1-3 Let Toggle = Efficient Writing

(c) 2010 Mona Leeson Vanek

It's bound to happen sooner or later -- an editor requires the URLs and contacts of sites you visited while researching an article for an assignment. You panic, and rummage through an untidy pile of papers, frantically scrabbling to find sloppy notations. Naive writers rely on re-visiting a web page. There are many reasons why you can have difficulty accessing a web page again.

You can avoid that pitfall, and become more productive by mastering a few steps that help you work smart: Toggle, Save, File Methodically, and Quickly retrieve Misplaced Data.

The following instructions are for computer-based e-mail. They explain how to use your computer-based e-mail program to improve your writing efficiency.

Computer-based e-mail lets you:

• Minimize research time
• Maximize writing time
• Store project-related information and documents
• Retrieve misplaced data.

It's similar to using word processing software, but with added capabilities accessible within the computer-based e-mail program. It allows you to e-mail what you've written, create filing "cabinets" with folders, each individually alphabetically arranged and indexed, and transfer material into files. A touchpad tap or a mouse click instantly sorts file contents by name, date, subject, etc. Plus, a good computer-based e-mail program includes a powerful search engine that will locate misplaced or related data within seconds!

All you need do is toggle between your Internet Browser and your E-mail program, clip and save, and then file methodically.

Begin first with mastering how to "toggle" between programs. (*Also explained in Insider tip Multi-task, Week 1-2.)

Open your e-mail software program. Notice how that puts an Icon into the taskbar. Taskbar-icons let you switch between programs without closing them.

Create a new e-mail message -- referred to here as "file-message"

• Move your pointer to the "-" sign in the top right hand corner of the e-mail program
• Click it. That sends the e-mail program to the taskbar

Open your Internet browser. Its icon also appears in the taskbar when the browser is open on the screen.

• Move your pointer to the e-mail icon in the task bar.
• Click it. That returns the e-mail program to the screen, on top of the Browser.

Icons will also be in the taskbar if you click the "_" sign in the top right corner of open programs.

Practice moving from one program to the other and back again by clicking their icons in the taskbar.

Chapter 1: http://tinyurl.com/2es3w63

Next: 1-4 Let Clip and Save = Efficient Writing: http://tinyurl.com/2dlte72