Quick and Easy Search

After watching a friend painfully scroll through 1,000 messages in her inbox trying to find one from the right sender, it occurred to me that a lot of people don't realize how easily you can use the keyboard to find a message in a sorted list, or how easy these lists are to sort.

Almost any list control in Windows will let you type the first couple of letters in order to focus the selection on the item that matches in the current column. It's not exactly a new technique, but judging from that experience I felt it was worth sharing.

For instance, in Outlook 2007 you can sort by the "Arranged By:" header by clicking on it…

Normally, Outlook sorts by date received. You can leave the sorting by date and still quickly find your e-mail by typing the first couple of letters in the Search box.

Suppose you have already filed the e-mail in a folder. Obviously the search won't find it because it's looking through your Inbox only. Just select "Try searching again an All Mail Items".

I know so many people that are given this tool at work and told "just use it for e-mail". They are never taught about the little tricks and all the powerful tools that can make their lives so much easier and more productive. For all of you that were thrown to the wolves out there, I hope these tips and tricks help.

Spring has sprung…

It's a beautiful Sunday morning. Spring is coming. I can hear the birds and see my flowers and roses starting to sprout. We had massive thunder storms yesterday, so everything is bright and clean today. There is a big window in front of my desk that overlooks my back yard.

One of the reasons we bought this house 12 years ago was for the back yard. Sounds silly doesn't it? I remember clearly that it felt like owning 3 different houses. Walk out the front door and you enter typical suburbia – no curbs, everyone has kids and a dog, school buses….you know what I mean. Leaving by the side door allowed you to walk through the woods – peaceful and calm. Of course, the woods are long gone and have been replaced with other typical suburban houses, but at the time it was great. And here's the selling point - open the back door and you're at your favorite vacation spot. Large back yard with an in-ground pool, but close enough to the ocean so you can smell the salt water. You can even take a quick trip to the beach if you want something different. I love water and this was as close to perfection as I could get. The only problem is that for the last 11 summers I have had a J.O.B.! Every day I would leave at 7 in the morning, drive over 100 miles, and return between 7 and 8 at night. That doesn't leave much time for enjoying the back yard.

All of that leads to why I am so enjoying this beautiful Sunday morning. It doesn't matter that it's Sunday – it could be Tuesday or Thursday or even Friday and I would enjoy it just as much! As a virtual assistant, I now work out of my home (in my office with the big window that overlooks my back yard) and can enjoy both the view and the back yard whenever I want.

Shortly, I'll take my coffee, laptop and phone outside to sit on the deck. The pools not open yet, but if it was, I could take a quick swim before the phone starts ringing with clients needing assistance. And since I work virtually, and I've never actually met any of my clients face-to-face, I can work in my bathing suit if I want. No more business suits and heels – what a relief! Spring has sprung, I have a new business I love and I can fully enjoy my back yard…..does life get any better?

Pat Zappavigna is the owner of Instant Office Assistant, a professional administrative support services company. You can contact Pat at pazappa@verizon.net or through the website www.InstantOfficeAssistant.com.

View Multiple Windows on the Taskbar

If you are like me, you probably have dozens of windows open at any given point, so if you want to work with just a couple of windows you have to minimize everything and then hunt for the windows you need - over and over again.

Since I bill by the minute, spending time searching is not cost effective for my clients, but closing all the other windows I'm working with is not the most efficient use of time for me. Solution? Open the two windows you are working with side-by-side!

There's a simple trick that's been built into Windows forever… hold down the Ctrl key while selecting taskbar buttons and you can select more than one at a time. The benefit is that you don't have to minimize any other windows in order to tile them (or close them).

Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on a taskbar button, and then while still holding down the Ctrl key, click on another taskbar button. You'll notice that they are both selected. (Note that you can click on a button again to deselect it.)

Now that they are both selected, you can right-click on one of the buttons and choose to cascade, stack or show the windows side by side.

I don't find cascading or stacking very useful, but side-by-side is something I use quite often.


This can be extremely useful when you are trying to look at two windows at once, especially when you've got a ton of windows open but only want to tile two of them.

Try it! It's fun and a real time saver!