The Link – February, 2010

BlackBerry Makes Time Management Easy!

We all wish we had one extra hour in the day, whether it be to finally finish the project at work we keep putting off, spend more time with family and friends, or even to spend some time attending to our own wants and needs. With the tips in this article you won’t find yourself suddenly with a team of assistants but you can save time and get organized with BlackBerry Calendar.

The first step is to move the calendar icon to an easy to locate place. If you have a BlackBerry with side convenience keys, you can custom a side convenience key to be a shortcut to your calendar:

• From your Home Screen, locate and open your Options icon (it looks like a wrench).

• Navigate to, then open the Screen/Keyboard option (simply type the letter S to get there quickly).

• Scroll down to the area for setting the Convenience Keys and change it from the current application to Calendar.

• Press the Escape key (to the right of your trackball or trackpad) and Save the changes. Press the Escape key again to return to the Home Screen. Test the changes by pressing your side convenience key and the Calendar application should open.

Now that you have an easy way to access your calendar, you can customize the calendar to maximize Time Management.

The default mode for your Calendar will be that Quick Entry is enabled. This is a benefit in that you can just start typing when you are in Day View to add a new appointment. What you will be trading in for that convenience is using all the Calendar shortcut keys. As I am a big advocate of shortcut keys I recommend you turn this off:

• With your Calendar displayed in any view, activate the menu (press the BlackBerry logo key to the left of yor trackball or trackpad).

• Navigate to Options (simply type the letter O or scroll to that option).

• In the Calendar options, open the General Options, and change the Enable Quick Entry to No.

Before you close the Calendar options you can make some additional changes:

• Set your Initial View. This determines what view your Calendar opens in. I prefer Week View as it gives me a visual of my whole week, with shading to mark appointment. My work days are usually half or one day training gigs, so the detail some people would need to see 30, 60 or more meetings doesn’t apply to me. Choose what is best for you.

• If you plan to use reminders for your appointments, and have a preference for how much notice you receive, set the Default Reminder; anywhere from 0 minutes to 1 week.

• Set a default time to retain past appointments. I have my Keep Appointments set to the minimum of 15 days. This setting will not apply to recurring appointments; they will require you to delete then manually, one occurrence at a time.

• Make any other customizations you see fit then press the Escape key to save changes and return to the Calendar

Now for the shortcuts. In any Calendar View:

• type A to go to Agenda View

• type D to go to Day View

• type W to go to Week View

• type M to go to Month View

• type T to go the Today

• type G to bring up a Search box to navigate to a certain date

• type C to Compose a new appointment

• type P to go to the Previous day/week/month

• type N to go to the Next day/week/month

• when you have any appointment selected, type the Enter key to open it to see the full details

There are many more shortcuts to learn but this list should be enough to get you on your way to mastering your BlackBerry Calendar and in doing so becoming a better manager of your time.

Donna Mills is a Certified Microsoft Office Specialist and BlackBerry Guru. She offers training to Toronto and area companies to make them more comfortable and more efficient using the tools they use everyday.

To arrange for Donna to come to your office to train you on your MS Office Software or BlackBerry Smartphone email mills.donna@sympatico.ca or call 416.917.7754.