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Every week brings new jobs, emails, documents, and task lists. How much of this is different from the work you have done? Odds are, maybe not much. A number of our daily tasks are variants on something.
Don’t reinvent the wheel each single time you start something new. Use templates–as starting point for new 17, standardized documents with formatting and text. Once you save a separate variant of the template add, remove, or alter any data for that record, and you’ll have the new work.
Templates work everywhere: in word processors, spreadsheets, project management programs, survey programs, and email. Here’s how to generate documents from a template — and how to use templates from your favorite apps –so it’s possible to get your tasks done quicker.
Programs take time to construct, and it’s easy to wonder if they are worth the investment. The answer: absolutely. Editing a template takes far less time than formatting some thing from scratch. It’s the difference between retyping it, or copying and pasting some text.
That’s not the only advantage: Using a template means you’re less inclined to leave out crucial information, too. For instance, if you need to send freelance authors a contributor agreement, modifying a standard contract template (instead of composing a new contract each time) guarantees you won’t leave out the crucial clause regarding owning the content as soon as you’ve paid for it.
Templates also guarantee consistency. Perhaps you send investors or customers regular job updates. Using a template, you understand the upgrade will constantly have the formatting, layout, and general structure.
How to Create Great Templates
Not many templates are created equal–and a few things do not need a template. Here are a few guidelines to follow.
First, templates should be comprehensive. So err on the side of adding rather than too little, it is simpler to delete information than add it .
Imagine you’re creating a template of your own resume. You’d want to record details about your responsibilities and accomplishments, so you’ll have all the information you need to apply for any job.
You can delete less-important notes later on, but you might forget it in the last 25, when it is not in the template.
Some applications will automatically fill in these variables for you (more on this in a little ). But if you have to fill in the data by yourself, add some text that is obvious and easy to search for so you can locate.