it, and instead, I'm going to come down here and add an item.

Now, we are still given a phone number dropdown as an option. I'm going to come here and select Custom Item, and I'm going to say website address.

Maybe I'm looking to help people with their websites or providing them with some SEO consultation, so that's what I would like them to fill in as a part of the form.

I don't have to make it required, but if I want to, I can select this checkbox and say Add Item, and here, we can see it is listed beside the other required fields. You can add as many additional items as you like, some required and some not, depending on your needs.

And lastly is the booking confirmations and reminders, where once again, we are limited if you are simply using a free Google account. If you would like to customize your reminders and calendar invitations,

you will need to upgrade to the Google One Premium plan, but by default, those who book with you will get a confirmation email with a calendar invitation. Once we're fine with this page, we can hit Save,

Sharing Your Schedule

and now our bookable appointment schedule has been created. Now, it's all right if we close off from this menu, because anytime that we select any one of our available booking slots, that same menu will be available to us.

Now, the first thing that we're going to want to check is to open our booking page. By selecting this option in a new tab, it will show us our booking screen.

Now, because we are logged into our own account, we're viewing it as ourselves, so you may want to select this option, and here, we see a very similar view, but you can see exactly what others will see.

So, we can see that my first available date isn't till next Tuesday, so they could go ahead and select one of these timeslots, or they could use the mini calendar and go to a future week, and say maybe they want to select the 3:00 p.m. timeslot. And after selecting a specific time, they are asked to include their first, last, and email address,

and as I had asked, to also include their website address. If they select Book, anything that is a required field will prompt them at this time, but once all required fields are satisfied, they can select Book and their booking has been confirmed.

And if we return to our Google Calendar, here, you can see that I have been booked for 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday the 19th. So, what are some of the ways in which we can share our booking calendar with others? Well, as long as we select any of our available booking slots, here, you can see that there is a share button.

By selecting this option, we are presented with a few different ways in which we can share.

The first and perhaps the easiest is just to share the link itself.

So, we can copy this link and include it in an email, or we could post it somewhere within our website, but we also have the opportunity to embed our booking page as well.

The first option here is to create a button with a popup, and this can make it look very, very sleek. So, for example, by expanding this option, we can change the button text. So, instead of "Book an appointment," maybe I'm going to change this to "Book Scott Now. Something along those lines.

And maybe I use a green color on most of my website, so I can change the color, and if I want to, I can add a custom color as well. Now, all I need to do

is copy and paste this HTML code here down below. I can select Copy Code and paste it where I need to, either on my website or any application that will accept HTML code, and if you want to test it out yourself, you can do so from this dialogue.

So, if I select Book Scott Now, this is exactly what people will be presented with.

My website will still remain in the background, but they can come here and use the booking screen. The second option we have here is if we want to embed it directly into a website. So, no popup. Just on the screen itself. By expanding this option,

again, we are given that embed code. We can select copy that code, and then paste it where we need it to be. Lastly, what if we want to delete our schedule or just certain components? Well, once again, we are going to open up our booking appointment schedule, and in this case, we are going to select the Delete Appointment Schedule.

Now don't worry, it's not going to delete everything. It's going to give us a few options. By selecting the trash can, we are presented with three different options.

The first one is this week only, meaning it is only going this particular timeframe, Tuesday, September 19th, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. If I go ahead and select OK, you can see that this Tuesday has been removed, but if I go back or forward, those Tuesdays will remain.

If I click on this again and select the trash can, the second option is all weeks,

meaning if I select this, every Tuesday from 9:00 to 11:00 will be deleted. Last but not least, if I want to remove my entire appointment schedule, I would choose the third option here, but don't worry, anyone that has booked with you up until this point,

nothing will change with their appointment. It will not be deleted or removed. Any existing appointments will remain. So, now that you know how to create your own bookable appointment schedule, I'd love to hear from you next.

What questions do you have about this new feature, and what would you like to see next? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Benefits of using a dashboard

- [Instructor] Trello doesn't make it easy for us to get a high-level picture of everything that is going on within our Trello accounts. But what if you could create a customized dashboard, like the one you see here, where you can show the key information that you want across all of your boards.

And best of all, you can dive down into it and get access directly to each and every individual card. Well, it only took me about 10 minutes to create this dashboard, and I think you can do so as well.

So let me show you how. (high-pitched hiss) This video is sponsored by Crumble. If you want to use your Trello board as a CRM system, don't, unless you use Crumble.

Crumble allows you to manage your entire sales pipeline by turning your Trello board into a powerful yet easy-to-use CRM. You can store all of your contact details and history in Trello cards and get more advanced reporting and details on how things are performing with your sales and all of your clients.

Not sure if Crumble CRM is right for you? You can get started with a 21-day free trial at crumble.com, or click the link in the description down below. Creating a helpful dashboard within Trello, which gives you the information that you're looking for, is a lot easier than you think.

And in fact, anyone can create a dashboard just like the one you see here without spending any additional money. Yes, we are using a Trello Power-Up, but it is completely free. In fact, the Power-Up is designed by Trello themselves.

So just before I show you how to create this dashboard, let's show you the example and how powerful creating something like this can be. Here you can see at the top, I have four different lists:

Projects, Assigned to Me, Team Tasks and Overdue. And what is so important here is that all of the information that is being displayed is coming from across multiple boards, not just a single board, not just one or two.

No matter how large your Trello workspace is, you can bring in information from everywhere.

So starting with my projects, you can see I have some key numbers showing me all of the tasks which are due on these three boards No longer do I need to be jumping back and forth between my browser tabs or coming up here and finding the board I want to look at.

I can see at a glance what is due right now. And if I click on one of these cards, I can dive down deeper into what those tasks actually are.

And, yes, I can click on these and go directly to that card. In my second list, I want to get a high-level view of all of the tasks that are assigned to me across all of my Trello boards.

And right now it's about 14. But better than just having that number, once again, I can click on this card and go directly to any of those tasks. It'll even show me the due date here within the card itself. Next, I have a list called Team Tasks which can be fantastic if you are either managing other members of your team or just want to see what do they have on their plate right now.

Here I can see that both Jessica and Tiffany have three team tasks assigned, while Sam has two. And just like the other cards that I've shown you,

you can dive deep into what those are. Last but not least, I've created a list called Overdue.

I want to know exactly how many cards are currently overdue across all of our boards.

And so this can be a great starting place that I begin in my morning or maybe at the end of the day, gives me a great high-level view of everything that's going on, and I can dive in deeper whenever I want to.

Adding the Dashcards power-up

So in order to build your own dashboard, like what you see here, we are going to make use of a free Power-Up called Dashcards.

If you come up here to the Power-Up icon and then select Add Power-Ups here, within the Power-Up search bar, I'm just going to type in the word dash, and you'll see a number of other tools which also provide dashboard capability, but we want this one here called Dashcards.

Now, once you've installed this Power-Up, it's actually going to be listed as Track in your browser.

I think they've chosen that just so it's a smaller word than Dashcards. But here with the dashboards Power-Up installed, we can select this option and start to add any type of Dashcard that we like. Now, when you first select the Dashcards Power-Up, you'll be presented with this menu.

And it will give us a number of templates, a number of defaults, which we can get started with right away.

Now we can either select the Track option which will add it directly to our board, or we can select Customize, which means we can edit those particular settings.

Of course, in the lower right-hand corner, you can start with a fresh Dashcard without any filters assigned. But for this first example let's start with one of the defaults.

So perhaps I'm going to select this one, Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. All I need to do is select Track, and it will input it in the top left of my board. If I close this dialog, here you can see this 14 Assigned to me on all Workspace boards.

And just like any other Trello card, I can move it wherever I want to. I can put it in any list,

and I can sort it in any way that I like. But let's keep it up here just for our example.

Now, if I go and click on this card, here with inside the Trello card, you can see under the description area, here is where we have all of the Dashcard information.

So regardless of how many cards matches this criteria, it will show a maximum of 10 right here.

Editing your Dashcards

And yes, we can click on them and go directly to that card. But at the end of that list,

if we want to see everything, here we can see we have 14, or if we want to edit this Dashcard, we can select the Explore and edit button. This will bring up the full view of the Dashcard where we can see everything that is contained, and we can work within this mode as well.

So for example, if I want to sort it by the create date, I can do so very easily here. If I want to sort it by the due date, I can do so as well. So this can be a very powerful way to sort and filter and view everything that is related to this criteria.

But let's go in and edit this particular Dashcard, because you are going to have some specific needs and some specific numbers that you want to keep track of. Here if I select on Edit filters, it will show me what is currently applied:

Assigned, Includes any of, and here is my username. But let's go one step further and add some more filters because I already have a Dashcard that is showing me all of the things that I'm assigned to across my Workspace boards.

So if I select More filters, here you can see I have a full list of all the criteria I can use, including any of my Trello custom fields. Yes, if you've created custom fields you can create a Dashcard based on that criteria as well. But let's keep things fairly simple in this example.

Maybe I want to see all of the cards that I'm assigned but also have a specific label. So I'm going to select Labels in this case.

I'm going to come down to this dropdown, and I'm going to say Includes any of and then it's going to give me an additional dropdown.

Now, this dropdown may be quite large depending on how many different Trello boards you have. Because remember, it's going to bring in every single label across all of your boards. Maybe I only want to see the things that are assigned to me and have the label New project.

So I'm going to select that checkbox there. I could of course select as many additional labels if I want to, but in this example, I'm just going to select this single one. When I'm happy with that, I can hit Save.

And you'll notice that down below, but also the number up above will change dynamically. So now this Dashcard is ready to go. If I come back to my Trello board, here Assigned to me on all Workspace boards. But wait, that title isn't exactly accurate anymore, is it?

No, so in order to change the title you'll just go into the title of the card itself, just like you would with any other regular Trello board, and change it to your needs. I'm going to say Assign to me, and then maybe in parentheses I'll say New project, just so I know that that is what it's showing to me.

But wait, maybe I want to change the look of this card as well.

Well, if we click on this and, again, come down to Explore and edit, here in the top right-hand corner, we can change the tile background. Now I can do one of two things. I can either choose from one of the standard colors that they have here, or I can search for a stock free photo.

So in this case, it's a new project. What if I type in the word new? What does that come up with here? Hmm, maybe something like this, the open road. I'm going to choose that. All I need to do is now close that Dashcard.

And when I'm returned to my Trello board, I have the new background image.

So if you want things to be distinct, maybe from my team members here, which I've chosen to use just a solid color, versus a more dynamic or maybe a more visually pleasing background color, you can do so here as well.

So if you want a better way to view all of your Trello information across all of your boards or just some specific boards, be sure to build your very own dashboard by using Dashcards.

And if you have any questions on how to build or maintain such a dashboard, 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.

- [Scott] Are you looking for an easy way to start selling online? Do you want something that's simple to use for you and your customers? And how about free?

Do you like the idea of using a trusted free tool so you can keep more of your profits?

 Well in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up your online store so you can start making money today. (air whooshing Get Started To get started, we want to go to jotform.com and we're going to come over here to products and select Store Builder.

Now, Jotform is the leader in online forms and that's important, because when it comes to creating a store, you want to make sure that you have all the right information and that you can trust the system that you're using not only for collecting payments but for getting all of those orders right. And the best thing of all,

about Jotform store builder is that it's absolutely free.

So let's get going and say Get Started. We are going to be brought to this screen where we have two options. We can either start from scratch, this is going to take you a little more times because you'll be starting from a blank space, or we can start with a template.

And I would typically recommend this option. Not only are there over 300 templates for us to choose from but remember, whatever you start with here you can customize for your own needs.

It doesn't mean that just because this is a ticket selling template that I have to be selling tickets, I can use it for anything I want, whether I'm selling a product or whether I'm selling a service Keywords And instead of just browsing up and down you can also type in some key words.

So let's say that I am wanting to create a store for my massage therapy clinic. Well, if I just type in the words massage, I've got some three great examples right here. And you can also see on the left hand side that we have all these other categories that we can browse as well.

Now, one of the great things about these templates is that if I click on the preview button here, it's going to give me a full preview of this store, not just a screenshot,

it's actually something that I can browse up and down. So if I click on Schedule your Booking, it's going to bring me to this page, I can see what it's going to look and feel like.

Hmm, that's not exactly what I'm looking for, let me try this one out here. And yes, we can even try this preview out between our phone, tablet, and desktop views, so you can be confident in terms of the layout and what this will look and feel like.

Here, if I select book session, here I can say Add cart. Yeah, I like what this is looking like,

I like the workflow, I like how smooth this is. So I'm going to select use template at this stage. Store Builder And in just a few seconds, we are brought to the Store Builder editing page where we can customize every single element that we see.

Now, the first thing you may notice is that there is a difference between the home screen the first place that users will see, and our listings of the different services that we will offer.

You can create your store just like you would any other webpage. And down below you can see that distinction as well, between the homepage and then the area where they will be able to book a session.

Of course, you can change this. Maybe you only want to show the cart available items and you can do so as well. But now it's time to customize the look and feel and almost everything is clickable and ready for us to change.

Customization So obviously this is not the name of my massage therapy clinic, so I'm going to click on it and I can easily change the name of the title.

I can also, of course, come up here and add my own logo and change these style as well. So if I have a custom background color that I want to use, or a specific background image I can change anything that I want on this page.

Paint Roller But I can also click on this paint roller icon and change any of the colors and themes for my entire store. So maybe I want a brighter color, hmm, maybe that's a little too bright. Let's try this pink. Hmm, I maybe prefer this darker purple.

I can even of course add my own colors if I have custom branding that I want to apply. And remember, none of this requires any code at all. On the left hand side of the screen we can add further elements.

So if we want to add our own images or additional buttons we can do so here on the left hand side, so you truly have the ability to add anything that you want Edit Offerings as a part of your store.

Next, let's make sure that we go and edit some of these offerings. So if I double click on this item here I can bring up the edit screen and maybe I don't offer a hot stone massage, maybe I offer a cold stone massage. I know, that's not really a thing, I don't think. Let me know in the comments

if you've had a cold stone massage and maybe my pricing for this is only 9.95 so I can come here and change my pricing, change my descriptions, all at the click of a button. If needed, we can also come up here to the options tab and add a quantity selector.

Now, in my example here, since I'm providing a service, I am not going to be offering more than one at a time. But if you are selling a product, this makes a lot of sense allowing people to have multiple items.

But perhaps the most important thing to pay attention to when it comes to selling online is making sure that you get paid. And Jotform Store Builder makes that very easy as well.

Get Paid Here you can see this little payment card called Store Properties, and if I click on this, it's going to give us the ability to integrate with a number of payment processors.

Now I'm just going to delete this Stripe option here so I can show you all of the different payment gateways that are available. Whether you use Square, PayPal, Stripe, Venmo or almost anything else, you can make sure that you get paid and you get paid today.

So whichever payment option you would like, let's just select Square in this example

and it will walk you through how you can connect it to your payment provider. Now, once we're happy with how our store looks let's come up to the top and select settings. Now, there's a few different options that we want to pay attention here.

Number one, is this store going to be open? You can choose if it's enabled or disabled, or if you're wanting to run a very special sale or a special promotion,

you can choose to disable it on a specific date. But where we really want to pay attention is to the app, name and icon. Within this menu, we have the option

of giving it a specific name for those users who choose to add it to their home screen. Yes, the bonus of using the Jotform Store Builder is that they have the ability to add this directly to their phone or mobile device.

So in this example, I'm just going to call it something simple like book massage, because maybe I want them thinking more about booking the massage than necessarily my name. And then I can come over here and edit the icon to whatever I like.

Now I can come over here and upload my own image, such as my own logo, which would probably make the most sense

but I can also come over here and choose an icon. So I'm going to type in the word relax and see what comes up. And although this is really for meditation I think that works well with book massage.

In fact, it almost looks like someone is on a massage table. So, I'm going to use that for my icon in this case.

Lastly, we want to come over here to the publish button so we can look at the various ways in which we can connect our store to our website or simply share it directly with our customers.

So number one, here is your direct link. So you can copy this link and put it or share it anywhere that you like. You can also generate your own unique QR code.

So if you'd like to share this on existing materials or maybe you do have a brick and mortar store, you can add this QR code there as well. Lastly, on the left hand side, we can choose the embed option. So if you don't want to send them to a separate page

you can choose to embed your store within your existing website. So if you want to create your own online store in a matter of minutes, do it for free and get paid today.

Be sure to check out Jotform Store Builder. To get started, go to jotform.com or click the link in the description 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.

- [Scott] Sharing your work with your clients is never easy. Spreadsheets are often confusing,

slideshows take way too long to create and giving clients access to your project management tool is a recipe for disaster. But what if you could share a single page that tells the whole story,

looks amazing on any device, and doesn't require your clients to create an account? In this video, I'm going to show you how to do all of this for free. Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And what we are looking at here may look like a webpage. It may look like I quickly designed a simple webpage to share

with my client, but it's not a webpage at all. In fact, this is a part of a tool I'm using that not only can I share with others, but I can actually use it to manage my work and manage the research,

manage the concept, and manage the execution all at the same time. So what am I using and how am I doing this for free? Well, I'm using an application called Walling. Walling has been described in a number of different ways.

I've heard some people describe Walling as Google Keep on steroids. I've heard others say that Walling is what they'd hoped Notion would be, that it's a much more intuitive and much easier to use tool than Notion.

But no matter how you describe Walling, it is an incredibly intuitive system where you can add images, you can add text, you can share, you can collaborate, you can manage databases. Almost anything that you would like, but in a much more user friendly interface.

So let me give you a quick tour of the example that we are in. I'm pretending to be a chair designer and I'm designing a new chair for a client. Here's the title, New Chair Design.

But down below, not only have I outlined things in terms of the brief and what we are going to measure our success on but everything here is easily drag and drop. So for example, maybe I want this image on the left hand side.

I can simply drag the text over here. And if I want these goals to stand out a bit more, I'm going to give it this sort of light blue shade in the background So in just a matter of seconds, I can really customize the look and feel of what the information is here on the page.

But unlike a PowerPoint presentation or a standalone webpage, we're not limited to just images. For example, here I have a section called Budget because I want to keep my client informed as to where we are within this project.

And I've even got an approved checkbox here on the right hand side. So as we go through, I can check things off letting them know where we are at with this particular budget. And yes, even simple calculations can be performed right here from within this wall.

Further down below, I have an entire Kanban board. So if I want to manage all of my tasks

or manage all of my deliverables just like I would within other tool such as Trello, Asana, or Monday.com I can do so down below here as well. But perhaps one of the best features of Walling is that I don't have to share every single section or every single component with my client. Maybe this Kanban list at the very bottom is something that I do not want to share

with my end client. So how do we go about and share this with just a single link? Here at the top of the screen, you can see that we are in editing mode, which is going to be the default mode when you log into Walling.

But we can toggle this into publish mode over here. Immediately, we are given a unique link which we can share either by selecting this copy link code or we can also create our own QR code.

But over here to the right, we get to choose which sections we would like to share. Now, by default, it is going to be set to all sections but if I click on this dropdown, I can come down here and say, you know, I don't really want to share the tasks

and maybe I don't want to share the budget either. I'm going to uncheck those two sections.

Now when I hit that copy link, I can now proceed to share that link with my client and they will view the following page. Now, it looks very similar to what we saw earlier.

But if I scroll down, you'll see that that budget information is not displayed and that task information is not displayed either. So I can share exactly the components that I want to with my client and keep hidden the specific details or specific tasks within my wall.

The other thing that I really like about this view is that it makes it very easy for the client to browse through the different sections. So if they want to jump down to the design section, they've got this easy menu here on the left hand side that's really going to impress your clients rather than giving them some static PDF document, or slideshow or long spreadsheet, which is going to be confusing to look at.

And as mentioned before, don't even think about sharing your project management tool. That's going to require them to create an account to log in and then learn how to use that tool as well. Now, jumping back to our Walling account, let's take a look at another example. In this case, I'm working

on a project called Employee Engagement and Productivity, and my intent is to share my work to share a lot of the things that you see on the screen here. But I am going to keep other components hidden as well.

Unlike other tools that we might consider to share our work, Walling makes it super easy for us to add information. So for example, maybe I want to share this mock-up with my client. I'm just going to drag it over. It appears here, and maybe I want to share this video.

Immediately, they are brought into this particular section. Best of all, when I go to publish this and share it with my client, they can access it in full screen mode. No longer do they have to fumble around with email attachments or small previews.

Here, if they want to look at this image in full screen, they can do so right here. They even have other options such as seeing the entire color palette or if I want to give them the ability to add comments.

Here, this video, they're not going to be sent somewhere else. They can start to play this video directly

from within their wall. To learn more and to get started with Walling absolutely for free, go to Walling.app or click the link in the description down below. And if you have further questions,

be sure to let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.