How To Use Zapier To Maximize Productivity In Your Business — Part 2

7 min readDec 28, 2020

Welcome! You have stumbled across a puzzle piece that fits with the project I am completing this month. I am showcasing how your team and business can use Zapier to maximize productivity and efficiency. If you are interested in putting more pieces of the puzzle together, then feel free to find them here!

These past few weeks I created a tutorial video for five separate Zaps that your business can use to help maximize productivity and efficiency. Those five Zaps include the following:

The rate of change in the business world is increasing at an exponential rate, and you have to be able to adapt and keep up, or your business may not survive.

This is probably the biggest motivation I had when I decided to do this project. The automation workflow technology that Zapier provides will allow you to focus on your most important work while the Zaps take care of tedious tasks in the background. If you can master this, then you now have a superpower.

I am going to provide a summary of each Zap that I created below.

Create Monthly Text Reminders

This is probably one of my favorite Zaps that I have come across so far! The purpose of this particular Zap is to have a text reminder sent to you at a frequency that you choose, and with whatever message you choose to include. You will find in the image below that you can choose every hour, day, week, or month.

I have found this Zap to be helpful to remind me to pay my bills each month. I have a specific day each month that I like to pay all of my bills, and Zapier sends me a text on that specific day to remind me to do just that.

I have a calendar event set up as well (as you might), however, I might not always pay attention to that calendar event, especially if that day falls on a weekend. I do check all of my text messages, and this has been extremely valuable for me.

You can put whatever message you would like to be sent. There’s a lot of spam these days, so I added the Zapier part at the end of the text so I know that I set that up to remind myself. Check out the full tutorial video here.

Transfer Information From Your Email To A Google Sheet

I am confident that I have spent countless hours searching through my email to find specific information. To be honest, that’s a big waste of time. When I am putting in that time, I always wonder how the process could be easier. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I discovered that Zapier can solve this pain point for anyone.

For example, let’s say that you are in charge of putting together an employee appreciation event for your team, and you request an email from each team member with 1–2 sentences of appreciation for each member on the team. That could be a lot of information to keep track of, and it could take a lot of time to copy and paste that into a spreadsheet.

You will find in the image above that there are multiple options for you to choose from in terms of how you want the information to be compiled into the Google Sheet. I have found it to be most useful to have the information from each new email put into a new spreadsheet row, which is the first option.

Once you have the Zap set-up, you are good to go, and the information from your emails will automatically pull to the sheet. Now, all you have to do is go to the Google Sheet when you need the information that is there. Check out the full tutorial video here.

Add Calendar Events To Multiple Calendars

If you have a personal calendar separate from your work calendar, then this Zap is great for you! Everyone has random errands that need to be taken care of, whether that’s a dentist or doctor appointment, an oil change for your car, etc.

You don’t want to schedule an important work meeting during the time that you are supposed to be at the dentist or getting maintenance work on your car. This particular Zap will solve that pain point for you, and take the weight off of your shoulders of being afraid that you might double book something on your calendar.

For this Zap, you connect both your personal and work calendar.

You will see in the picture above that the triggering event here is when a new event is created on your personal calendar.

Then, for the next step (or action), that same event is created automatically on your professional calendar. You can either create a quick add event or a detailed event. The difference is in how much information you want to be included in the event that is added to your professional calendar. You will see that in the picture below.

Now, you don’t have to worry about rescheduling your dentist appointment or car maintenance, you can rest assured that Zapier has got your back! Check out the full tutorial video here.

Create Calendar Events From Trello Cards

I have found over the past three months that utilizing a task management system is extremely valuable. You can braindump and organize all of the tasks that you need to get done for work and specific projects that you have to complete.

I use Trello to break down and keep track of my projects and work assignments. In each card on Trello, you can add a due date.

Once you have added a due date, it will show up on the card. I will include a picture of that below.

For this particular Zap, a calendar event is created based on the due date in the Trello card. You can set the Zap up so that the event is created a certain amount of time before the due date. You will see that in the picture below.

Once the timeframe that you decided on is reached, a calendar event will be created. Check out the full tutorial video here.

Save Email Attachments To Google Drive

If you’re like me, then you might be able to think of a few times that you have searched and searched for an attachment in your email. Time is wasted, and Zapier can solve this pain point for you.

For this particular Zap, you will connect your inbox to your Google Drive. When you are setting up the Zap, you have to decide if you want the Zap to catch attachments from your inbox/all label or a specific label in your email.

I have found that it is most useful to just have it be inbox and all labels as shown above so that you don’t have to worry about missing any important attachments.

As an example, I sent myself an attachment of a photo, and the photo was immediately added to my Google Drive.

Now, you don’t have to waste countless hours trying to find an important attachment. Check out the full tutorial video here.

To Summarize

These are the second five Zaps that I have put together for my project this month. If you are interested in learning more about maximizing productivity and efficiency for your business with Zapier, then you can find the first five Zaps I put together here. If you would like to learn more about my project, then you can find my landing page here.

One thing is for sure, if you are looking to maximize productivity and efficiency for your business, then you need the workflow automation technology that Zapier provides. Don’t wait, start today!

How To Use Zapier To Maximize Productivity In Your Business — Part 2

Written by Christopher Ragland