Working in the help desk industry for more than 8 years I have had the opportunity to observe some computer habits on users. I am not sure if these habits are inherited from the personality or behavior of the person but it seem to be more present in certain types of people than others.

Desktop Clutter- sometimes when I seat in front of some users computers to troubleshoot a network or device problem, I have a hard time finding My Network Places or My Computer icon on the desktop. Luckily there are many ways to get to those properties otherwise I would spend more time trying to get to the system properties than fixing the problem. Is it that hard to create directories on the desktop or under my documents folder to save the files? Is not necessary to create an application short-cut on the desktop for every application installed on your system neither, setting the applications you use everyday in the Quick Launch toolbar is much easier and looks less clutter, the other applications you use less can still be accessed from the program files right? Windows XP comes with a feature that helps you clean up your desktop if you are not competent enough to do it yourself. Right-click an empty space on your desktop (if you find one) and click on Properties on the Desktop tab select Customize Desktop and click clean Desktop Now from the general tab.

Multiple files and applications open at once-I understand when people are swamped open files and programs like crazy when looking for things, but keeping all files and programs open does not make productive anyone. First, it creates confusion when switching between files and programs, because you don’t know which is which. Second, it drains the system resources having too much files and programs open. If you allocate time correctly for each project, it shouldn’t be necessary to have multiple files and programs open. Learn the art of time management and you won’t need to spend half of your day switching between applications.

E-mail management- communication through e-mails is the norm at businesses nowadays, and keeping your mail organize is critical, especially if you receive hundreds of e-mails a day. Keep your inbox organized by creating subfolders for specific groups or projects. And by all means try to maintain the size of your mailbox light by archiving e-mails that you don’t need. Delete and put in the black list junk e-mails that arrive onto your mailbox as soon as you see them, and delete deleted items from your outlook. Don’t install add-ons or plug-ins that promise to make your outlook run faster or organize it. outlook is an efficient e-mail client by default; you just need to learn how to use it.

Some users try to be productive by doing many unnecessary things that instead of help create more clutter on the way. Remember that some things are obvious and do not require a computer science to realize it, you only need to use the pound of cheese on top of your shoulders.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 6:59 am and is filed under Office Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.