A little known product called “Google Keep” has made it to prime time, and is slowly being rolled out across Gmail and Google Docs:
Here’s why it kicks ass for copywriters (and well, other “normal” people) also :-P
Google Docs is the best text editor on Earth, and the new Google Keep lets you keep a drawer full of snippets you frequently use:
The Google Keep icon on a Google Doc:
Click the icon, and the “drawer” appears with your saved “snippets”:
Simply “click-n-drag” snippets into your document:
For example I like to frequently use quotes about copywriting in things I write, but I always forget them.
I’ll still frequently use my quotes swipe file, but with Google Keep I can actually click-n-drag that quote right into a doc!
You can then edit, label, sort, and colorize your snippets:
This is how you can personalize your own Google Keep snippets. I personally use green for quotes, and purple for templates. Now you can make your own :)
Hopefully this useful tool saves you a few clicks!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora
P.S. Here’s a list of the tools mentioned in this post:
– Google Docs: Standard Google Docs everyone uses.
– Google Keep: Edit, sort, label, and color code your snippets.
– Google Keep Chrome Extension: Easily save snippets from the web.
– Copywriting Quotes: My collection of favorite copywriting quotes.
– Swipe File: Full swipe file of snippets and interesting copy.
P.P.S. For more useful things like this checkout my list of other Copywriting Tools.
P.P.P.S. Got any other sweet little tricks or hacks you use like this?? What do you use them for? Please share!
I freegin love Keep. I use it as a checklist betwixt me and my business partner. It’s simple and it’s fast as hell.
Thank you for sharing.
You’re very welcome Natasha, glad you found out about this cool little tool 😎
Wow, thanks for sharing this information. I started using google docs a lot nowadays for my work. This will be a great help to me. I used to use Evernote. Now no.
Awesome, glad this showed you a cool new tool Manju :)
Thx for this tip Neville.
I found that I first needed to go to “Tools” at the top of my Google doc and click on “Keep Notepad” to get it to appear.
All good now.
Oh good suggestion Coop! I know they have been *slowly* rolling the Keep feature out across accounts.
I’m assuming if people make use of the little “drawer” they’ll make it a standard feature. I personally love having this little drawer in Gmail since you can bring up your calendar and tasks right there without opening a new window!
This is so amazing! I’m aallll about shortcuts! I added the Chrome extension for Keep, but I don’t have that super-handy icon showing on the right-hand of my Doc screen – think it’s because it’s still rolling out and it hasn’t made its way to my account, yet? Ugh, do I have to toggle back and forth between Keep and Docs like they did in the 1940’s?? hahaha Just wondering if you had an idea of whether there’s a certain “view” I need to select, maybe?? Thanks, Neville – I love your emails and blog – learn something new all the time from you!
Hey Kristan, I think Coop answered this one right above your comment:
“I found that I first needed to go to “Tools” at the top of my Google doc and click on “Keep Notepad” to get it to appear.”
Give that a try, and then have enjoying the cool snippet feature of Keep 😎
Been using Keep like this in Google docs for a few months and love it! Here’s a few others I use daily:
I also use Alfred App’s text expander to add snippets (eg. email templates, email signatures, checklist templates, Calendly links, graphics, Google docs templates, frequently misspelled words and anything else I’m too lazy to write out like my own name etc..) If you don’t use the rest of Alfred, it’ll seriously save you days of your life finding stuff on your computer.
If you wanna take the functionality of Keep to another level, the folks at Copyhackers built a great tool called Airtable that does something similar for copywriters. (not affiliated, just a fan : )
Another snazzy Google docs add-on is Mindmeister. If you create a lot of bulleted lists and want to see them visually, Mindmeister will let you instantly turn them into a mindmap (fo free!) and inserts it directly into your Google doc.
Hey Joel, I’ve been using Alfred for years! Although in the latest iteration of Mac OS the “Spotlight Search” is so damn fast I’ve slowly just started using that a little more.
I didn’t even know Alfred had an expander feature. Cool!
MindMeister is neat, although for some reason I’ve personally never been able to understand mindmaps. They seem so much more complex than a bulleted list (might just be my dumb brain can’t process them) :-P
Thanks for the rec’s Joel!
Opps, Airstory from Copyhackers, not Airtable. I thought the exact same thing when I read this usage.
Question — best place to find Google templates? Or can “we” (Copywriters) collaborate on a few?
I’ve known Google Keep for quite a while now.
But you, Neville, put its usefulness on a whole new level!
Thanks for that! =)
Thanks Alan, glad you were introduced to Google Keep in a new light! I think it’s great for handling repetitive tasks where you’re just re-typing (or re-pasting) the same thing over-and-over.
Enjoy!
You should also check out Text Expander to save time! It’s a neat little app where you can also save snippets and create shortcuts for frequently used text, like your address, bank details or standard email text (to name a few). For example, I type a 3 letter shortcut and it expands to a full inroductory email text to accompany an initial quote.
Hey Rony, I actually used Text Expander before when I had an eCommerce company, and repetitively filling out webforms was a common task. It was very helpful!
I like Google Keep for my work now because it’s all cloud based, it requires no extra install, and it’s integrated with Docs and Gmail already.
For small copy/paste tasks I still use JumpCut for Mac every single day (Like probably 10+ times a day)!
I originally found Google Keep when I was building my own swipe file, and was seriously considering making it in Keep.
However back then the product was not very good. Only now has it been good enough to be used in prime time.
Thanks for the recommendation Rony!
I’ve been using Keep for months, it’s really handy. But I didn’t know you could drag it into documents like that. Thanks Neville
Yup! They’ve been slowly rolling out Keep integrations in many Google products.
It works in Gmail to a degree, but not extremely well just yet. You can still copy/paste from your Keep drawer in Gmail. However I’ve been tracking the improvements to the product and it’s continually getting better.
Google Keep was supposed to be more of a note-taking and task reminder list app…..but it’s kind of morphed into this digital swipe file kind of thing now!
Google is the best company in the world.
This is ironic because yesterday, I actually wished google would build something like this. Turns out, they were already ahead
Hey Valentine, I read your mind and informed Google they need to build something like this.
Your wish has been fulfilled 😛
Oh this will be handy for work. I’m frequently sending out customized invoices from Google Docs templates and have to repeat a lot of copy/paste’s.
This will be a great tool to use. Thanks Nev!
That’s awesome Nathan! For Gmail I use the “canned emails” feature found in the Gmail Labs settings for repeated inserting….but until this I didn’t know of anything like that in Google Docs.
Glad you discovered Google Keep just now :)