Liv's Tree House

Why it has taken me so long to get to Google Drive is a little baffling as it is one of my most used most relied upon helps in my busy life.  Perhaps it's because it has so much to offer that there ends up being a lot of information to compile into a simple blog post.  Google Drive has several products within the Drive itself, so we'll explore those deeper in other posts.  Today we'll focus on the Drive as a whole. The best thing with google is--as always-- it's free.  Drive was created years ago.  It's had a few name changes along the way, but it is basically a substitute or replacement for many of the tools and programs found in Microsoft Office.  When I first made the transition, I kept Microsoft on my computer, but now in the days of cloud computing, I literally never need anything other than what is available on Google Drive. What problems does it solve? Have you ever needed that project you've been working on, but--"snap"--it's on ...

Part 3 of my #CrazyBusyHelps series.  Admittedly, I haven’t tried many other calendars, so I suppose many calendars have many of these same features. However, at a fairly early point in my electronic life, I discovered Google makes calendaring easy by offering a little bit of everything.  That way I can have one account that can do countless things, so for me, I choose to use Google Calendar along with all my other Google products. But an online calendar that can be installed across all your devices is a MUST HAVE for us Crazy-Busies. There are some of you out there who are going to argue with me--I know because I have a surprisingly large amount of people still show up to various meetings with a notebook and no electronic device.  To you I must say: it’s time!  I seriously can’t believe how many people don’t use Google Keep, Google Drive, or Google Calendar; I honestly have no idea how they keep their life in order.  Hats off to those of you who can use the tru...

Part 2 of my #CrazyBusyHelps series.  Ahhh…..Google Keep! Of all the things I could not live without, Keep ranks extremely high on my list.  It’s literally my brain most of the time.  One of the most common things people say to me is “I don’t know how you do it all!”.  I say to you, I could not do it “all” without this fabulous tool, and lots of prayers. What problems does it solve? The jumbled brain problem…. Do you have endless tasks and to-do’s floating around in your head, and you're just trying to keep them all straight? Have you ever gotten to the store and realized you forgot your shopping list? Or come home from the store to realize your spouse needed just one more thing? Do you have “I keep forgetting to…” syndrome? Started that Honey Do List lots of times, but can’t see to keep track of it? Trying to remember all the things you need to pack for your trip? Want to remember a great quote you heard? Haven’t figured out a good menu-planning solution? Google Kee...

You’re going to hear a lot about Google over the next few days, because--let’s face it--Google has absolutely tapped into what we Crazy-busy’s need, and I for one am sincerely appreciative. We’re kicking off the series with Google Photos, mainly because they recently announced on their blog an exciting new feature called “Shared Libraries,” and it’s going to save you tons of time. But we’ll get to that in a minute. Why Google Photos? What problems does it solve? Every photo problem, but seriously… Do you have endless digital photos in endless locations? Phone, computer, tablet, external hard drive, thumb drive, CD’s or DVD’s Have old hard copy photos from pre-digital picture days? Keep promising to send pictures to certain someones and keep forgetting? Need to find a picture of your dad for father’s day? Want to preserve your favorite trip pictures in an album and share them with the whole family? Why not give them the opportunity to contribute their trip photos? Ever wanted to make a...