Productivity Tips for Google Docs

Between Evernote and Google Docs, I create and store most of my information in the clouds. Dropbox picks up the slack.

Google continues to enhance their amazing products and Google Docs is no exception. Here are a few productivity tips to maximize your Docs experience:

1. Export files with 1-click

Take your data out of multiple Google products in portable and open formats, including Google Docs in one fell swoop with Google Takeout.

Google Takeout is part of dataliberation.org, a Google project that makes it easy for you to import and export data out of various Google products. Along with Docs, Google Takeout supports Contacts and Circles, Google+ Profile and Stream, Picasa Web Albums and Voice.

2. Google Docs templates

Similar to the useful Microsoft Office document templates, Google Docs – word processor and spreadsheet – has a vibrant library of templates. You can choose from a ton of public templates, unique templates that you created for your domain, or “my templates”, a collection of frequently used templates that you saved.

These templates can range from finance and statistics to resumes and cover letters, business forms and letters, and even presentation designs and business cards.

There’s a legal template category, but though some may be useful, it’s probably good as a reference and information source only.

3. Keyboard shortcuts

For many of us, keyboard shortcuts enhance productivity, speeding up the way we use a product or process – like copy, paste, undo, print screen, etc. Google Docs offers many of the same shortcuts and quite a few more.

You can find a comprehensive list of Google Docs keyboard shortcuts here.

These are just a few of the many ways you can optimize your productivity when using Google Docs. If you have any tips to add, please share in the comments below.