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Each week brings new jobs, emails, documents, and job lists. Just how much of that is different from the work you’ve done before? Odds are, maybe not much. Many of our daily tasks are variations on something we have done hundreds of times before.
Don’t reinvent the wheel every time you start something fresh. Use templates–standardized documents with formatting and text as starting point for work. Once you save a separate variant of the template, simply add, eliminate, or alter any data for that exceptional record, and you’ll have the work done in a fraction of the time.
Templates work everywhere: in word processors, spreadsheets, project management apps, survey programs, and also email. Here’s the way to use templates and how to automatically create documents from a template–so it’s possible to get your common tasks done faster.
Programs take the time to build, and it’s easy to wonder if they’re worth the investment. The brief answer: absolutely. Editing a template requires much less time than formatting some thing. It is the distinction between copying and pasting some text, or retyping it.
That is not the only advantage: Using a template means you’re not as likely to leave out crucial info, also. For example, if you need to send freelance authors a contributor agreement, modifying a standard contract template (instead of composing a new contract every time) guarantees you won’t depart out that crucial clause regarding owning the material as soon as you’ve paid for this.
Templates also guarantee consistency. You send regular job updates to investors or clients. With a template, you understand the update will have the formatting, layout, and structure.
How to Produce Great Templates
Not all templates are created equal–and some things don’t require a template. Here are a few guidelines to follow.
First, templates must be comprehensive. So err on the side of including too instead of too little, it is more easy to delete information than add it .
Imagine you are developing a template of your own resume. You would want to record in-depth facts about your duties and accomplishments, and that means you’ll have all the info you need to apply for any job.
You always have the option to delete notes later on, but if it’s not in the template you may forget it in the final version.
Some tools will automatically fill in all these variables for you (more on that in a bit). But should you need to fill in the data on your own, include some text that is obvious and easy to look for so you can locate.