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Welcome back to the Podcast!
This week’s edition…
“What do Psychics, Family, and Microsoft have in common?”
Well…
They all seem to know me pretty well, or at least they think they know me well enough to correct me as I speak or write, or try to finish my sentences.
Let’s use my son as an example. He has discovered that when he asks a question like, “Daddy, can I stay up and [insert fun activity here]?”, my typical response tends to be: “Well, once you have finished [chore assigned by me], we can talk about it, but it might be too far past your bed time.” He knows that this response can be substituted with: “Probably not, it is way past your bed time and you haven’t even showered yet.”
In a way, he is doing something in his head that is a common Microsoft Word feature. Microsoft calls it AutoCorrect. Its usefulness resides in its ability to allow you to type something like your initials and have it automatically replaced by your entire name or signature line.
It kind of works at the same speed as my mother-in-law (a retired Latin teacher). I could be talking with her about anything and halfway through a sentence, I’ll find her auto-correcting my grammar and replacing the words I chose with better ones. I think you all probably know someone like this. It can become very aggravating as you’re trying to get out what you want to say. I tend to lose my train of thought (not hard for me, actually) and working in Microsoft Word sometimes makes me feel the same way.
So, like most gifts, it can be both a blessing and a curse. But if you understand the benefits of the feature, you can really take advantage of it to help you be more productive, freeing up your time to do more important things like writing your review of our podcast in iTunes.
If you were to talk to my wife, she would tell you that I can be lazy when it comes to repetitive tasks. You know, like emptying the dishwasher (I have been known to just take clean items out and use them instead of putting them away). I prefer to think of myself as not lazy, but efficient. Why put the dishes away if I can just use the clean ones, put the dirty ones in the sink, then when the dishwasher is empty, fill it up again? Efficiency and extra cabinet space. I don’t see why this doesn’t work for her.
So when it comes to using AutoCorrect, you’re not being lazy, you’re being more efficient. Learning about some of its features can turn you into David Copperfield with your co-workers. Not only will you have debunked the mystery of the ghost that lives in Word, you will have shown them tricks they never dreamed possible.
Let’s take a look at a few…
There is a feature to deal with little chubby fingers like mine that will automatically correct when you accidentally type two capital letters at the beginning of a word.
Too lazy…ahem…efficient to capitalize the first letter of a sentence? Just keep on typing, and let AutoCorrect fix it for you.
Go ahead and spell the days of the week in lowercase letters! Forget what my mother-in-law says, Microsoft will fix it for you.
If your pinky tends to go astray when typing the letter “A,” the “Correct accidental usage of Caps Lock key” feature could help you today.
All of these are great, but the most powerful feature of AutoCorrect has to be the “Repláce text as you type” feature. This feature is pre-populated with words and symbols to fix issues like when you type “teh” instead of “the.”
I know it’s a little early for April Fool’s Day, but you can use your newfound powers of AutoCorrect for evil as well as good. Try adding an AutoCorrect entry in someone else’s computer for the word “the” so every time they type it, it will change to the phrase, “blah blah blah.” Now when that person tries to type a sentence like, “The elephant at the circus is scared of the big scary cats,” they will instead get, “blah blah blah elephant at blah blah blah circus is scared of blah blah blah big scary cats.” This can be loads of fun!
Well, that’s it for this week. Don’t forget to stop by www.productiveUpodcast.com and check out our visual tips for working with AutoCorrect in the blog entry for this episode.
Tips this week are:
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Using AutoCorrect to insert frequently used text into your documents
You’ve Got it All Wrong: How to access the AutoCorrect feature in Office 2007 and earlier versions
Correct Me if I’m Wrong: Using AutoCorrect to help enhance your email in Microsoft Outlook
Until next week, how about if you and I empty out the dishwasher at least one time to show we’re really not that lazy?
