At times there are emails I receive that I can’t unsubscribe to but I don’t want/need to review them. If you receive emails that you can’t stop but don’t want to see, a solution would be to create a rule in Outlook to move those emails to your Deleted Items automatically.
Read MoreI love to read and listen to audiobooks. We have a library of books at our house. We use Audible to buy new audiobooks. I visit my local library regularly to check out books there or use the Libby app to check out audio or e-books. I’m pretty much always digesting a good book, and I read quite a few every year. At some point in my reading journey, I noticed I would be at the library, and I would have a hard time remembering if I had already checked out some of the books I was interested in. Goodreads stopped that problem for me.
Read MoreBelieve it or not, back to school season is upon us. In our house, summer tends to be a time of less activities and coming and going places as we please. But when school starts, we go back to needing to be more intentional about when we arrive and leave places (like school). And since there are distinct start and end times for events, we have to get back into the habit of creating time buffers for ourselves.
Read MoreI’ve often experienced the phenomenon that I’m struggling with something in my life; and then all of the sudden, I’ll listen to a podcast or read a book or hear a conversation that answers that very question for me. I hope that this blog is occasionally that beacon of light for someone else.
Read MoreIf you’re anything like me, checklists provide a sense of calm. There are a number of checklists that I have developed and maintain in my life in order to systemize repeated actions that I need to take that have multiple steps or items to consider. One of the checklists that I use over and over again is my packing list.
Read MoreIf you find yourself hunting for a button in any Microsoft program, add the button to the Quick Access Toolbar to save yourself some time.
Read MoreHave you ever wished to change the time scale in your Outlook calendar? Outlook usually defaults a single unit in the calendar section to 30 minutes. But this can easily be adjusted.
Read MoreThere’s a handy shortcut called New Items in Outlook that can save you some clicks every day.
Read MoreWhen working at a medium to large firm, it’s not uncommon for the company to have preset email contact groups. There may be a contact group for all employees of the firm, for all employees in each regional office, for all managers, for specific teams, etc. You can also create your own personalized email contact groups in Outlook.
Read MoreA wonderful policy I have adopted in my life is being specific with my praise. Instead of saying a generic good job, I add details of what I specifically appreciate or admire about the people in my sphere.
Read MoreIn a recent blog post, I talked about my previous job when I had to coordinate multiple calendars in order to schedule meetings and events. Another function in Outlook that made my job easier when comparing multiple calendars was the Overlay feature.
Read MoreAre you constantly running late for time commitments? Do you ever feel on your heels regarding your calendar? A habit that I use to eliminate worrying about my time commitments is setting phone alarms to guide me through my day.
Read MoreIn a previous job, there were often times when I needed to coordinate a date that would work for 10 or more people. I had viewing access to see each of their calendars just by clicking a button in Outlook. If you’ve worked with many calendars like this, you know that once you click around 4 or 5 different calendars, Outlook switches from a vertical layout of the calendar (where time is listed at the left-hand side of the calendar screen) to a schedule view (where time is listed at the top of the screen).
Read MoreSummer is almost upon us. In many industries, summer is often a bit less hectic than the rest of the year. If you find some extra time on your hands at work, I have a great suggestion for how to fill your work time that will benefit you and those around you: write positive reviews for your colleagues.
Read MoreDo you receive emailed newsletters, offers, and other marketing materials from sources that you never read? I know I do. When emails from new sources show up, sometimes they’ll catch my eye. But pretty quickly I can figure out if I’ll ever read or utilize the information. I often personally forget that instead of deleting these emails over and over again, day after day, I can simply unsubscribe to them instead.
Read MoreHave you ever had a task or project that you needed multiple days to complete? For projects that will take multiple days to complete, you want to be kind to your future self and leave notes along the way.
Read MoreLast week, my blog post was about using the SHIFT + DELETE keys to permanently delete items in your Microsoft Outlook Inbox. If you start getting really good at this, your fingers will sometimes move faster than your conscious thought. So fast that you might accidentally permanently delete an email that you didn’t want to actually delete. Don’t worry, the email can be recovered.
Read MoreIf you’re using Microsoft Outlook and simply delete an email from your Inbox, you know that the email then moves to your Deleted Items. And if you’re someone like I am who clears out your Deleted Items as well, then you’d have to delete that one email two times to make it disappear. This is inefficient. Until I introduce you to the magic of SHIFT + DELETE.
Read MoreIn our training sessions, we teach people how to utilize their tasks and calendars to make order in their lives and save time. Often students in the beginning stages realize just how bad they are with time math.
Read MoreIn our training sessions with clients, we teach people how to be the architects of their time. When people start to adopt the systems that we teach, they often find that the time they anticipate they’ll need for a task is incorrect. How do we get better at estimating how long tasks will take? We can time them.
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