Google Docs Power Tools: Building Blocks for Speedy Content Creation
What are Building Blocks?
In October, Google introduced new buttons at the top of Google Docs for swift insertion of content building blocks. A simple click on your desired button or ‘@ More’ opens a list of options, from Calendar event drafts to meeting notes. Note that the row of buttons will only appear at the top of newly created or empty Google Docs. You will not see these options in documents with existing content.
How to use Building Blocks?
Simply click your preferred button or choose ‘@ More’ to see options like drafts for a Calendar event or a meeting note. Note that the row of buttons will only appear at the top of newly created or empty Google Docs, meaning you will not see these options in documents with existing content.
Building blocks elevate Google Docs by broadening its capabilities. Let’s look at four commonly used use cases, showcasing how building blocks redefine and enhance your collaborative workflow.
Meeting Notes
Leverage the Meeting Notes building blocks for seamless setup, sharing, and collaboration within or before your meetings. Before gatherings, team members can collaboratively prepare by outlining agendas and discussion points using building blocks in Google Docs. During meetings, real-time collaboration ensures accurate documentation of action items, decisions, and key takeaways. Post-meeting, a comprehensive follow-up is easily generated, leveraging the notes to send detailed summaries and assigned tasks to all participants with a simple click of the send button.
Gmail Draft
Start an email draft directly from Google Docs, facilitating collaborative editing before sending. Seamlessly integrated with Gmail, the draft opens in Gmail when ready.
Imagine your team seamlessly collaborating on a project proposal in Google Docs. With the ability to start an email draft directly from the document, everyone can review and provide feedback before the final email is sent. This function streamlines content approval workflows, ensuring that all stakeholders can contribute and refine email content before it’s sent.
Review Tracker
It is common to have multiple reviewers for documents. You can now track overall reviews for your document with a simple review tracker building block in your document. Insert these directly into your document alongside people chips to assign users to review the document. Beyond the standard status options like “Not started” “In progress” “Under review” and “Approved”, you also have the flexibility to add custom status options.
Project Tracker
Track all your projects in Docs. Basic project management tracker building block to help you keep track of status and related notes about the projects. Enhance readability with building blocks, dropdowns, and smart chips like people chips and date chips. This functionality empowers you to construct complex project structures easily.
Using Building Blocks doesn’t just make content creation simpler; it changes the way we create documents. With one click, it makes the whole process fast and easy. These blocks fit smoothly into the process, cutting out extra steps and making work more efficient and productive.
