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Welcome back to the podcast!
This week’s edition: “Inventing the Wheel was a One-Time Deal”
If you hang around any business office long enough, you’re likely to hear workers uttering the same banal buzzwords or expressions:
- “Is it Friday yet?”
- “Take that off-line and we’ll circle back later.”
- “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”
Some of these are examples of corporate jargon and some are just phrases that have become so overused that they no longer have any real impact on the listener.
I know someone who asks, “Is it Friday yet?” every day of the work week. Yes, even on Friday. The phrase has just become so deeply entrenched in his vernacular that it’s now as common a greeting as “Hello.”
You probably know people like this, too. Maybe they don’t use these particular phrases, but I’m sure you’ve heard them spout off common business slang without ever giving a thought as to how frequently these expressions are being used. Don’t they ever stop to listen to themselves? Can no one stop them??
Sadly, no. Tell your boss you’re sick of hearing him use the phrase, “thinking outside the box,” and you may find yourself living inside a box on the side of the road.
But let’s back up a moment to the expression, “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.” As tired as I am of hearing people use this phrase over so many years, its meaning still rings true: “Why create something new when you can reuse something already created?”
To me, this points to one simple solution: templates.
Templates, in their many forms, serve the purpose of allowing us to create a basic design for something once, then apply that design toward creating many more similar things. Templates promote efficiency in many different industries. Even the clothes you’re wearing started out as templates in the form of clothing patterns. From just one pattern, several thousand identical t-shirts were created. Now don’t you feel unique?
In much the same way, template files can be created in many software applications. Microsoft Word, for example, allows you to create a document template. You can start with a new, blank document and then set all the options to your liking: create styles, set a default font, include some text in a header or footer, even include AutoText entries. Save this file as a document template, and now you can reuse it to create countless other documents that require the same styles, font settings, and other options. You can then add or subtract anything you like from this new document without changing the original template.
Sounds useful, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ve found yourself in this situation before: every month, you need to create a document on company letterhead. This might include a logo in the header with some contact information, and maybe a very specific font size and page margins. Maybe what you do every month is find the document you created the previous month, delete all the text from it, re-save the file with a new name, then type in your new text. Well, those days are gone. Today you can find that document you created last month, delete the old text, and then save it as a template. When you open the template, it’s already blank and ready to go with all the proper settings. Using this method greatly reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally overwrite any changes to that previous document.
Word isn’t the only application that makes use of template files, either. The tips included in this week’s blog entry will show you how to create templates for Excel, PowerPoint, and even Outlook.
This week’s tips include:
- Set the Standard: Creating new document templates in Word
- Making Normal Your Own: Setting formatting defaults on Word’s global template
- You Set the Rules: Creating a default template for Excel workbooks
- Put Some Style Into It: Creating and applying design templates in PowerPoint
- Déjà Vu: Creating an e-mail template in Outlook
- Give Your E-mail a Makeover: Using Stationery in Lotus Notes
So think about the files you work with on a frequent basis and consider creating a template for these. You’ll save yourself some time and effort, and you’ll avoid having to reinvent the wheel or anything else.
Thanks for joining us this week! If you have any other examples of corporate jargon that gets under your skin, let us know in the comments! Also, feel free to keep up with us on Twitter by following @productiveUcast, or visit our podcast on iTunes and write a review.
See you next week!
Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum
