PRODUCTIVITY TIPS FOR MICROSOFT OFFICE
If you’re like most people, you use Microsoft Office on a daily basis. It’s integrated into much of what you do — from word processing to spreadsheets to presentations. But when you’re strapped for time and want to take a few shortcuts to boost productivity, where should you start?
There are dozens of shortcuts in Microsoft Office products. Learning a few easy ones and using them on a daily basis will help shave minutes off your hours — and all those minutes add up fast. Here are a few to test out.
Fast shortcuts
All those mouse clicks and that menu dragging eat up time. It might not seem like much, but when you think about how frequently those delays occur, it’s more time than you think. Here are a few quick shortcuts you can use in a variety of Microsoft Office products, from Word to Excel to PowerPoint:
Ctrl + C: Copy text
Ctrl + X: Cut text
Ctrl + V: Paste text
Ctrl + Z: Undo
Calendar and email shortcuts
Ctrl + R: Reply to an email
Alt + R: Reply to all in an email
Alt + S: Send an email
There are also many email shortcuts that help you sort, filter, categorize and otherwise organize your inbox. Here are a few highlights:
Set your notifications for only the most important emails. Nothing kills productivity faster than the constant notification “ping” of emails. But you don’t want to miss anything important. In Outlook, you can customize your desktop notifications for only VIP messages.
First, turn off all desktop alerts under “Mail Options.” You can then create a rule that triggers alerts for only specific email addresses.
Start using email templates. Many people are writing the same responses to emails. So the next time you write an email, ask yourself, could this be a template? If the answer is yes, go to “File,” then “Save As” and choose the Outlook template. To use the template, simply go to “New Items” and “Close Form” to look in your user Templates in File System. Find the specific template that you saved and you’re good to go.
Leverage Outlook to track your time. If you click on the left navigation pane’s “More” button, you can view the “Journal” icon. From here, you can select from contacts and meeting requests to track your time. After this is set up, you can view a time line and log all events, which is a great tool for people who need to invoice clients or just want to see how their time is being spent.
Do you have questions? If so, please contact CMIT Solutions of Stamford at 203-595-9091 today.
