Working Smarter
March 20, 2009
If you give me a choice between working smarter and working harder, I’ll take working smarter every time. Businesses that promote software and tools to streamline your efficiency are big business, for good reason. But finding worthwhile business tools can be a bit tricky.
Hidden Office Gems
One tool that can help you work smarter is most likely sitting on your hard drive right now, Microsoft Office. I use Microsoft Word daily, hourly, obsessively. The grammar and spelling checker is one of the best available, and overall, the program is easy to work with. To be honest, I bought Office just to get Word. Excel, Access, Power Point… those were just taking up space on my computer. Sure, I’d poked around a little when I first got them, and I had a vague sense that they could do much more, but was never motivated to take the time to learn what each program was capable of.
I recently finished a college course on advanced Excel and Access functions, and was I surprised at what these programs can do! I canceled my subscription to Freshbooks, gave away my Freelance management program, and streamlined my daily tasks enough to sneak in a nap in the afternoons (or a few minutes of quality time with a good novel). With an investment of a few minutes of my time I set up custom invoices, a database of my regular clients, a streamlined email list, custom reports and graphs, and a financial analysis of my business income- all in less time than I would normally spend managing paperwork with my old system.
Excel Features
Did you know that Excel can:
- Automatically find inconsistencies in your spreadsheets
- Import and export data to and from other Microsoft programs like Outlook, Word, and Power Point
- Sort data without altering the original information
- Perform complex calculations like displaying the names of employees eligible for a 401K program with the requirements of more than one year of employment, less than $200,000 yearly salary, and full time status
- Add long columns of figures without errors
- Record repetitive functions to be performed with a single click
- Calculate loan payments
- Figure the amount of interest and principal paid each month
- Determine the break even point for your business
- Figure the best possible price for a product or service based on your operating costs
Microsoft Office online has pre-made Excel spreadsheets for popular tasks like balancing your checkbook, creating a budget, tracking grades, and planning events. I even created a special Excel workbook for analyzing keyword profitability.
Access Discoveries
Entering customer information into Access was quick and painless with the import feature that took my information straight from my Outlook address book. In a matter of minutes, I was able to create custom invoices and generate reports such as outstanding payments and projects due in the next week. The switch-over was quick and painless and produced professional quality results.
It may seem like a no-brainer, but I was really pleased to find a few hidden gems already in my software library. Microsoft offers online classes for Office products, and your local library carries lengthy manuals covering all the simple and complex functions of each program if you’d like to learn to take advantage of your Office programs.
If you’ve discovered other hidden gems to help you work smarter, please drop me a line in an email or in the comments below. I could really use a few extra minutes to work on my fiction writing. 
Comments
-
Jamie Simmerman
-
Davina
-
Laurie
