Laughing all the Way to Work

MARCH 15, 2009

.© Copyright Patricia Robb 2010 15 March, 2009 When you need it later: The Bring-Forward System My boss likes me to keep him organized and the way I do that is to have a system to bring forward items, which I then bring to his attention when he needs to see it. The system I use is quite simple and has been around for a long time.

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MARCH 27, 2008

Home About Me Advertise 4 Steps to Setting up E-mail Distribution Lists By The Professional Assistant on Thursday, March 27, 2008 Filed Under: MS-Outlook , Organize , Productivity D o you find yourself having to write each persons e-mail address over and over again for certain e-mails ? All e-mail distribution lists are bolded.

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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.

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OCTOBER 29, 2008

Did your boss just decide to install it on his/her system and yours then told you, "Read the manual, were going to be using this from now on"? 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. as your client relationship manager (CRM)?

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NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Categories Client Service (23) Ergonomics (6) Job Seeking (20) Meetings (43) MS-Access (8) MS-Excel (23) MS-Outlook (34) MS-PowerPoint (11) MS-Word (22) Networking (27) Office Gossip (18) Organize (91) Prioritize (42) Productivity (202) Research (7) System Security (16) Travel (20) The Archives The Archives July 2010 (4) June 2010 (4) November 2009 (..)

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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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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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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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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.

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DECEMBER 13, 2007

Home About Me Advertise 4 Easy Steps to Finding Old E-mails By The Professional Assistant on Thursday, December 13, 2007 Filed Under: MS-Outlook , Organize , Productivity , System Security D o you have trouble sifting through hundreds or even thousands of e-mails ? If it isnt, click on it and a new toolbar will pop up.

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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.

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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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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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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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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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NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Creating a filing system can be tricky, as you need to know exactly how to file your files and what type of information you would need to be able to access quickly. One of my readers asks: I am trying to organize a file room based not on traditional alphabetical filing, but on a retrieval system. as you mentioned in your question.

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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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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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MARCH 3, 2008

Hopefully, not too many of you were affected by the email system outages yesterday. It’s a reminder to all of us that depending on one system alone works fine, right up until the time that it doesn’t. In this case, commercial email services were affected, but the next time it could be your server at work.

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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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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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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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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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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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SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I am able to get a confirmation from the automated system to let me know that the reservation has been made with all of the details that I need. So next time you want to make a reservation via phone, hang it up and try OpenTable.com instead! Subscribe to The Professional Assistant feeds or get posts e-mailed directly to you today.

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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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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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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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

OCTOBER 21, 2008

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

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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.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

If they try to call you, they can be fined up to $15,000.00. Keep in mind that it telemarketers have 31 days to take you off of their list and you have to re-register your numbers every three years, but it’s worth the small effort. You can find the National Do Not Call Registry for the US here.

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