Outlook Tip - Quickly Calculate Dates

In a previous Outlook tip, Write Now, Send Later, I talked about using Outlook's Message Options feature to send an email at a later date.



Here's another shortcut that I use when:

• scheduling a Message for future delivery,
  
• setting appointments in Calendar, or
  
• setting deadlines in Tasks.

Did you know Outlook saves you the hassle of looking up a date? If you want to set a task deadline for 6 weeks from now, for example, all you have to do is type +6w in the due date field. Outlook automatically calculates the dates for you.




Here are some other date shortcuts:

• 
  d: days
  
• h: hours
  
• m: minutes
  
• mo: months
  
• y: years

So, 90 minutes from now will be entered as +90m.



Hope you find this helpful.

Excel - Change the Default File Location

When you try to open an Excel workbook, Microsoft's default is to look in your c:\documents subfolder.

Here's a quick trick I use to change the default file location. The seconds you save will add up to hours over time.

• Click on the Tools menu.
• Click on Options.
• Select the General Tab.
• Under Default File Location, type in your new location (ex., c:\excel). By the way, you can also change the number of sheets in a new workbook (Excel's default is 3).

For additional information, see Learn Excel Formulas from A to Z - Atlanta Excel Training Class.