Improved Productivity For Home And Office

A growing number of computer users are finding themselves in the position of wishing they could be as organized at home as they are at the office. But often, they simply don't have access to the software that's on their office network. Fortunately, there are user-friendly solutions for home and business use. For example, the leading productivity suite on the Mac platform offers seamless compatibility with PCs and solutions to common customer needs. Microsoft's Office 2004 for Mac includes such industry-leading applications as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as one of the more essential components, its e-mail program, Entourage. The suite's applications, which help make customers more productive at work, can also help users tackle a variety of tasks at home. Want to maximize your management efficiency? Project Center, an organizational aspect of Entourage, helps users stay on top of all e-mails, files, contacts, meetings and tasks related to a particular project-whether that project is the family's taxes, planning a friend's birthday or pitching a new client. Here are a number of timesaving shortcuts from Project Center: 1. You can associate an e-mail message with a specific project by simply dragging it to the project folder in Entourage. You can also associate any file on your computer with a project by dragging that file to the Project Watch folder in the Finder. 2. Here's a good way to associate e-mail messages you receive with projects: Have Entourage make the associations for you automatically. 3. A project schedule is usually easiest to read when the view is not cluttered by unrelated calendar events. However, it can sometimes be helpful to display all your events. Fortunately, Entourage provides a pair of handy toggle buttons so you can easily view a project schedule with or without unrelated events. 4. The Overview tab provides a quick summary of project items. You can adjust the view to display information that's important to you. "Office 2004 for Mac is a terrific organizational tool," explains organizational expert Regina Leeds. "It makes it easier for Mac customers to get organized, work smarter and manage the business of life."