|
|
Last December, Priacta offered free enrollment in Total Relaxed Organization, their online time management course, so I signed up, and worked on the lessons over the Christmas holidays. It changed the way I work, and almost three months later, I'm still using the techniques that I learned. The course is based on Getting Things Done, and helps you clear up your workspace and organize your tasks. You can customize the course for the PDA or smart phone that you use, and your preferred task list. I chose Outlook (Excel wasn't an option) and Blackberry. The course is in three parts: Prinicples and Preparation Collecting and Organizing Processing, Reviewing, Doing The lessons were well organized, and clearly written, with a navigation pane at the left, and lesson content on the right. The site records the time you spend on the online course, and it took me about 10
Continue reading 10 Hours to an Organized Office
Did you know that you can create a new Outlook email message by dragging some text off of an existing message? I discovered this tip by accident, but it would be useful if you're sending an email to someone, and a slightly different version to someone else. To create a new email from existing text: Create or open an email message in Outlook Select the text that you want to copy to a new email Drag the text onto one of the Outlook folders visible in the background. A new email message is created, with the selected text from the old message. _________________________
Recently, while working on a small worksheet in Excel 2007, I tried to insert a new row. Up popped an annoying error message, “Cannot shift objects off sheet.” I couldn't insert a new row, and had to drag things around, to get the new data inserted.
Keep reading, to see how I investigated the problem, and fixed it with a simple keyboard shortcut.
Change the Object Properties
In older versions of Excel, this problem usually occurred if you tried to insert columns and there was a comment hidden in one of the columns to the right. To fix the problem, you could change the properties of the comment box, so it would move with the cells.
View a List of Objects
It was odd – as far as I knew, the worksheet didn’t have any objects or comments, and only a few rows. What was causing the problem?
Continue reading Cannot Shift Objects Off Sheet in Excel 2007
In Excel 2003, you can add a couple of buttons to the toolbar to make it easy to filter a table. For example, in the table below, the East region is selected. With one click of a button, and no programming, you can add an AutoFilter and filter the table to show only the East region orders. Thanks to Roger Govier for sharing this tip.
[Update: For Excel 2007 instructions, see Easy Filtering in Excel 2007]
Add Buttons to the Toolbar
You can add two buttons to the toolbar, to make filtering easy. One button will filter the table for the selected item, and the other button will show all the records.
To add the buttons:
On the menu bar, click Tools, then click Customize. In the Customize dialog box, click the Commands tab. Click the Data category, then drag the AutoFilter command to an existing toolbar. Drag the
Continue reading AutoFilter By Selection In Excel
Moved to the Excel Twitters archive: Excel Twitters 20090314
It’s Friday, and things are slow at the office. To liven things up, you could create bingo cards in Excel, and organize a game during the lunch hour.
In this example, there are three cards, each with a set of random numbers. You’ll need one of those numbered ball popper machines though, or create a number selector in Excel.
Make Lists of Random Numbers
To generate the random numbers, there are three sets of lists on the Numbers sheet. In each set, there are typed numbers 1-75, with the formula =RAND() in the adjacent column.
Add Random Numbers On Cards
On the three bingo cards, an INDEX/MATCH formula pulls the numbers from the random number tables. For example, this formula is used in cell E2:
=INDEX(Numbers!$M$1:$M$15,MATCH(LARGE( Numbers!$N$1:$N$15,ROW()-1),Numbers!$N$1:$N$15,0))
The same number might appear on all three cards, but each card uses
Continue reading Create Bingo Cards in Excel
If you're working on a big worksheet, you might want to see as many rows as possible. The Excel 2007 Ribbon uses about an inch of space at the top of the worksheet, and if you're just entering or editing data, you probably don't need to use the Ribbon commands. You can temporarily minimize the Ribbon, so it only uses a bit of space, and that will make room for a few more rows in the Excel window. Minimize or Restore the Ribbon To minimize the Ribbon, double-click on the active tab. To restore the Ribbon, so the commands are visible, double-click on the active tab. Close Excel One more mouse shortcut, while you're using the Ribbon -- To close Excel, double-click the Office Button, at the top left of the Ribbon. If unsaved files are open, you may be prompted to save the changes.
Continue reading Minimize the Excel 2007 Ribbon
If you spend long hours working at your computer, with only an occasional jaunt to the lunch room, you might benefit from Twittercize. Ron Doyle is a Denver-based freelance writer who posts short exercises in Twitter, and they're designed for you to do in a minute or so at your desk. During the workday, he posts about one tip per hour. For example, Dilberts: Sit upright, cross arms at chest, contract stomach muscles. Bow forward like you're banging your head on your desk! 30 times slow! or Hulk Hogans: Elbows up, hands at your heart, pull back like Hulk ripping a yellow tank top! Squeeze those shoulder blades 30 times! Twittercize is free and much easier than getting out to the gym for a workout, although there's a disclaimer that you should consult your physician before starting any exercise program. You can follow Ron in Twitter at twitter.com/twittercize. For
Continue reading Tiny Workouts at Your Desk
An important step in setting up my new laptop is figuring out what's on my old laptop. To get a complete list of installed programs, plus details on hardware, installed security updates, and other details, you can use the free program, Belarc Advisor. Download and install the program, then run it to audit your computer. The results show up in your web browser, although all the details are stored on your computer, not uploaded to the web. The web page shows your overall audit score, virus protection information, and the status of all Microsoft Security Updates. _______________________
I'm setting up my new laptop, and plan to copy my bookmarks from the old laptop. Before I copy them, I'll clear out the dead links, to tidy things up a bit. There's no point in copying useless data to the new machine. If you'd like to do this on your machine, you can use the free utility AM-Deadlink. It finds dead links and duplicate links in your list of browser bookmarks. It's easy to install and use, and takes only a couple of minutes to check my bookmarks (about 1700). Then I sort the list by error number, and delete any 404 pages. You can also use AM-Deadlink to create backup files for the bookmarks. ___________________________
Continue reading Clear Dead Links From Your Bookmarks
|
|
Recent Comments