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- #200: Google AI Overview Is Now Video → What AI video answers mean for you
#200: Google AI Overview Is Now Video → What AI video answers mean for you
Perplexity just killed Chrome
Jenae Spry
July 18, 2025
Productivity Stacks Newsletter
(Formerly Productivity Express)
Issue No. 200
The Best in Evidence-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
How "Vacation Mode" Unlocks Your Prioritization Ninja (Hint: it's not about self-care)
Google AI Overview Is Now Video
The Smartwatch Productivity Paradox: More Features, Less Focus?
Declutter your inbox with Gmail's newest feature
Perplexity AI Browser Comet Review: Say Goodbye to Tedious Online Tasks
👉Did you miss an issue? Check out previous Productivity Stacks issues anytime here
🔥Quote/Prompt
Start by starting.
Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.
A bit from mine:
(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)
Can we please give Meryl a standing ovation on this one? HELL YES! 🎉🎉
It's OK to: […]
Did someone forward this to you?
📈 Performance
Have you ever noticed that the week before vacation you suddenly become able to easily prioritize things that felt impossible to prioritize (or deprioritize) before? It's not just the excitement of time off, it's your brain switching from "which task first?" to "before vacation vs. after vacation." This shift reveals your hidden prioritization superpower that you can activate anytime.
Vacation mode is that week or those days leading up to a vacation where you know you won't be working or even possibly have the ability to work and all the sudden you go from 'which of these tasks should be done first, second, third, etc.' to 'before vacation vs. after vacation' and you become a master of prioritization.
Key Insights:
Create fake deadlines to trigger your "Prioritization Ninja". Treat 6pm or weekends like you're catching a flight. No cheating.
Start small if you're a workaholic. Begin with ending work at 8pm just one day, then gradually expand your boundaries.
The closer you get to your "vacation" deadline, the better you'll prioritize. That temporary stress before time off actually sharpens your focus on what truly matters.
Read the full article for the complete four-step system to activate your Prioritization Ninja without needing an actual vacation.
⚙️ Optimization
Remember when shady SEO "experts" would stuff invisible keywords all over their pages? In other words, way back when, you'd search for soup recipes and somehow land on a dog food blog because soup recipe keywords were invisibly stuffed on the page. Those wild west days have been mostly dead for a while, but Google's latest move with AI Overviews proves they're not messing around anymore. Below is a tweet from Gagan Ghotra which was covered by Search Engine Roundtable:
My takeaways:
Google isn't just summarizing video content. They're embedding actual videos directly into AI-generated answers, giving creators direct visibility without making users click through to another page.
The future of content consumption is shifting toward "play button" formats. Whether it's audio or video, passive consumption is winning over active reading. I was personally already doubling down on this but I did not expect this trend! Subscribe to my channel to see how it progresses (and get more evidence-based productivity) when we launch the new YouTube show here.
This isn't killing blogging, but it's forcing an evolution. Smart business owners should diversify their content strategy now, not after their traffic tanks. Try running a few Google searches yourself to see when videos pop up in the AI Overview.
Read the full article for screenshots and examples of how multiple videos are appearing in AI Overviews across different search queries.
⏲️ Time Management
That smartwatch on your wrist is either your productivity secret weapon or a $300 distraction machine buzzing you into oblivion. The difference is how you set it up. Most people turn their watch into a mini phone strapped to their wrist, letting every notification steal their focus drop by drop.
Here's what actually works: Turn OFF everything – Start with zero notifications. It feels weird at first, but trust the process. Add back only essentials – For me? Calendar alerts. That's it. Sometimes Uber notifications when I'm actually waiting for a ride, but I turn those back off immediately after.
Key Insights:
Silent alarms are the real productivity hack - use vibrating alerts for task transitions throughout your day. For example, set alarms for gym departure, desk time warnings, and bedtime prep to eliminate decision fatigue.
Sleep tracking reveals productivity killers you didn't know existed. One person discovered their 3 AM wake-ups they weren't aware of; another found their evening wine was destroying their deep sleep.
Start with zero notifications and add back only essentials. Every unnecessary buzz is an "energy vampire" stealing your focus - most people need nothing more than calendar alerts.
Read the full article for the complete 8-step action plan to transform your smartwatch from distraction device to productivity multiplier.
💻 Tools & Technology
Obviously you schedule time to read this newsletter from top to bottom (😉) BUT that doesn't mean every newsletter is so helpful to your productivity or revenue bottom line. Sometimes we enter an email address here and one there, and suddenly we have 587 unread messages, and we have no idea how. Enter this new awesome feature from Gmail. Check it out!
With the new 'Manage subscriptions' view, you'll find your active subscriptions sorted by the most frequent senders alongside the number of emails they've sent you in the past few weeks. Click on any of the senders for a direct view of all the emails they've sent. Easily unsubscribe in one click, and Gmail will send an unsubscribe request to the sender on your behalf.
Key Insights:
Access this feature through the navigation bar in the top-left corner of your inbox - select "Manage subscriptions" to see all your email subscriptions sorted by frequency.
Gmail shows exactly how many emails each sender has sent you recently, making it easy to spot the worst offenders cluttering your inbox.
One-click unsubscribe actually works now - Gmail sends the unsubscribe request on your behalf, so you don't have to navigate confusing unsubscribe pages.
Read the full article for details on Gmail's additional AI-based defenses that cut scam emails by 35% and availability across web, Android, and iOS platforms.
🤖 AI
Remember when "enterprise-grade AI" meant remortgaging your house to afford it? Perplexity just crashed that exclusive party with their new Comet browser. As someone who made Perplexity their default browser months ago and is now deep into Labs, Spaces, and Deep Research features, this announcement has me on the edge of my seat (and the waiting list).
Imagine a tool that not only helps you navigate the web but also takes care of the tedious, repetitive tasks that eat away at your time—like summarizing articles, organizing your calendar, or even managing your grocery lists. Bold claim? Perhaps. But the Perplexity AI Comet browser is here to challenge the limits of what a browser can do. By merging the familiar interface of Google Chrome with innovative AI-driven automation, Comet promises to redefine productivity and transform how we interact with the digital world.
Key Insights:
Comet is built on Chrome's foundation, so you can import all your existing settings, bookmarks, and extensions seamlessly - no starting from scratch or losing your carefully curated setup.
AI agents handle the grunt work automatically. For example, they can summarize articles while you browse, manage social media interactions, or integrate directly with Google Calendar for scheduling.
Performance improvements are real - faster page loads and smoother multi-tab management, especially crucial when you're juggling resource-intensive tasks across multiple windows.
Read the full article for video demonstrations of Comet's capabilities, its current limitations like task execution inconsistencies, and whether this AI-first browser lives up to its ambitious promises.
🎉 Celebration Corner
Every week Doers Inner Circle members do a weekly review & get help when they need it — check out the progress they made this week!
2 clients which I had not heard of for a long time came back with big jobs.
Worked on goals on my list and made progress .
It is always a success to complete work with good quality and generate repeat business on better project.
What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!
🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements
Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 1️⃣ Strategy & Mission RSVP here
Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: 1️⃣ Strategy & Mission RSVP here
Wednesday: Book Club — How to Be Everything RSVP here
Monday/Friday: Goal Setting + Plan Your Week Party
Accelerators: July 25 is your Monthly Goal Setting Workshop RSVP here
We will soon be adding Referral Perks — Refer now to start earning! 👇
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I hope you found this valuable!
Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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