Friday, February 14, 2025

5 ways Gemini, Workspace, and NotebookLM can boost your productivity

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Google’s Gemini AI can make you more productive by enhancing and streamlining your interactions with Workspace apps like Calendar, Keep, Gmail, and Docs. Gemini can predict scheduling conflicts, remind you of important tasks, and propose solutions to problems. It understands your work and helps you get more done. Think of it as the next generation of virtual assistants. It’s smarter and more proactive than ever.

In this article, I’ll show you how Gemini can make you a productivity powerhouse from your PC to your Android smartphone. The latest version of Gemini, 2.0, represents a step towards agentic AI, and the tips and tricks we explore are only the beginning. Let’s look at how Gemini helps you work smarter by automating your schedule, prioritizing your to-do list, summarizing and drafting emails, breaking down complex projects, and helping you learn things faster.

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5

Automate your schedule

Gemini is ready to help

Gemini enhances productivity by seamlessly integrating with Workspace apps like Google Calendar. Ask Gemini to draft a schedule for you, listing the tasks you need to get done. Gemini automatically factors in your existing appointments, preferred work times, and team members’ availability.

By intelligently managing your schedule and optimizing your workflow, Gemini lets you focus on getting work done. With its Calendar integration, Gemini reduces the frustration of scheduling conflicts. You can reclaim control of your time.

Example Prompt: Open Gemini and use a text or voice command to say, “Gemini, create a draft schedule for tomorrow including my appointments and suggesting time slots for [list your tasks here]. Gemini queries your Google Calendar, asks follow-up questions to identify the best time slots for you, and then adds the events to your Calendar.

4

Prioritize your to-do list

Connect Tasks and Keep to your Calendar

Gemini can help you manage never-ending to-do lists and prioritize effectively. It analyzes your tasks, deadlines, and the content of your Gmail and Drive to understand the context and importance of different projects.

This is a great example of agentic AI. Gemini proactively looks deeply and weighs relatively complex factors across Workspace to provide assistance. With Gemini’s smart prioritization, you can focus on boosting your efficiency and reducing stress. It can bring order to the chaos of your to-do list.

Example Prompt: Open Gemini and direct it to “Look at Google [Keep or Tasks] and provide a list of my tasks for this week.” After Gemini provides a list of your tasks, ask it to “Look at Calendar and suggest slots to do these tasks this week.” Gemini provides recommended days and times for each task. Finally, you can prompt it to “Add these tasks to my Calendar,” to add them to your schedule for the week.

3

Conquer your inbox

Put email overload on pause

An unwieldy email inbox can be a real time sink. Gemini can help. It goes through your inbox and summarizes long email threads so you can get to the bottom of things. If you need to reply but don’t have time to write a response, Gemini can do it for you. It also learns which emails are most important and makes sure you see those first.

With Gemini managing your inbox, you can focus on important endeavors. One limitation is that Gemini cannot send emails on your behalf. Instead, it saves drafts for you to send manually.

Example prompt: “Summarize the emails between [person’s name] and me about [subject/topic] and draft a response saying I need more time to review.” Your response is drafted and saved to Keep.

2

Break down complex projects

Form your plan of attack

Gemini-Project-Breakdown-1

Large projects can feel daunting. Let Gemini help you tackle them. Within Google Docs on the desktop, ask Gemini to break down a complex project document into individual tasks. Gemini analyzes the project, identifies key milestones, and suggests a breakdown of sub-tasks with completion dates. This can help you get a grip on a project’s scope and create an effective plan of attack.

In my testing, Gemini couldn’t add the tasks from Docs to Keep or Tasks. The workaround is to cut and paste what you need into Keep or Tasks.

Gemini is only accessible via the desktop version of Docs, but not from the mobile app.

Example prompt: In Google Docs, open your project overview document and ask Gemini to “Break this project down into smaller tasks and suggest a timeline for each.”

1

Learn fast and keep your research organized

Use Gemini and NotebookLM together

NotebookLM helped me work smarter in 2024

Gemini is efficient at internet research. In the past, researching a topic required numerous search engine queries and sifting through the chaff to find the wheat. Albeit imperfect, Gemini is like a research assistant that quickly sifts through articles, documents, and web pages to provide concise summaries and key takeaways. Gemini can answer your questions and collaborate on how to apply the findings to your project.

With Google’s Gemini-powered NotebookLM, you can take things a step further. Organize your Web-based Gemini research into a topical notebook in NotebookLM. Then, query the research with other notes and links, such as YouTube videos, in your notebook. You can include internal and custom resources from your desktop in your notebook. This allows you to focus your findings on leveraging the most applicable content of your choice.

Example prompt: Ask Gemini to “Summarize the latest research findings on [topic] and explain the key implications for [your field of interest].” After Gemini outputs its findings, copy and paste them into an appropriately titled virtual notebook in NotebookLM. You’ll organize your sources for easy future reference and additional querying for summaries.

A useful tool with some limitations

While Gemini is a powerful tool, it has limitations. Not everything works as expected. If you don’t get the intended result, modify your prompt. Be as specific and detailed as possible with your requests. If you run into a limitation, ask Gemini about its abilities, such as, “Are you able to draft an email for me?” It usually explains what it can and can’t do when prompted accordingly. If you’re looking for more ways to boost your productivity, we have a few simple tips and tricks to get more from Google Gemini.

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