Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Most Recent Questions How to Deal with Inconsiderate Co-Workers Administrative Procedures Manual - Does Your Department Need One? Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party? Retrieve Your Files with Ease Is You Boss Not Giving You Enough Work?

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Microsoft Excel 2007 Google Docs Cubicle 100

Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Your boss calls you up and tells you that you need to add an agenda to this meeting, but you don’t want everyone to get the meeting request again and have to accept/decline it. To do this, open up your scheduled meeting in the calendar that you are using and click on “Forward as iCalendar&#. I'm going to try this.

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Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 19, 2007

Do they end up talking loud on the phone while you are trying to do some work? Are you being bombarded with people walking up to your cubicle and dont have the decency to see that you are busy? Heres an article I found on this issue, which shows quite a few peoples e-mails about some of these very problems.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 7, 2009

You actually end up thinking that you are working harder, yet you are reducing your productivity by about 30%. Thats quite a bit of work that you could be catching up on throughout your day, each and every day. Then I would open up the applications associated with the next task. Believe it or not, this can lower productivity.

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Professional Assistant Blog

FEBRUARY 18, 2008

Home About Me Advertise 6 Easy Steps to a Better Work-Life Balance By The Professional Assistant on Monday, February 18, 2008 Filed Under: Ergonomics , Organize , Prioritize , Productivity D o you find that you are working way too much ? Even if it’s 5 minutes here and there, it does add up. Try to squeeze it in where you can.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Your colleague or boss calls or comes up to you exactly 2 minutes later and asks if youve read it. You think to yourself, "What?!? Is this person crazy?!?" Has this ever happened to you? I am sure most of you are nodding your heads as you are reading this. Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party?

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2009

Visit Travel Zoo for the most up-to-date best deals you can find on the internet. I originally wrote a post on this entitled " Travel Plans " explaining that you can use Travelocity and Expedia to find the best deals. Theres even a better site that helps you find the best deals on these and other airlines, hotels and car rental agencies.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JULY 24, 2008

When e-mails come in and you have set up your colors, you will notice that you have prioritized them by color. This will show up in red, since I know I have to get to this one first, before I can even touch any other one. Then I have my faxes set up as green. Now you have a new prioritization system set up.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 31, 2008

Then a bunch of co-workers show up in costumes. Do you like to dress up in fancy or scary costumes for this occasion? Do you want to dress up at the office, but not sure what to wear or if you even can? You dont want to end up at work and be the only one wearing a costume. What are you dressing up as? What a sight!

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Professional Assistant Blog

FEBRUARY 21, 2008

By The Professional Assistant on Thursday, February 21, 2008 Filed Under: Client Service , Meetings , Productivity Y ou’re walking around the office and someone comes up to you, asking for a pen. Home About Me Advertise Do You Have a Pen? You search your pockets and realize that you don’t have one. Has this ever happened to you?

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Professional Assistant Blog

AUGUST 13, 2008

Do you follow particular religious holidays, but arent showing up in your calendar? In this case, I dont have to worry about taking extra days off, since I dont really follow the religious holidays that I was brought up with, which in turn, are part of the regular holidays that come up each year.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JULY 17, 2009

Then you finally do reach a live person and you are so fed up with all of the time wasted, that you start fuming towards the person on the other end of the phone. Now put yourself in that persons shoes. Imagine that you were on the receiving end of the conversation. Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party?

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Professional Assistant Blog

JULY 14, 2009

They forget to do their own flight check-in and dont have time, so they call you up and ask you to do it. You search around to find the best deal (check out Travel Links on the right side of this blog for some suggestions) and book what your boss needed. The time finally comes when your boss is flying out to that all important business trip.

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Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 15, 2007

You can find instructions to setting up this software here and the software download page here. Heres a free piece of software that was recently released that can do just that. In the near future, Blackberries, Apple iCals and many different types of phones will be supported on this software as well.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 21, 2008

There are some companies that, unfortunately, don’t allow for purchases such as stationary , fax machines , toner , etc. to be obtained from outside sources, other than the specified and approved vendors that have been set up. Since I work for a large corporation, this is my case as well.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 28, 2008

Do you have a big project coming up and want to show your boss that you can handle this type of task ? Home About Me Advertise Copying Pictures To and From Microsoft Word By The Professional Assistant on Monday, January 28, 2008 Filed Under: MS-Word , Productivity H ave you ever wondered how to copy pictures from and to Microsoft Word ?

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 23, 2008

Do you already have a table set up in Microsoft Word, but dont want to copy to Microsoft Excel and back again, just to sort it? One of my colleagues came to me and asked about this very question. I wasnt sure if this was possible, but fiddled around on Google a bit and found that it is possible.

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Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel Google Docs 2008 100

Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 26, 2007

You can post up to 80 different job sites, such as Workopolis , Monster , CareerBuilder and many more, just with one submission. By The Professional Assistant on Monday, November 26, 2007 Filed Under: Job Seeking A re you worried about online identity theft online? Resume Rabbit will make all of this disappear.

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 10, 2007

Home About Me Advertise Common Courtesy in the Workplace By The Professional Assistant on Monday, September 10, 2007 Filed Under: Organize , Productivity D o you always end up cleaning up after your colleagues? Do you neatly put all labels, papers, etc. on the printer table and then a few minutes later, you come back to a messy area?

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Home About Me Advertise Cover Your Tracks: E-mail Archiving By The Professional Assistant on Friday, September 05, 2008 Filed Under: MS-Outlook , Organize , Productivity , System Security D o you back up your e-mails in Microsoft Outlook ? There are two ways of backing up your e-mails. Are you familiar with this?

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Microsoft Outlook 2008 2007 Cubicle 100

Professional Assistant Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2007

Does your boss come up to you and ask you to find information on an e-mail that youve received and needs it yesterday? If it isnt, click on it and a new toolbar will pop up. A new window will pop up with results that will populate as the system retrieves this information. Then click on Options, Advanced Find.

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 23, 2008

Whether you need help fixing up that company website, proofreading a report that your boss needs right away or even compiling reports that your boss gave you today and is asking for you to complete it yesterday. Hiring a freelancer can have great benefits. Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party?

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 4, 2008

Do you have trouble using the text box feature to place anchored text where you prefer, so that it shows up in a particular area of the page? Using text boxes can be a little tricky, since there are quite a few features that it comes with. Microsoft Word has quite a lot of features, even some that I don’t know and are still exploring.

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Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 29, 2007

A large number of people that wake up in the morning need their coffee to jump start their mornings and help them throughout the day. By The Professional Assistant on Thursday, November 29, 2007 Filed Under: Productivity D o you feel like you need a coffee fix every day? Can you really survive your morning without that cup of Joe?

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

By The Professional Assistant on Monday, September 08, 2008 Filed Under: Organize , Prioritize , Productivity D o you wake up in the morning and think to yourself, "What do I have to do today? Rushing through your work will only create mistakes and you will end up doing the same task twice. This will help you get to your goal faster.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 31, 2007

There are times when people come up to me and expect things to be done right away. Home About Me Advertise Tips on Handling Deadlines By The Professional Assistant on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 Filed Under: Organize , Prioritize , Productivity D o you hate deadlines? Apparently, everyone comes to me all at the same time.

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 29, 2008

In one of my previous jobs, when I was working for an Investment Advisor, he gave me the installation CD-ROM and asked me to read up on how to use it. I am sure that this will beef up your productivity with the system. This same thing happened to me as well as one of my readers. Whats next?

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Professional Assistant Blog

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Set up the preferences for yourself for one hour and click start. When the hour has passed, a pop up window will show telling you that your time is up. Virtual Stopwatch gives you the option to set a predetermined amount of time. For example, you want to spend one hour on a particular project.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 11, 2008

Are you worried that you might put things up that are not appropriate for the office? By The Professional Assistant on Friday, January 11, 2008 Filed Under: Organize , Productivity D o you want to decorate your cubicle/office? I recently had someone ask me how they should go about decorating their cubicle.

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Professional Assistant Blog

NOVEMBER 21, 2007

If you are more of a person who likes to use Outlook for reminders to pop up a few minutes, hours or days before the task needs to be completed or you need to attend a meeting, here are some tips on how to go about it: Write up the task in your Outlook, but make sure to give yourself enough time to be able to complete the task.

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

So next time you want to make a reservation via phone, hang it up and try OpenTable.com instead! I even keep particular restaurants that I have to make reservations for on a regular basis in my Favourites on my browser. Subscribe to The Professional Assistant feeds or get posts e-mailed directly to you today.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 2, 2008

Ill leave it up to you to figure out, but remember that the higher ups are always watching you. I am one of these people (at times). The only difference is that I only surf the net during my break times, which you should not be doing during work time. Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party?

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Professional Assistant Blog

SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

Now only the subtotal rows will show up, instead of all of the details in between. I sometimes go onto my blog to look up stuff that I've added, since I tend to forget things at times. Click Special. Click Visible cells only and click OK. Click Edit, Copy or CTRL+C to copy. Open a new workbook and then click Edit, Paste or CTRL+V.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 10, 2008

It happens each and every year, even if you end up getting the flu shot. If youre feeling well enough to be able to work from home (telecommuting), an alternative would be to ask your IT department to set you up with VPN (virtual private network) access. It all depends on how your IT department sets you up.

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Professional Assistant Blog

MARCH 10, 2008

In my weekly recap last Friday I pointed out a Lifehack.org article arguing that the current climate for hyper-productivity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Then yesterday I came across a similar post , claiming that the pursuit of productivity has ended up out of control.

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Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 31, 2008

Most Recent Questions How to Deal with Inconsiderate Co-Workers Administrative Procedures Manual - Does Your Department Need One? Having Trouble Planning A "Non-Religious" Office Party? Retrieve Your Files with Ease Is You Boss Not Giving You Enough Work?

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Microsoft Outlook Etiquette 2008 Google Docs 100

Professional Assistant Blog

JANUARY 22, 2008

Then you end up going back and forth to try to figure out what works for everyone. They either block off time that they shouldn’t have or they block it off so that it either shows that they’re busy, but really out of the office or vice versa. Imagine if you had a large number of people doing this.

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Microsoft Outlook Calendars 2008 Google Docs 100