Free Printable Baseball Card from printable baseball card template , image source: www.pinterest.com
Each week brings new jobs, emails, files, and job lists. Just how much of this is different from the job you’ve done before? Odds are, not much. A number of our day-to-day tasks are variants on something we have done countless times before.
Don’t reinvent the wheel every time you start something fresh. Use templates–standardized documents with text and formatting as starting point for new work. As soon as you save another variant of the template add, remove, or change any info for that record, and you’ll have the work done in a fraction of the time.
Programs work anywhere: in word processors, spreadsheets, project management programs, survey programs, and email. Here’s how to use templates from your favorite programs –and to automatically create documents from a template–so it’s possible to get your tasks done faster.
Programs take the time to build, and it’s easy to wonder if they are worth the investment. The short answer: absolutely. Editing a template requires far less time than formatting something. It is the difference between retyping it, or copying and pasting some text.
That is only one benefit: Using a template means you’re less likely to leave out crucial information, too. For example, if you want to send freelance authors a contributor agreement, changing a standard contract template (instead of writing a new contract every time) ensures you won’t leave out the crucial clause about possessing the material once you’ve paid for it.
Templates additionally guarantee consistency. You send regular job updates to investors or clients. Using a template, you know the update will always have the same formatting, design, and arrangement.
How to Create Fantastic Templates
Not many templates are created equal–and some things do not require a template. Here are a few tips to follow.
First, templates should be comprehensive. It is more easy to delete info than add it , so err on the side of including rather than too small.
Imagine you’re creating a template of your resume. You would want to record in-depth details so you’ll have.
You always have the option to delete less-important notes later on, but you may forget it in the final 25, if it is not from the template.
Some tools will automatically fill in all these factors for you (more on that in a little ). But if you have to fill in the data by yourself, include some text that is obvious and simple to search for so you can locate text that needs to be changed without much effort.