Do you want to save time working within Google Drive?
Do you want to spend less clicks and less time working with all those documents as you navigate all of your files and folders.
Well, in today's video, I'm sharing with you five tips to help you save time within Drive.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity Scott Friesen helping you get more done and enjoy less stress and let's start off with tip number one.
It all has to do with starting a brand new document Create New Files Faster or a brand new file within Drive.
So let's say I am browsing the web. I am on a completely different tab, a different screen of my Google Drive account.
Maybe I don't even have my Drive account open and then it dawns on me, "Oh, I should really start that document."
So what do I have to do? I'm gonna go over to a new tab. I'm gonna have to type in Drive or maybe click a bookmark link.
That's gonna open up my Drive account.
Once it's finished loading, I'm gonna have to go over here, click on the New button and then I got to find out, yeah it's Docs, that's the new one that I want to do.
Well, there's a much, much faster way to do this.
Let's close this tab.
Let's go back to the same scenario. We've re-round, I'm browsing the net and, oh, I need to start that new document.
Why not just go up to your browser and type in doc.new, hit enter and immediately what's gonna happen is you're gonna have a brand new document waiting for you to start editing.
To start inputting some text.
Don't want a document?
Well, there's other shortcut links you can use as well.
How about you need a new sheets, we can type in sheets.new, hit enter.
In just a matter of seconds, yes, Google Drive will present you with a brand new spreadsheet for you to start working with.
Now this works with other applications within Google Drive as well.
Including slides and forms so if you find yourself needing to start a brand new document immediately, you can just type it into the url address within your browser.
All right, let's go back.
I'm gonna actually create a new doc.
I'm gonna use that same tip to go back into my Google Drive document here and we're gonna talk about tip number two.
And this has all to do with voice typing within DocsAdd Text with Voice and this can save you a great deal of time.
It can especially help you if you're trying to format your thoughts.
For someone like myself, I find it so much easier to speak my ideas rather than sitting there at the keyboard and typing and re-typing and then going back.
I'd rather just spill out, often spew out a lot of ideas or write a few paragraphs verbally and then go back and edit some minor changes.
So to do so, what we need to do is go up to Tools and then select Voice Typing and what that's gonna do is it's gonna open up this little mini dialogue box here.
This little mini microphone window.
Now we can drag it anywhere we want, to a more convenient spot on the screen if we like and as soon as I click the microphone, it's gonna start dictating whatever I say.
Let's test it out.
In today's video, I am looking forward to helping you save time in Google Drive period.
I hope you enjoy all five of these productivity tips period.
New line.
For more productivity tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to Simpletivity.com period.
All right, I'm gonna click off of that microphone there and let's take a look at what happened.
I think it did a pretty good job of interpreting exactly what I said.
Dot com I've noticed I think the dot, it's gonna replace there sometimes with a period.
I'm actually gonna just remove the dot com.
Now that I look at it again, I'm just gonna give it the proper name there.
Subscribe to Simpletivity.
So yes, you may want to go back and do some minor editing.
Just checking where the commas or if there's a comma that's needed, you can verbalize it as well.
If I had said, "Comma," it would input that just like I had the periods placed here as well.
But this can be a great way to get those thoughts, get those ideas on a page and maybe free up, maybe be a little more creative with how you're sharing that information as well.
Now, again, you can keep this dialogue window open at all times.
Maybe a little later on, I want to try it again.
I just hit this microphone button and go back to dictating my words.
All right, now tip number three, we're gonna stay on this page because I'm gonna use some of the words here for my next example.
Tip number three has to do with inserting links Insert Links via Search within a document which you may already know how to do but I want to show you how to not only insert links, but find those links without ever having to leave this screen.
So for example, here on this last line I've made mention of Simpletivity.
So maybe I want to add a direct link to my website.
Now depending on the complexity of the website you want to link to, you might have to open up another tab, go find the website, copy that website address, come back here and then paste it within this spot here but we're gonna save a lot more time.
I'm gonna highlight that word, Simpletivity.
I'm gonna right click that allows us to insert that link by selecting Link here and what I want you to pay attention to here is number one the suggestions that it gives.
Look at that, my website is the very first suggestion.
That's exactly what I want.
It gave it to me.
So I'm gonna select it.
There's the link.
I'm gonna select apply and now I've got that direct link within my document.
But you don't just have to select the suggestions here.
Let's go to the word, productivity in this case.
I'm gonna do the same thing.
I want to insert a link, it's gonna give me a couple of suggestions here.
Here's a productivity entry on Wikipedia, here's a productivity guide by James Clear.
I might recommend him actually, a very good author.
I just read his book most recently.
But what if I don't want either one of these?
I want something a little bit different?
Well, I can just type into the link line here, I'm gonna say productivity tips and let's see what comes up there.
Hey, Top 10 Productivity Tips from lifehack.
Maybe I want to add that link so that my readers or whoever's receiving this can get a few more tips themselves.
I can select that, I can hit apply and now it's directly in my document.
So you don't always have to be opening new tabs or going to other websites.
You can actually find those links directly from within Google Drive.
All right, tip number four on today's list has to do with organization and in particular, organizing all of our folders within our Drive account.
Organize Folders with Color
Now here you can see, I've got a mix of some folders at the top and a bunch of files down below.
Now you probably have a lot more folders than what I'm showing you here in this sample account but something that we often overlook is that we can add color to our folders and that can make it a lot easier to find the things that we're looking for.
By default, Google Drive is going to color all of your folders this gray color.
But what if I want this Gmail Notes folder to stand out a little bit?
I'm gonna right click on it.
I'm gonna come down here and hover over Change color and because Gmail is usually associated with the color red, I'm gonna select red.
Now that one just sort of jumps out a bit easier.
It's gonna be a lot easier for me to find that one.
If I go up here to my Budget & Finance folder.
I'm gonna right click on this one and we often associate budgeting and money with green so I'm gonna select green.
Now that one stands out and jumps out at me a little bit more as well.
Now you can colorize all of your folders if you want to or maybe, in this example, maybe if I have other folders that are money or finance related, maybe I'll color them all green.
So it's easier for me to find and associate with that particular category.
But experiment with some different colors.
Especially if you have a large number of folders.
You might find it helpful to add a splash of color to some of those particular folders.
Now the last tip that I have for you today in regards to Google Drive actually relates to Gmail and has to do with getting around a size limit Sharing Large Files via Gmail when it comes to attachments.
So let's open up, I've got a new message here within Gmail.
I'm just gonna leave things blank here for an example.
But you probably already know that when you go to attach a file.
If we select attachments here, it's gonna open up your system dialogue, right?
So that you can go in and select a file from your account but what you may have run up against sometime in the past is the limit.
You are limited to a maximum of 25 megabytes when it comes to attaching files and there's a reason for that limit.
You are going to probably blow up someone else's inbox or make it very, very slow as they try to access those files.
Even the attachment process might be a little bit slow if you attempt to maximize that 25 megabytes.
Well how about a 10 gigabyte maximum?
Would that be a lot easier for you to share certain files?
What we need to do here is instead of selecting attachments, we're gonna go over here and select the Insert files using Drive.
We're gonna select that little icon and what it's gonna do is it's gonna open up your Drive folder and what I'm gonna do in this example, I'm just gonna multi select a few different things here just as an example.
Let's grab, I don't know, five or six or something along those lines.
So I've got five files here and again, they might be ginormous, right?
They might be a gigabyte each.
And what I'm gonna do, you don't have to click anything else here in this window.
All we have to do is go to the left and select Insert.
Once you've selected the Drive files that you need, select Insert and here I now have them inserted as links within this email.
So whomever is going to receive this is going to have access, direct link access to these particular files.
And you don't have to worry about blowing up someone else's inbox or waiting for the time to upload all these files.
Now let me actually add one recipient here.
Let's add a sample recipient here because I just want to show you what may be prompted or what may come up.
I'm gonna say, let's just say, test link share and let's say send.
So what it's gonna do is it's gonna say, someone needs access to these files.
Here's the person that we're sending it to.
I can change, can they view it, can they also comment and edit?
No, I just want them to be able to view it.
So I'm gonna select that one there and I'm gonna hit send.
It's gonna send like a regular email and now that individual is gonna have access to those files.
So if you are needing to share a much, much larger file or a group of files, you have up to 10 gigabytes to share using the insert files via Google Drive within your Gmail account.
I hope you enjoyed all of these tips today and I would love to know which was your favorite.
Which one are you going to start using immediately?
Or do you have other questions about Google Drive?
Be sure to share them with me and the rest of the Simpletivity community down in the comments below.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
