I've found a great new way of naming folders. I start with the first name because that's what the person will say when they phone. Then their location, then their job, then origin.
For example, JonLonITScot. So when I file, I look for the name on the end of the email. If I have two Johns, I can see which is which and memorize it.
So when John phones I can ask are you in London. If he says yes, I can then ask how's the IT world, or have you been back to Scotland recently.
Easy filing. Easy phone responses.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Tip 6 Organizing Your In Boxes And Emails
Sometimes you need a clean sweep of your emails and inboxes. (I admit I just wrote a new introduction to fit the best clipart illustration I could find, a broom! Unfortunately it has to be jpg for this site. When I solve this problem I'll load up the picture. Meanwhile, just think of a broom sweeping out your email box.)
The problem is that I have about 400 emails in both of my inboxes. Unfortunately today's vital information about the meeting time has disappeared.
You want to re-read the last email and sound positive before getting a phone call from your boss, dinner date or ex-husband.
Maybe your ever-efficient boss or ex is lost overseas. He knows where he is - but you don't - until you find his email. Was he in Shanghai or Taiwan?
My most efficient man told me I should never have more in my inbox than would fit on the screen.
If only I followed his example, I would be jetting around the world in first class hotels, running a business in half a dozen countries, instead of frittering my time away writing jolly blogs for you, dear.
Now you know why my husband and I don't live together for more than six and a half minutes. I'm forever trying to keep up with his example but he's already gone.
For example, my typical crisis: 'Help - where is today's vital email - are we meeting at 7.30 or 8 - where's his email?'
Do you ever have a last minute panic?
I do. I shouldn't. If I can organize a pupil doing A level English, make them a year plan for homework and revision, tell them to keep their homework file on the far right of the top bookshelf, I should be able to organize my own life.
And what is more important than the emails with the phone number of the person you are meeting today, and the venue?
Yes, the information should be copied into your diary. But you've had three phone calls and emails since the email confirmation. Where is it? Here's how I try to organize my email inboxes.
Dating Sites
If anybody is about to see me for lunch, dinner, the weekend, whatever, their latest email saying 'see you at six in Serenade Restaurant' stays in my inbox.
If my correspondent has gone quiet, or jetted off to Australia for 3 months, they are archived in a folder.
To prevent the emails being lost and forgotten I might add a reminder by re-labelling the folder, for example, NicktheNerdopeninOctober. If the system tells me that's too long a name for a folder, I shorter it to NicNerdOct.
Dating sites have their own problems and solutions. General emails have different systems.
General Emails
I find that anything taken out of the email inbox is likely to be forgotten.
Some important events get their own file. For example, Granny's80thparty.
I want my system to be clear to anybody else, so that if I fell and sprained my ankle and wrist and ended up in hospital or bed unable to reach the computer, I could tell a member of the family or visiting well-wisher where to find an email contact to cancel a meeting.
Similarly, your work email should be clear enough for somebody to take over. In case you are hospitalized, stranded overseas, or need to get a phone number.
You might change jobs but stay on good terms and want to be able to go back if the salary is increased, so you should leave things clear for whoever takes over your job.
In my g mail account the archived folders are alphabetical. Sometimes you have to decide whether to list under Jon Smith or Smith Company. If you want to file a daily bulletin, to save trawling to the end of the list, file under Jon Smith because J is earlier.
If the emails are rarer, keep them under Smith company. I sometimes end up with both labels. This doubles the number of files. You might consolidate and reduce it to one.
Or keep both going so that when Jon sends you Jon Smith emails you can find the folder fast. But when he sends you emails from Smith company you can find that, too.
Do you have any other systems?
The problem is that I have about 400 emails in both of my inboxes. Unfortunately today's vital information about the meeting time has disappeared.
You want to re-read the last email and sound positive before getting a phone call from your boss, dinner date or ex-husband.
Maybe your ever-efficient boss or ex is lost overseas. He knows where he is - but you don't - until you find his email. Was he in Shanghai or Taiwan?
My most efficient man told me I should never have more in my inbox than would fit on the screen.
If only I followed his example, I would be jetting around the world in first class hotels, running a business in half a dozen countries, instead of frittering my time away writing jolly blogs for you, dear.
Now you know why my husband and I don't live together for more than six and a half minutes. I'm forever trying to keep up with his example but he's already gone.
For example, my typical crisis: 'Help - where is today's vital email - are we meeting at 7.30 or 8 - where's his email?'
Do you ever have a last minute panic?
I do. I shouldn't. If I can organize a pupil doing A level English, make them a year plan for homework and revision, tell them to keep their homework file on the far right of the top bookshelf, I should be able to organize my own life.
And what is more important than the emails with the phone number of the person you are meeting today, and the venue?
Yes, the information should be copied into your diary. But you've had three phone calls and emails since the email confirmation. Where is it? Here's how I try to organize my email inboxes.
Dating Sites
If anybody is about to see me for lunch, dinner, the weekend, whatever, their latest email saying 'see you at six in Serenade Restaurant' stays in my inbox.
If my correspondent has gone quiet, or jetted off to Australia for 3 months, they are archived in a folder.
To prevent the emails being lost and forgotten I might add a reminder by re-labelling the folder, for example, NicktheNerdopeninOctober. If the system tells me that's too long a name for a folder, I shorter it to NicNerdOct.
Dating sites have their own problems and solutions. General emails have different systems.
General Emails
I find that anything taken out of the email inbox is likely to be forgotten.
Some important events get their own file. For example, Granny's80thparty.
I want my system to be clear to anybody else, so that if I fell and sprained my ankle and wrist and ended up in hospital or bed unable to reach the computer, I could tell a member of the family or visiting well-wisher where to find an email contact to cancel a meeting.
Similarly, your work email should be clear enough for somebody to take over. In case you are hospitalized, stranded overseas, or need to get a phone number.
You might change jobs but stay on good terms and want to be able to go back if the salary is increased, so you should leave things clear for whoever takes over your job.
In my g mail account the archived folders are alphabetical. Sometimes you have to decide whether to list under Jon Smith or Smith Company. If you want to file a daily bulletin, to save trawling to the end of the list, file under Jon Smith because J is earlier.
If the emails are rarer, keep them under Smith company. I sometimes end up with both labels. This doubles the number of files. You might consolidate and reduce it to one.
Or keep both going so that when Jon sends you Jon Smith emails you can find the folder fast. But when he sends you emails from Smith company you can find that, too.
When my son worked in recruitment the business was very much based on Time Is Money. Hundreds of calls aday, including cold calls and outgoing calls, hundreds of incoming query emails from prospective company clients and CVs from hopefuls.
The boss said they had no time to classify everything in the inbox. They simply let it grow indefinitely in date order and made new folders for vital information.
One way of classifying vital information is to forward items of interest to yourself, perhaps in another email account.
Do you have any other systems?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tip 5 Phone A Friend - Heated debates with heating repair man
I was hot and bothered because I had no heating. Central heating. Radiators. I've got hot flushes but the radiators are cold.
I don't like cold showers. I can put the hot water boiler on. But the main system which is on a timer is not working and no radiators react.
I've got the heating engineer back. The week before last he fixed the flue and he flew.
He was ill last week with 'man flu' he says. I don't want to know. I just want the heating fixed.
At a reasonable price. First I paid a plumber. He changed the pump and a triple valve.
The problem was not solved. But I paid him happily because he did another job. He plumbed in a shower head beside the hall toilet, like the ones you get in the Far East. (I brought the attachement back from the Far East. He recommends a central heating engineer.
The engineer fixed one problem, which I didn't know I had. But not the main problem. NO HEATING!
I told a friend, 'I've had the heating engineer'. My friend makes a pun on the word had: 'You had him, did you!'
I retorted with another pun, 'I had to make sure I wasn't had. I checked the bill.' Three meanings for the word had: actually short for an implied word - had a visiting, had a relationship, caught and had too big a bill - cheating you out of money. Isn't the English language funny.
Now, July 11, the man says he's changing the junction box. He is re-wiring it in. The 'relays'.
I had no idea whether I needed that. So, I got him to speak to my son who did electronic engineering at Brunel and my son agreed that he'd had problems with relays in equipment and whether or not it caused the problem the system needed changing if not updating. Let's hope it works.
Hurray - it works! The heating is on. Just like old times.
I don't like cold showers. I can put the hot water boiler on. But the main system which is on a timer is not working and no radiators react.
I've got the heating engineer back. The week before last he fixed the flue and he flew.
He was ill last week with 'man flu' he says. I don't want to know. I just want the heating fixed.
At a reasonable price. First I paid a plumber. He changed the pump and a triple valve.
The problem was not solved. But I paid him happily because he did another job. He plumbed in a shower head beside the hall toilet, like the ones you get in the Far East. (I brought the attachement back from the Far East. He recommends a central heating engineer.
The engineer fixed one problem, which I didn't know I had. But not the main problem. NO HEATING!
I told a friend, 'I've had the heating engineer'. My friend makes a pun on the word had: 'You had him, did you!'
I retorted with another pun, 'I had to make sure I wasn't had. I checked the bill.' Three meanings for the word had: actually short for an implied word - had a visiting, had a relationship, caught and had too big a bill - cheating you out of money. Isn't the English language funny.
Now, July 11, the man says he's changing the junction box. He is re-wiring it in. The 'relays'.
I had no idea whether I needed that. So, I got him to speak to my son who did electronic engineering at Brunel and my son agreed that he'd had problems with relays in equipment and whether or not it caused the problem the system needed changing if not updating. Let's hope it works.
Hurray - it works! The heating is on. Just like old times.
Tip 4 Where's That Worker? Workers' Phone Numbers, Bills & More Fun Jobs
TURNING UP
Woody Allen said that ninety per cent of success was simply turning up. That applies to performing comedy. But also to fixing my central heating.
The gas board - easy call, see your bill, and they turn up to take a look. Except that the gas board wanted £5000 to change the boiler, flush the radiators etc.
A friend who has property told me the the price of the boiler itself. Then the gas board wanted to put me on a waiting list and could not say when they would do the job.
The worker can also get half way through the job and not come back. He has another urgent job to do. He can come back, 7 a.m. , after you were up late last night. Or 5.30 to 8 pm Friday night when you wanted to go out to dinner with the boyfriend or have a family meal in, or a romantic dinner. Just imagine it.
Very romantic. Half way through the champagne toast 'To us,' lover boy goes to kiss me and the heating man appears, 'I've got a slight problem. What it is, is this. The valve on the ..'
CLEAN SHOES
Workers come in with muddy shoes. Drill holes and leave dust and walk dust in and out. (Some boyfriends and husbands likewise.)
If you challenge them they say they aren't allowed to take their shoes off, because of health and safety regulations, must keep their dainty little toes covered. (Funny, everybody in Singapore can take their shoes off when enterting the house. Admittedly workers all slop about in flip-flops because of the tropical heat, no laces to undo.)
Well, how about plastic overshoes for indoors? Permanent or disposable.
Some temples and mosques in the Far East have overshoes. People with false feet can't remove their footwear. And you don't want to catch verruccas from other people's feet.
If they had to keep on removing the overshoes they'd do less running in and out.
STAYING PUT
Why does a worker have to keep walking in and out of the house to his van? Letting all the cold air into the house. Is he nipping out for a fag? A drink? Lunch? Having sex with a friend in the van?
Making phone calls on the time he's charging me for? I don't mind him getting a phone call or two if he answers calls from me on another person's job.
Why can't he bring all his tools inside in one tool box?
He's marching mud in and out of my hall. Okay, so I wash out one pale-coloured runner at the end of the job, the one which can be machine washed. I lug it backwards and forwards, watch the time. He's taking up my time too.
And hoover the other runners.
And fold back the carpet in the kitchen so he can get to the boiler.
And fail to go to the coffee morning at the neighbours at which I would meet everybody from the whole street.
But I need my central heating.
Although it's summer, I dry out bathroom towels on the radiator. Never realised before.
I could shut down the whole heating system in summer if I had a towel rail on an instant heater. But instant heaters, little fan heaters which you trip over, and ones on the wall which are not on a timer need constant attention. Remember to switch them on when you get up. Then they get switched on and left on accidentally overnight and during the holidays are expensive. That's why you have one big system on a timer.
Bleeding Radiators
But then you need to bleed the radiators. My gardener takes all his radiators off and empties them out on the lawn. I asked, 'How do you prevent the raditors leaking all over your carpets?'
He said, you have to plug up the holes with corks.
We can do it ourselves. You can hear the air in the radiators. Let it out of the top of the radiator with the key.
If We Do Two Jobs It's Cheaper
Cheaper for the first job. Dearer for the second? Certainly dearer to have two jobs done.
The thermostat has gone on the heating boiler has gone. (Do they break something every time?)
However, I can alter the temperature on the main boiler, down from two and a half to two.
If the thermostat is done with another bigger job, it will be half the price, only £50 instead of £90. Ah, the roof man made the same offer. If we do this little job with a bigger one ...
At least I am now organized. I have the heating man's card. It has only a phone number. I have written the address and his surname on the back. Now if I forget I can hunt for them in the local phone book or the Internet. I won't forget. I put the card on the nocticeboard. I have the number in my address book four times, under heating engineeer, his company name, his first name and his surname.
Workers' Phone Numbers
Where's that worker? It must be cheaper to bring a man over from Nepal and employ him for a year. He can sleep in the garden summerhouse. Ah, that has a leaking roof. The man of the moment promised to do that. Where's that worker?
Woody Allen said that ninety per cent of success was simply turning up. That applies to performing comedy. But also to fixing my central heating.
The gas board - easy call, see your bill, and they turn up to take a look. Except that the gas board wanted £5000 to change the boiler, flush the radiators etc.
A friend who has property told me the the price of the boiler itself. Then the gas board wanted to put me on a waiting list and could not say when they would do the job.
The worker can also get half way through the job and not come back. He has another urgent job to do. He can come back, 7 a.m. , after you were up late last night. Or 5.30 to 8 pm Friday night when you wanted to go out to dinner with the boyfriend or have a family meal in, or a romantic dinner. Just imagine it.
Very romantic. Half way through the champagne toast 'To us,' lover boy goes to kiss me and the heating man appears, 'I've got a slight problem. What it is, is this. The valve on the ..'
CLEAN SHOES
Workers come in with muddy shoes. Drill holes and leave dust and walk dust in and out. (Some boyfriends and husbands likewise.)
If you challenge them they say they aren't allowed to take their shoes off, because of health and safety regulations, must keep their dainty little toes covered. (Funny, everybody in Singapore can take their shoes off when enterting the house. Admittedly workers all slop about in flip-flops because of the tropical heat, no laces to undo.)
Well, how about plastic overshoes for indoors? Permanent or disposable.
Some temples and mosques in the Far East have overshoes. People with false feet can't remove their footwear. And you don't want to catch verruccas from other people's feet.
If they had to keep on removing the overshoes they'd do less running in and out.
STAYING PUT
Why does a worker have to keep walking in and out of the house to his van? Letting all the cold air into the house. Is he nipping out for a fag? A drink? Lunch? Having sex with a friend in the van?
Making phone calls on the time he's charging me for? I don't mind him getting a phone call or two if he answers calls from me on another person's job.
Why can't he bring all his tools inside in one tool box?
He's marching mud in and out of my hall. Okay, so I wash out one pale-coloured runner at the end of the job, the one which can be machine washed. I lug it backwards and forwards, watch the time. He's taking up my time too.
And hoover the other runners.
And fold back the carpet in the kitchen so he can get to the boiler.
And fail to go to the coffee morning at the neighbours at which I would meet everybody from the whole street.
But I need my central heating.
Although it's summer, I dry out bathroom towels on the radiator. Never realised before.
I could shut down the whole heating system in summer if I had a towel rail on an instant heater. But instant heaters, little fan heaters which you trip over, and ones on the wall which are not on a timer need constant attention. Remember to switch them on when you get up. Then they get switched on and left on accidentally overnight and during the holidays are expensive. That's why you have one big system on a timer.
Bleeding Radiators
But then you need to bleed the radiators. My gardener takes all his radiators off and empties them out on the lawn. I asked, 'How do you prevent the raditors leaking all over your carpets?'
He said, you have to plug up the holes with corks.
We can do it ourselves. You can hear the air in the radiators. Let it out of the top of the radiator with the key.
If We Do Two Jobs It's Cheaper
Cheaper for the first job. Dearer for the second? Certainly dearer to have two jobs done.
The thermostat has gone on the heating boiler has gone. (Do they break something every time?)
However, I can alter the temperature on the main boiler, down from two and a half to two.
If the thermostat is done with another bigger job, it will be half the price, only £50 instead of £90. Ah, the roof man made the same offer. If we do this little job with a bigger one ...
At least I am now organized. I have the heating man's card. It has only a phone number. I have written the address and his surname on the back. Now if I forget I can hunt for them in the local phone book or the Internet. I won't forget. I put the card on the nocticeboard. I have the number in my address book four times, under heating engineeer, his company name, his first name and his surname.
Workers' Phone Numbers
Where's that worker? It must be cheaper to bring a man over from Nepal and employ him for a year. He can sleep in the garden summerhouse. Ah, that has a leaking roof. The man of the moment promised to do that. Where's that worker?
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