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Too Many Applications?
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Ethan Bull and his wife Stephanie have over 20 years of combined Executive, Personal and Administrative assisting experience. Noticing a lack of real world soft skills training for new assistants starting out on their career path, they decided to leverage their expertise and create ProAssisting.
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Do you have too many applications open on your computer? Have you passed by a co-worker’s desk and noticed that they have 20 different things running all at once?
Believe it or not, this can lower productivity. You actually end up thinking that you are working harder, yet you are reducing your productivity by about 30%. That’s quite a bit of work that you could be catching up on throughout your day, each and every day.
It’s nice to have the grouping function in Microsoft Windows, but when you start seeing large numbers in each one of them, you know there’s a problem. You start scanning through all of your items within that application just to find what you are looking for. Now you’ve spent more time looking for something as opposed to working on the task at hand.
I usually open all of the applications that I need for the task that I am working on at that particular moment. If I need to open more applications, so be it, so that I can do whatever it is I need to do to get the task completed. Once I am finished with the task, I would look at my next task on my to-do list and figure out what applications I won’t need. I close all of them by either clicking on the “X” at the top-right corner or pressing ALT-F4 (keyboard shortcut to remember – can be very useful). Then I would open up the applications associated with the next task.
One piece of advise that I give myself on a regular basis so that I don’t feel overwhelmed is to break your tasks down into manageable chunks.
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Until next time,
Take care – of your clutter!
