gDoc

We’ve all seen it, and most of us are guilty of it at some time or another. We are creatures of habit: “I’ve always done it like that” is the familiar cry. For some reason, working with software seems to bring out the worst of this behaviour, and it’s usually a result of a lack of training, or sufficient time to familiarise yourself with possibly more efficient ways of doing things when you have a job to do.

I have for some years been promising myself to learn to touch-type. It would be so much more efficient! But I use a keyboard every day, and the thought of having to first slow down my typing in order to eventually be even quicker has always put me off.

Using Microsoft Word is another example – I can’t count the number of time I have seen users laboriously swipe text and apply bold or a different font for headings, when all they have to do is choose a heading style, such as Heading 1. It’s just down to a lack of awareness. At least with the later versions of Word this has been made easier, with the styles shown graphically on the ribbon toolbar.

And so it is with document software. This week I heard anecdotally about a specialist in a government agency that needed to pull together information provided to him in various formats – Word, Excel and some PDF files. In order to distribute them as a single report, he prints everything, collates and then re-scans using a photocopier that can scan to PDF. Not terribly efficient, and he ends up with 30 pages of scrap paper! He’s now switched to using gDoc Fusion, which happens to be the ideal software tool to do this task entirely electronically, and it will pay for itself in no time with the saving in effort and paper.

This is perhaps an extreme example but we all have our bad habits. We might even know there is a better way, but getting the work done gets in the way of learning how to get the work done quicker! Time to invest in yourself – perhaps some formal training, or sitting down with that colleague who “knows stuff”. Or just spending some time Googling for the answer can be well worthwhile.

Meanwhile, I promise to learn to touch-type. Soon…