Do you need an easier way to manage your shopping list? Would you like to share your list with someone else and even get a reminder when you're near your local grocery store? Well, in this video I'm going to show you how to use Google Keep to create the ultimate shopping list.
So to get started, you can go to keep.google.com, and whether you are an Android or an iPhone user, you can download the Keep app directly to your mobile device. I'm going to be showing you how to set this up here within the desktop just because it's easier to show off. But all of these features and all of these settings are available within the mobile app.
So to get started, we want to come up here and take a new note, but not just a regular note. We want to come up here and select this new list, this checklist icon. Now at this stage you may think that we should just start typing in the items we need to buy. I can type in apples, I can start to type in oranges. But wait, before we continue with our list here, let's come back up to the title and I want you to give the name of your list, either shopping list or grocery list, maybe food list, and I'll show you why.
Now, when I come back to my list down below, I'm going to start to type in the word bananas and look at all of these suggestions. Yes, in my case I want bananas, but maybe it is banana bread.
Some days maybe it's bandaid. Some days I'm going to select bananas. I'm going to come back to the next line. I'm going to type in mi and yes, do I want to buy milk? Milk powder? Maybe I'm going to need of a mirror.
It's going to give me a number of helpful suggestions based on the title of my list up here. So don't forget to give it a name such as shopping list.
Now I've gone ahead and added a few more things to my list just so we have a few more things to work with, but as you can see, as this list grows, it's going to be a lot more difficult to see what is on our list and also how can we categorize these into different sections.
Well, the great thing here within Google Keep is that we can not only drag things up and down, we can drag things in a different order, but what is much more helpful is that we can indent our list.
So I'm going to come up here to the very top. I'm going to place my cursor in front of the A in apples and hit enter. That's going to allow me to create a new item above that particular item.
And I'm going to add an item here called produce. And down below you can see that the next three items are all going to be within the produce section.
Next I'm going to come to apples and I'm going to drag it over to the right. I'm going to do the same for oranges and the same for bananas. Now I've got this great category here where I can see all of the things that I'm wanting to buy in that particular section.
I'm going to go ahead and repeat that process here down below. So maybe this is something I want to label as dairy, and again, we're going to move cheese and then we're going to move milk over to the right.
Now, you may think that that's a lot of movement, but once you've created these headers, once you've created these first level list items, we can continue to add things down below and they will stay within that indented order.
So under bananas, I'm going to hit enter and maybe I'm going to enter in carrots. Maybe I also need to pick up some lettuce, so I'm going to enter that in here as well.
The advantage is not only is it easier to see the different sections or the different categories, but what if I go shopping and I purchase all five of these items, but I don't want to have my phone out the entire time.
Maybe I'm going to review, once I've gone through the produce section, I can say, yes, I've gotten everything here. I'm going to select one check mark and that's going to cross off everything that is indented underneath that top level list. I can still come in here and uncheck a few things.
Maybe I forgot oranges, and if you like, you can always go one at a time, but this makes it a lot more convenient. Let's go ahead and add one more here down below. This is going to be our bakery section here, and now we've got our bagels and our donuts in the appropriate category as well.
But I'm actually going to do one more thing with our sample list. I really want these headers or these top level lists to stand out because you know how it is in a busy grocery store. There's a lot of things going on. You've got your phone out, you want to quickly and easily see these different areas. So what I like to do is add an emoji to the front of these categories. I'm going to bring up my emoji menu here, and maybe I'm going to select this red apple for produce down below dairy.
Once again, I'm going to bring up my emoji area and maybe this glass of milk that seems appropriate. And lastly, in the bakery area here, I'm going to select this loaf of bread. So not only am I adding a little bit of color to my list, this makes it so much easier for me to see these different areas.
But before we move on, let's make sure that we have our list in the correct order. And what I mean by that is that your local grocery store probably has a very specific layout or perhaps you go around the store in the same order each time. So for example, the bakery is the very first place that I visit after getting my cart.
So what I'm going to do is we're going to come back here and drag the bakery area, but because this is the top level, everything down below is going to move with it. So I'm going to grab it, I'm going to bring it all the way up to the top, and don't worry, my bagels and my donuts have come with me. Maybe the dairy section is next. Well, that's no problem either. I'm going to bring that up to the top and now I can have it in the order that I like the order that makes sense as I travel around my grocery store.
One thing to mention when it comes to checking off the parts of your list here, you can see I have things set up that I can cross things off either one at a time or the entire section if need be, and they remain visible, but you don't have to have it that way. I
'm going to go ahead and close this note and come up here to my settings. The good news is within Google Keep, there is not a lot of settings. And here you can see that the second option here says move checked items to bottom. And I currently have it unchecked. That means when I'm checking things off, those items are going to remain and just shown cross through.
But if I check this box and hit save, let's go back to our shopping list. This time, if I check off cheese, it is now gone from the dairy section. And if we go all the way to the bottom, you can see it's shown as a completed item. If I go ahead and select milk, the same thing happens. It shows down below.
Now we don't have to see the crossed off items here. We can always minimize that. It still shows that there's two completed items, but this is really up to personal preference. Do you want to see those items here?
Think about when you are shopping or do you want them to be hidden down below? Personally, I can find it a little jarring that my entire list is shrinking or moving as I'm going around the store. So I'm going to go back to my settings here and I'm going to uncheck that box so that when I'm going through, and yes, I've got all of my dairy, and yes, I've gone through all the bakery, I can still easily see that they are all checked off.
That's the other nice thing here is that the top level cannot be checked unless everything else is checked below it. But there's one last thing we want to make note of here. When you get to the end of your shopping day and you've crossed everything off, often you may want to reuse or repurpose this list. We often are creatures of habit and purchase many of the same things on our next shopping trip.
Well, what we can do here is either go to the top level and uncheck each section, but here's a much easier way to do so. If we come down here and select more here, we can select uncheck all items. And no matter how long your list is, everything on your list will be unchecked, and now it's ready for you the next time around.
Now the next great feature here within Google Keep is the ability to share your list with someone else. And if we come down to the very bottom here with this collaborator icon, we can select this and start to enter in the email address of anyone we like. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a roommate, someone else that you go shopping with, or maybe one of you does most of the shopping, but of course you are both contributing to it.
All you need to do is enter in the email address of the person you'd like to share this list with and then select save. And now at the very bottom of our shopping list, we can see either the initial or the icon of that individual. Even if I go ahead and close this particular note, I can still see that icon down below. I can see exactly whom I'm sharing this list with.
This is especially helpful if the other person has already left for the grocery store or maybe are even in the grocery store at the moment. The other person can actually still add a few last minute items in real time, and you can be sure that the shopper will see them and be able to pick them up on time.
If at any time you want to remove someone, you can select that collaborator button again and then come over here and select X to remove them from that particular note.
Another feature to take advantage of is to make your notes stand out that much more. Sometimes our notes can get lost with all of the other notes that are happening here within Google Key. Well, at the bottom of the note, we have the option to add a background. There are two options available to us. In fact, we can either add a solid color or we can add a graphic as a background. And in fact, they even have one called groceries.
If I select this, it's going to add this groceries background. I'm going to go ahead and hit close, and you can see it certainly stands out, but maybe it's a little too confusing. Maybe it's going to be a little more difficult for me to see or read what is going on.
So I'm going to come back to this background. I'm going to remove it, go back to the default, and maybe I'm just going to select a color like this yellowish sand color that's going to still make it stand out, but it's also still easy to read right here amongst my other key notes.
The other step, which can be very, very helpful, is to pin your shopping list. What that means is that it will pin this note to the top of your list. Again, whether you're using desktop or whether you are on your phone, we are often adding and editing our shopping list on a regular basis.
And when you get to the store, you don't want to have to search or fumble to find out where it is. So by pinning your list, that can be very helpful as well.
But maybe the best tip of all is the one I've saved for last, and that is by setting a reminder. Now, you may think that that's pretty straightforward. If we select that little bell icon, we can choose to pick a particular date and time. Maybe I want to remind myself to go shopping this Friday and I can pick a particular time when I will be reminded.
But better yet, there's a special type of reminder which will remind us when we are near a particular location. And since we are creating a shopping list, the place we are going to select is of course, our local grocery store.
I'm going to select pick place. In this case, I'm going to start typing in the word Safeway. And in my case, I'm going to say that I'm living in Seattle. This happens to be the one that is closest to me.
Of course, you can enter in an actual address or just start to type in the name of your grocery store and your location. I'm going to select this one and hit save.
After adding the location reminder, you will see it here in the bottom left hand corner, and if you hover over it, it will actually show you the precise address as well. What this means is that the next time I am near this particular location, as long as I have reminders and notifications set on my mobile device, I will receive a reminder when I'm near this particular store, maybe I'm not even thinking about picking up some groceries, but if I'm in the area, how helpful can that be to get a location based reminder?
Of course, these are features you don't have to use, but I want to make sure that you are aware of them so you can take full advantage of this ultimate shopping list.
Thank you so much for watching, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
