How I use Gemini
Gemini is my favorite AI, which I use almost every day.
For someone like me, who puts everything—emails, files, and schedules—into Google, this was the perfect fit.
There is one reason for this: it connects directly to other Google apps. Today, I will write about how to use it, step by step. Once you finish reading, you will probably want to try it yourself.
Why Gemini?
With other AIs, you have to copy and paste content from emails or files to get them to read it. That is quietly tedious.
Gemini is an AI created by Google. That is why it is seamlessly integrated with Gmail, Drive, and Calendar from the start. The task of "pasting" is unnecessary in the first place. This is the biggest appeal for me.
1. Have it read the contents of Gmail directly
Side hustle communications are scattered across various emails, aren't they?
You can ask Gemini things like, "Summarize only the agreed-upon conditions from past emails with this client." The trick is to include the word "email" in your prompt.
It will then go and read your Gmail for you and pull out the key points. The time I used to spend scrolling through my inbox to find things has completely disappeared.
*You only need to log in to Gemini with your Google account once at the beginning and turn on the app integration settings. It takes about 3 clicks.
2. Have it summarize Google Drive documents in 5 minutes
When I was handed long PDFs or documents, I used to exhaust myself by skimming through them.
Now, there are two ways to do this.
In a Gemini chat, type "@Google Drive" -> select the file and say, "Give me only the key points and what I need to do."
Right-click a file in the Google Drive screen -> select "Summarize with Gemini"
I often use the latter. I can grasp the content without opening the file. A 10-page PDF can be understood—including "what I need to do"—in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.
3. Managing schedules is just a matter of talking or sending photos
Gemini also connects to your calendar.
If you type, "Schedule a meeting with so-and-so for next Wednesday at 3:00 PM," it will create the event. It can also answer, "When am I free this week?"
So, this is the feature I found most useful.
You can just take a photo of a schedule you received on paper with your smartphone and send it, and it will add it to your calendar.
Shift schedules distributed at work. Event schedules. Those printouts full of appointments that kids bring home from school. Manually entering those one by one is honestly a bit of a pain, isn't it?
Gemini can read the text in photos. So, you just snap a picture of the schedule and send it with the message, "Add these appointments to my calendar." With just that, it reads the dates and times written down and registers them all at once.
Ever since I learned this, I've started taking photos the moment I receive a paper. The "I'll enter it later" habit is gone. "Doing it later" usually means it never happens.
*Note: The reading isn't perfect, so it's better to take a quick look and confirm the dates and times once after they've been registered.
4. You can also consult on spreadsheets without building formulas
This is the way I've found most helpful recently.
"Summarize these sales by month and create a graph," or "Create a formula to calculate the total for this column." You don't have to build the functions yourself; it will handle both the calculations and the graphs for you.
I had always been very loose with managing my side-hustle sales. Since I started using this, I can finally see how much I earned last month in numbers and graphs. For someone like me who used to run away from managing money, this is a surprisingly big change.
In Google Docs, you can similarly consult the side panel to summarize long texts or create drafts.
*Note: This feature for spreadsheets is currently not available in the smartphone app. It's best to think of it as something to use on a computer.
5. Google Maps
When you type "@" in the Gemini input field, it shows a list of services you can connect to. This is effective not just for work, but for personal life as well.
If you say, "Find a highly-rated ramen shop near where I am now," it will search from your current location without you having to type in a place name.
I really love eating out, but when I looked up nearby restaurants, it was very tedious to check what kind of shop each one was, look at reviews, and check their websites one by one. But now, Gemini does it all in an instant, which is extremely helpful.
Summary
For me, Gemini is "the best partner for easily handling the contents of my Google account."
I use Claude for writing. I use Gemini for quick research and reading my own documents. Since I started dividing the roles, my head doesn't feel so cluttered anymore.
You don't have to do everything. First, try using the Gmail integration to summarize just one past email. I think you'll be a little impressed, thinking, "Oh, I don't have to search for it anymore."