In keeping with what we learned in the previous chapter on automating tasks between your apps, another habit I’d encourage you to develop is automating your document drafting process as much as possible. That’s what templates are for.
Use Email Templates
You can use templates for the kinds of emails you send frequently by saving them in your draft folder. That way you’ll have them on all your messaging services at all times.
Here are a few examples:
You always use the same greeting or sign-off.
You have a standard format for saying thank you.
You often have to answer the same questions over and over.
Create Document Templates
You can also make a folder for your templates to keep them all in one place and categorize them by type:
For text documents, use Word, Pages, or Google Docs.
For spreadsheets, use Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
For presentations, use PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides.
You can create your own templates that are 100% tailored to your needs. In fact, you can save any document you create yourself as a template. Then you’ll have it as an option whenever you create a new document. In Drive, this is called the “Template Gallery.”
Imagine how much time you’ll save on those work papers involving so much detailed information, the invoices you have to generate, the reports you’re always submitting, etc…
Here are a few examples of documents you can turn into templates:
A letter template with your company’s logo and contact information
An Excel spreadsheet template with the formulas used most frequently in your company
A presentation for recurring events, such as meetings or tender offers
The other option is to create an empty version of a document, which you can duplicate anytime you need to use it. That alone will save you time, which is great, but I promise you that making your own templates will save you even more!
When is it worth creating a template for a document?
Tell yourself that if you find yourself writing the same thing three times, capitalize on that and make a template.
Let’s Recap!
Any word processing software can be used to make custom templates.
There will also be premade default templates that you can arrange as you see fit.
Creating your own templates with repetitive information will save you precious time.
Now that we’ve reached the end of this chapter, let’s cut to the chase and move on to our last chapter, where we’ll talk about keyboard shortcuts! These shortcuts may save you just a few seconds at a time, but when you do them 100 times a day, they really add up. I’ll see you soon for the final chapter! 😊
