How I use Google Keep for note management, prioritization, strategic management, ideas, and more

talk about how I'm using this for big picture. Um, one of the ways that I'm using this for big picture is basically to, um, track what are my key responsibilities. And when I say key responsibilities, you've got your projects, clients, activities, events— what's the big stuff that you're working on? And I think this is actually a wonderful use for the Google Keep tool. So let's go in and take a look at this. Now, like I said, a lot of times when I do this in a live session, I actually make this a live exercise. What I'd like you to do is watch what I'm doing with Google Keep here, and then seriously consider whether you might want to pause and build out the notes that I'm recommending in your Google Keep. Okay? So let's take a look here, and I will open up my Google Keep. Let's go into Google. Let's go into Google Keep. And what I want to show you here inside of Google Keep, which is pretty cool, I'm using this in several different ways.. And as you can see, one of the things that you can do inside of Google Keep is you can edit labels, which means you can create labels and make new labels if you need to. And notice that I have labels for a lot of my different projects. I have, uh, Interpersonals, which are notes for my people, and, um, you know, things like Travel, Shopping, etc. We're going to show you a lot of this here in a second, but you can create new labels as you need to. To build out the stuff that you have related to your notes. One that I think I would like to create, I've been working, like I said, extensively on building out my YouTube channel. Recommend you check that out, maybe subscribe. I'm going to hit Done and add YouTube as a new label that's in here. And then what's going to happen is you'll see I could now create notes in my YouTube label, and I could maybe, you know, create a new note called um, uh, video ideas. I could type, and then down here I could put down, uh, Google Keep video, um, building group email list, um, you know, daily startup. Video, you know, etc. So I could just keep this as, as a grab bag of ideas for possible future videos. And notice I put in the title, I put in the item, it's in the YouTube area. I could hit close. But wait, before I do, notice this. Let's say I was working on my YouTube channel with a second party, you know, let's say the two of us were running it together. I could actually list them as a collaborator with their Gmail address we could both access this and both of us be putting in ideas for the YouTube channel. It's that easy. It's really simple. I could also do some, you know, change the color of the thing. Let's say I like that yellow color, and I could even bring in pictures if I wanted, you know. So I could do some stuff here if I wanted to get even more fancy. And notice that there are some options inside of More, you know. You could add a drawing, you could show checkboxes, you could even copy it over to Google Docs very easily. So there's a lot of capability here, but I just made that new note. That's how you make a note in Google Keep. It's that easy. And you can do the same thing on your phone. It's pretty much that easy using the Google Keep app. That's just sort of basic usage. Let's go up here and look into my priorities column. Inside of here, I want to show you the note that is basically doing what I just described, getting my big picture priorities and key actions activities. This is my priorities note that I do every single year. Now notice I actually brought in some photography from, you know, one of the trips I want to do again here sometime soon is go back out to Colorado as soon as this— that's one of my favorite places and I'd like to get back out there as soon as this virus shutdown is over. So I just threw that in as a little bit of a motivation. Here's my goals. You know, I have new client development. I'm working on building out both my YouTube channel and my web streaming sales. As well as my Mastery Academy. I've got my daughter's performance and, you know, activities. So let's say add this in right now. My one daughter is actually composing music, might go to college for that. I have a second daughter who's on a competitive dance team. Things got crazy this year because of the virus, but hopefully sometime next year she'll be back in and doing her competitive dance. You know, trying to drop that last few pounds, get myself back into good shape, take advantage of the time off here. From traveling. I've got a big house project that I've been working on, making our backyard and our deck, you know, better and more usable for entertaining. Working on a couple new book projects as well as revising my previous book, trying to do some stuff with that. And just try and stay on top of regular business stuff. That's my goals for 2020. Now, I will tell you, this is a weird year, as you know. If you're watching this anytime late summer or fall of 2020, you understand that we're still in the midst of the crazy coronavirus outbreak, and, uh, we're dealing with lockdowns and reduced travel, working from home, all that kind of stuff. Uh, that changed everything. You know, actually, I created two new classes this year, um, Virtual Work and Meetings I have another new course on OneNote and OneDrive for Microsoft, and I'm going to build a comparable course on Google, Google Drive, and Google Keep. I want to basically build one for the Microsoft users, one for the Google users, and I want to get those out onto my eLearning Mastery Academy. For everyone that can participate so they can extend their capabilities. Now, a lot of the Google Keep stuff that's going to be in that program is what you're seeing right now. But that's my goals. Now, below that— come back to this list of people in just a minute. But before I talk about the people, I want to talk about my specific projects, clients, activities, and events that I planned on for 2020. We already talked about my daughter's performance and sports activities. My new book effort, what I'm working on right now to really enhance my programs and capabilities Online branding tools, you know, figuring out and updating my website, my e-learning academy, updating my social media profiles, which I've already done most of that, but I do need to do more work on the website. You know, new client development activities, web streaming and webinar sales, fitness, you know, the plan for Europe, although that's got to be 2021 now because, you know, it's just not going to happen this year, although maybe we, depending on what happens, we could still start planning our trip. We were supposed to go to France this summer. And then below here is my YouTube efforts and, you know, database updates and new business and general biz activities. That's 2020 in a nutshell. This is what I'm working on. As a matter of fact, what was interesting, as soon as things started to shut down from the virus outbreak, I opened this up and said, okay, let's go after— and I went really hard after that home improvement project that I was talking about. I still have another big piece of it that I need to complete, but I got one huge piece of it done. And the second thing is working on my web streaming and sales. This is part of that process. One of the things that I wanted to do was update all of my, um, presentations and then lay down new videos for all of these presentations using the latest and greatest versions of the software, which is what I'm doing for this program right now. So you've got the opportunity to take a look at this and actually make this thing work. Um, so, um, so this is, this is my primary memo, and I build this note once a year. Now let's go back up here. Who are these people? These are the groups of people that I'm working with on a pretty regular basis that are helping me get a lot of this stuff done. I can't do all that by myself, and so what I want to do is have it set up that my people are part of my planning list too. And now you're probably saying, okay, well, that's cool. How do you use it? This is what I do. I try to do this at least once a week to make sure that what's here, which is my big picture, higher level overview of what it is I'm trying to get done with this year, is incorporated into my two day-to-day planning tools. What are those two day-to-day planning tools? Not Gmail. Google Calendar, Google Tasks. Those are my day-to-day. Google Keep is the repository for my big picture overview. I could also maybe do this in a Google Doc if I wanted to be even more sophisticated. But the key point is this is my big picture view. Here's what I do at least once a week. Usually takes me about 5 to 10 minutes. First thing I do, look at the pictures and dream of it. Second thing I do is I look at my goals. What's going on with my goals? Now, did you notice that I did some real-time adding editing while I was in here. This is not a static document. This is a dynamic document. And even though I build it once a year, I'm constantly doing little tweaks and edits according to what happened. I did a big tweak and edit when the coronavirus outbreak caused all the shutdowns earlier this year. I review my goals. I jump down to my projects, clients, activities, events. This is my big stuff. Top line of each group is the major project or activity or event. The sublines with the little dashes are the subprojects. And what I do is I look at each individual thing and I ask myself a really simple question. I learned this from a guy named David Allen like 30 years ago. He wrote the book Getting Things Done. It's called the next step strategy. And here's what you do. You look at each item and you ask yourself a very simple question. What's the very next thing I need to do on this item? And whatever that next thing is, it should become a new item either on your task list or your calendar. And I want to make sure that I always have a very next step for each of these items in my task list or my calendar. And I'll do that for this project. I'll do that for this project, this project, this project. At least once a week, make sure it's there. Now, a lot of times, once you've started doing this, those next steps are already reflected on your task list or calendar. You're not going to have to create a next step for every single line item that you're looking at here because they're already there. But if there's a place where there's not one there, that's when you create that new item. And that's how you can integrate your big picture items with your task list or your calendar.

But wait, let's go back up. I also got my list of people. These are the people I'm working with very regularly on promoting my business, building out some of my things. I also ask myself a series of questions once a week about the people. Is there anything I owe her? Is there anything I owe, um, owe him? Is there anything I should be following up with her on? Is there anything I should be delegating? See what I'm doing there? Those also become task or calendar items. And so because of that, at least once a week I'm reviewing my big picture goals, I'm reviewing my individual projects, clients, activities, events, and all related sub-projects. I'm integrating action steps, next step action steps, for each individual project or active item. And I'm also integrating items for my people into my calendar and task list. See, I hope you see what I'm doing. I'm getting everything into those two tools on a day-to-day basis. Because if I can get everything into my calendar or task list, I can basically work from my calendar and task list and have very strong confidence that I'm working on the right thing at the right time.

Remember that?

See what I'm doing? It all crosses over. I'll give you a little backstory. I used to teach people how to set up their planners in the 1990s. This is the same basic system. It's just using a much better responsive electronic-based, internet-based, cloud-based system. To manage all your stuff. Solid.

As a matter of fact, I don't just use this for this.

Actually, let me tell you one thing that could be interesting. Let's say I wanted to incorporate my wife into this, or let— you know, a lot of people are going to look at this and say, well, Randy, you mix work and personal there together. Yeah, I did that intentionally. I run my own business. I can do what I want. I'm not going to get fired. Some people will look at this and say, you know what, maybe I should build a priorities note for my job work and then a second priorities note for my personal life and home. Yeah, you could do that. You could do that if that makes you feel more comfortable. And if I did the one for home, you know what I could do? I could add my wife as a collaborator, and then she could also have access to this note and could do real-time edits. I'm not going to do that. Honey-do list to the planet— to the moon. But it gives you an idea of the kinds of things that you can do here. You can make shared notes based off their Gmail address and they'll have access to come in, edit, see, manage, etc.

So that's pretty cool. Now, what else am I doing in here? This is the one I think is the most important note I have in this entire database here. But let me show you what else I've got inside here, which is interesting.

Let's go—

while we're in here, let's look down a little bit. I have this one called my personal possibilities list, but you might better know this as a bucket. Whenever I see something that's pretty cool and I think it might be neat, I'll just throw it on here. You know, all the things I'd like to do, you know, when you get a chance before you kick the bucket. You can make one of these for work too. You know, maybe it's an idea storage for things that you don't quite have the time or resources to get to, but if you ever had additional resources, you could have some ideas to work on. You know, so I've got, you know, I actually also have in here like a marketing plan from a couple of years ago. That's probably an old plan now that I need to to revise. But you can see how I'm utilizing the notes. Now I'm not just doing my bucket list and my priorities list. Grocery store, home supply store, office supply store, bookstore, movies, et cetera. You know, people always give us suggestions of really good movies. I just throw them down because, you know, all of these movies and television shows because that way I can have a plan of some of the kinds of things that I want to watch when I get a chance. You know, and books to read, actually, usually once I get done with one book, then I'm putting in either my order from the library or from Amazon to get the next book. So works pretty well. Let's see, travel. Take a look at this one. 800 numbers for all the major airlines, hotels, car rental companies. I even have packing lists for a regular trip, packing list for a trip where I'm doing a presentation, just a normal business trip packing list. I even have a camping list pack, camping trip pack list. You know, we occasionally go out and do the wilderness thing here with the family. What I did is I created a master list of all the things to remember. I'm that person you want to invite camping because I'm the overpacker. I bring everything. And the beauty of that is, you know, when I— remember, these lists are all synchronized over to my phone in the Keep app on my phone, which means that I can then take this, take my phone when it's time to pack for a camping trip and go get all my stuff. I don't have to carry around my laptop. I don't need to carry around notebook. I just have it right here on my phone and I can just make sure I've got everything I need. Plus when I'm on the trip, let's say there was something I realized, boy, we really should have brought this. Well, it'll be on the list for next time. Boy Scout motto. Always be prepared. Um, what else do we got in here?

Let's take a look.

Um, you know, how many of you have a regular staff meeting every Tuesday at 2? Well, what you could do is think about all your regular ongoing staff or team or project meetings. If you're on a staff or team or project meeting that is ongoing, so it's having a meeting every week or 2 weeks or every month, you should have a note for each meeting. And here's what you do. Every time you think of something you need to talk about in the next meeting, throw it onto this note. Because then what you can do is when it's time for the next call for meetings, you can just pop in here and grab the irrelevant agenda items, move it into a calendar item, and you've got your ideas for the next agenda always building for you, and you don't have to try to remember this stuff. You'll make your meetings a lot more effective just by tracking those ideas. In the same vein, very similar idea is coming right here. What about, um, utilizing, uh, what I call imper— interpersonals? Uh, but you could maybe call this your people hot list. And what it is, is these are the people you're interacting with on a remarkably regular basis. And what you could do is, um, like Nisreen was my person that helped me with accounting stuff. Riz was my college intern before the whole COVID craziness began. And so what I would do is I would just write down, what do I need to talk about with each of these people? And it was just a hot list of items to talk about with that person next time I spoke to that person, either by phone or sending email. And the beauty of that is that means I can knock out 2 or 3 things on a single communication situation. Um, notice I got one here for my wife, obviously, too, you know. And once again, I could make her a collaborator to where we could make a running checklist of all the things we need to talk about and never really need to talk in person ever again. I saw a funny thing the other day, said 90% of being married after a certain point is yelling "what" loudly from the other room. I thought that was funny. And let's take this even one step further. Take a look at this one, golf. I just want you to think about how I'm using this. How far do I hit my 9-iron? Well, I actually went in and figured that out, out at the driving range one day and didn't just do it for my full swings, did it for my chip shots, pitch shots, punch shots, punch shots, and even how to adjust my putting stroke on courses I don't normally play. I'm not showing you to impress you with my golfing skills or abilities because if I was that good, probably wouldn't be doing this recording right now. But what I'm trying to impress upon you is that I don't try to remember all that stuff in my head. I can put it in a note and now it's on here. And when I'm out on the golf course, if I'm not sure what club I should hit, I can look up my yardages and figure out the best shot at that situation. According to how far I am from the hole. Like I said, I'm not trying to impress you with golf. What else could you use this for? Gardening. Time of year you should be planting your seeds, time of year you should be prepping the soil. You know, home improvement projects, all the list of the things, your honey-do checklist. You know, anything like that. Hobbies and activities, uh, if you're into a specific sport like biking or running, you know, what's the equipment that you need? Um, I mean, all that kind of stuff. You can make notes on this. And the beauty of that is that means you can clear it out of your head. You don't need to keep everything in here. That's what these tools are great for. Now let me give you a diagnosis. At this point, I'd like you to reflect. Here's what I want you to reflect upon. Every time I do one of my public sessions, I sort of make this little joke. Here's the joke. I ask the crowd, how many of you spend a big portion of every day trying to remember what you shouldn't forget, but when it's time to remember it, you seem to forget it?

You doing that?

Laffin right now. Let me give you a diagnosis on how to solve that problem. If you have something that needs to be done by a certain date, where should that be? Now, you probably just knee-jerked and went, calendar. That's what a lot of people do. That's actually not the right answer. The correct answer, if it needs to be done by a certain date, is actually your task list. Because think about it, if it gets done any time that day it's still on time. Am I right? If it has a specific date and time for a specific amount of time, that goes on your calendar. See the difference between the two? If it can happen anytime this day, that's a task. If it has to happen at a specific time for a certain amount of time that day, that's calendar. And what if it just pops up and you never know when it's going to pop up? I don't know next time I'm going to be hitting a 6-iron. Well, let's go see how far I hit my 6-iron. Oh yeah, for 170. See what I mean? I remember it. You know, get that stuff out of your head. Use your task list, use your calendar, use time-based reminders if necessary, and use your notepad to clear your mind. So you don't have to remember all this stuff. Use your mind instead to better manage and work your day, be more strategic and prioritize, solve problems, take advantage of opportunity.