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Please join me at the new location, so you can continue to get the daily tips. I appreciate your support!

Block Distractions with White Noise

Note: This blog has moved to http://blog.contextures.com. Please check there for new posts.

If you’re trying to work in a noisy environment, some white noise might help block out the distracting sounds. I work from home, with an office that faces the street. It’s usually quiet, but when the kids are out of school for the summer, things get a bit noisy sometimes.

If I’m trying to concentrate, I put on my headset and go to http://www.simplynoise.com/ for some white noise. There’s a slider that let’s me adjust the volume, and that’s it. Nothing to fiddle with, no choice of sounds, just simple noise, as promised.

After a couple of minutes I forget that I have the headset on, the outside sounds fade away, and I can focus on my work again.

Note: This blog has moved to http://blog.contextures.com. Please check there for new posts.

Customize Your Excel Toolbar

Note: This blog has moved to http://blog.contextures.com. Please check there for new posts.

In Excel 2003 and earlier versions, you can customize your toolbar. Add buttons for commands that you use frequently, to reduce the amount of time you spend digging through the menus and submenus. To make room, you can remove buttons that you never, or very rarely use.

In this example, you’ll customize the toolbar to add the Toggle Grid button:

1. On the Excel menu, click Tools, then click Customize.
2. Click the Commnds tab, then click on the Forms category.
3. Scroll to the end of the list of Commands, and find the Toggle Grid command.



4. Drag the command to one of your existing toolbars. You’ll see an I-beam that indicates where the button will be placed.



5. Close the Customize dialog box.

Now, to show or hide the worksheet gridlines, just click the Toggle Grid button. This is much quicker
than going to Tools ► Options, and changing the Gridlines setting on the View tab.

On my toolbar I’ve added buttons for:

• Paste Values (Edit Category)
• Record New Macro (Tools Category)
• Toggle Grid (Forms Category)
• Set Print Area (File Category)
• Lock Cell (Format Category)

and a few others. The Lock Cell button is really useful when I’m setting up data entry forms, and want
to lock and unlock parts of the worksheet.

Note: This blog has moved to http://blog.contextures.com. Please check there for new posts.

Create a New Message

To create a new message in Outlook, you probably click the New button in the Outlook toolbar.

If you’d like to save a few inches of mouse travelling, double-click on the empty space under the list of messages, as shown in the screen shot below. That will open a new message window for you.

If there’s no empty space at the bottom of the list, or if your hands are on the keyboard, press Ctrl + N to create a new message.

These shortcuts also work in the other areas of Outlook, such as Contacts, Tasks and Calendar.

Convert Measurements in Excel

Last weekend I set up a little spreadsheet in Excel to compare the cost of a trip in a rented RV versus a small car. The only gas consumption numbers I could find for the RV were in miles per gallon. Since we use the metric system here in Canada, I needed to convert everything to kilometres and litres.

Fortunately, Excel has a CONVERT worksheet function that makes the conversion easy. The only tricky part is remembering the codes for each type of unit. Most are intuitive, such as ft for foot and g for gram, but a few aren’t, like lbm for pound mass.

To calculate how many litres are in a gallon, I used the formula:
=CONVERT(1, “gal”,”l”)

In the formula, gal is the code for gallon, and l (lower case L) is the code for litre. And yes, it’s way more expensive to make the trip in an RV.

Get to the Point in Twitter

I recently signed up for Twitter, to see what all the fuss is about. A few anti-Twitter bloggers have recently posted positive articles, saying it’s a good way to learn new things and connect with different people. So I took the plunge.

To start, I found those bloggers, and a few internet marketing types, and followed their posts, err, tweets. After a couple of days, a few of them were too yakety, so I un-followed them. I found a few interesting links, and food for thought, but it was all a bit confusing and headache inducing.

Twitter has a search box for name or location, but that only searches the bios, which are very short. So how do you find relevant conversations, or interesting people? Are there more Excel people in there, or Microsoft employees with juicy information to share? Do you just stagger through the hallways until you bump into them?

Today I found Summize, a Twitter search site that should make things easier. Type in a keyword or two, and it produces a list of tweets that contain the keyword. From there you can follow the conversation, or check the person’s profile. Now I have to find this conversation – it looks promising!

Are You Hands Free?

Many of us have cell phones that we use hands free while on the road. When you get back to your desk, are you still hands free?

When I’m at my desk and talking to a client on the phone, I’m usually looking at a spreadsheet or database, to help my client with a question. A few years ago I bought a headset for my office phone, and couldn’t live without it now. It felt funny at first, but I got used to it within a couple of days.

Now I can work on the computer without sustaining a neck injury from wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder. I have a Plantronics headset, similar to the one shown below, but there are many brands and varieties, so you might find something that’s more comfortable for you.

Prevent Links From Breaking

I have a secure upload site, and often send the link to my clients, so they can upload a large file for me to work on. Because the address is long, the link sometimes wraps in the email, and doesn’t work when the recipient clicks on it.

To prevent this problem, you can use a link compression site, such as http://tinyurl.com or my new favourite, http://is.gd (Now I only have to type 4 letters, instead of 10!)

1. Copy the long address, by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C
2. Go to the link compression site, and follow the instructions.
3. Copy the short address, and paste it into your email.

Note: These shorter addresses are also handy if you’re using Twitter, which has a 140 character limit.

What’s Your Response Time?

How do you get any work done when the phone keeps ringing and the email alert dings every few minutes?

When I’m in the middle of an Excel programming project, I need to concentrate, or I lose time and momentum. To help reduce the distractions I turn off the email alerts and unplug the phone, then focus on the project for a few uninterrupted hours. It’s amazing how much I can get done!

My clients know that I’m frequently unavailable, either out at meetings, or working away from the phone. If they leave a message or send an email, I’ll respond within 24 hours. On those rare occasions that I’m away for a few days, my voice mail gives my return date, so people know when to expect a reply.

In Take Back Your Life, Sally McGhee suggests adding a response time to your voice mail and your email signature. You’ll get more done because you can focus on your work, then respond to phone calls and emails once or twice during the day.

Even Word Has a Calculator

Yesterday I mentioned the Windows Calculator and Google Calculator. Did you know that Word has a calculator too? To use it, you can add a button to a Word toolbar, then select numbers, and click the Calculator button, to see the total.

To add the button to a Word toolbar:

1. In Word, click the Tools menu, and click on Customize
2. Click the Commands tab, and click the Tools category.
3. Scroll down the list of commands, to find Tools Calculate
4. Drag that button to one of your Word toolbars.
5. To show a picture, instead of the text, right-click on the button in the toolbar
6. Click on Default Style
7. Right-click on the button again, and click on Change Button Image
8. Click on the Calculator icon.
   
9. Close the Customize dialog box

To use the Calculator button:

1. Select a column or list of numbers in Word, or type and select a formula, such as 19*10/14.
2. Click on the Calculator button.
3. Look in the Status Bar, at the bottom left of the Word window, to see the result . The total is also automatically copied to the clipboard, so you can paste it in Word, or somewhere else.