Beth Ziesenis a blogger at Avenue Z posted her 5 favorite things that make her life easier.
I happen to agree all the shortcuts she listed and have written my comments below her list:
As a sometimes stressed small business owner, I appreciate little things that save time and make my tasks less difficult. Here’s a little list:
1. Recent Documents Lists
2. Avery Write On Tabs
3. The Rules Wizard in MS Outlook
4. Two Screens
5. A Programmable Keyboard
Recent Documents - Although I’ve known about the recent documents list for ten years or more, I only recently started using it. I had written a Word doc and forgot what I named it. A friend said “Just look in recent documents.” aha.. yep, that was simple.
Avery Write On Tabs - I don’t know if brand names make any difference, but I like the post-it flags. They make great bookmarks for important data I want to remember. The colors are nice, sometimes I color code sections of my journal.
There’s a great mailbox overload fighting feature in Outlook in the Rules wizard. I use it to flag my most important emails for follow-up. And emails such as newsletter subscriptions get filed automatically. Really handy for keeping a squeaky clean inbox. (P.S. If you are drowning in email, you might want to give Speedfiler a try)
You’ve seen my enthusiastic recommendation for 2 monitors. Dual mons allow you to switch between views without having to minimize windows. It’s a great way to boost your computer productivity. You have to get used to turning your head though.
A programmable keyboard is a great time saver when you’ve got a start menu (schwartz) as big as mine. Rather than search through the muddied start menu, I can click my quick button and launch Visual Studio, Mind Manager or Live Writer.
Good list Beth, here are 5 back at ya:
Five little things that make MY life easier
Dash Command
Dash Command is a light and quick launcher application that is great for quick launching every application on your computer.
But it goes beyond launching. It auto-pastes text snippets (like email signatures). And it has some perks built in such as searching the dictionary from any program and getting to the command prompt instantly.
Jott
Jott is one of the best productivity apps out there. Like a personal secretary, it takes notes, sets appointments and transcribes your blog posts.
I find that while driving, I get hit with many brainstorms. I think of great blog posts or Achieve-IT! software enhancements. These would often go to waste because I didn’t want to key it in while driving or I’d record them into my Pocket PC - which would sit for weeks until I transcribed the notes.
But now, I call Jott and insert reminders into my Google Calendar. My GCalendar syncs with my Outlook, so it all ends up in one place. Also, I often outline blog posts in it by calling Jott and getting it to transcribe my notes to Evernote. Check out my Lifehacker post on the subject if you haven’t already.
MobiPocket Reader
MobiPocket is a free eBook reader for the Pocket PC. Sure, there are a lot of different readers and I’ve tried most of them. I like MobiPocket because it supports both a large collection of bestsellers and you can also load in different formats such as text and html.
But most importantly, you can load it up with the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It may not sound thrilling at first, but hear me out. When I’m reading a book and I come across a word I don’t know, I just highlight it and a menu pops up “look up in dictionary.”
This turns almost any book, article or novel into a learning experience.
As someone who resisted reading novels (as being a waste of time) I can now read a novel with the feeling that at least I’ll pick up a few new words to increase my vocabulary. That’s my story anyway… 
Google Desktop
Where Beth points out the obvious benefit of the recent documents feature in Windows, what if the document you need isn’t so recent? That’s where Google Desktop comes to the rescue. I use it about every day to track down emails and find code components that are scattered about my hard drive.
The indexing system of GDS is remarkably fast and can pull up my results in less than a second.
free download: http://desktop.google.com/
NotePad
Yes, you read that right, I said Notepad. Notepad is the most basic word processor on your computer, yet it’s simplicity can be a great time saver.
With all the CSS, XHTML and sophisticated document formatting, you can’t just copy and paste text anymore. It picks up all that formatting and inserts it into the target document. That formatting can sometimes wreck havoc on the document you want to save.
Notepad will instantly strip out any and all of that formatting. Just paste in that text and away goes that hidden formatting.
Well, those are mine. What are 5 simple things that make your life easier?
译文:
十个小玩意，让你生活更简单
Avenue Z 的用户Beth Ziesenis 在博客上上发表了她的 “让我生活更简单的五个至尊法宝”。我很赞成她所列出的东西，并且在她列出的清单下写上了我的评论。
作为一个时常被压力关顾的小老板，我很喜欢用一些能帮我节省时间，简化任务的小玩意。清单如下：
（英文部分为小工具软件名）
1. Recent Documents Lists
最近文档的列表（开始菜单里的那个东东^^）
2. Avery Write On Tabs
一种标签工具
3. The Rules Wizard in MS Outlook
微软公司outlook的The Rules Wizard小工具
4. Two Screens
双屏，你可以同时看两个窗口。
5. A Programmable Keyboard
是一种可编程的键盘。可以在键盘上设定与某种软件关联，敲一下就能打开了。
最近文档——我在十几年前就已经知道这个软件了，但我最近才开始使用它。我有次做了个Word文档文件，但是忘了我用什么命名了。有个朋友告诉我，看看最近文档呀。哈哈，原来一切如此简单！
Avery Write On Tabs——我不知道不同的商品名有什么不同，我比较喜欢Post-it Flags. 我通过标签记得每一个重要的日子。它的颜色也很好看。有时我用颜色突出日记的重要部分。
The Rules Wizard——这个软件有着很强大的邮箱功能。我用它标记要随访的重要邮件，他还能自动订阅实时通讯。它能很好地保持收件箱的干净。（附：如果你快被邮件淹死了，你肯定想要试试Speedfiler了。）
TWO SCREENS——你们都看到我对两个屏幕的热情了。双屏可以让你不用切换窗口就能转移目标。这是个提高你电脑生产力的好方法。不过你得习惯转脑袋了。
拥有一个可编程的键盘——如果你像我一样有着很多文件的开始菜单，拥有一个可编程的键盘会让你节省不少的时间。我不用在乱七八糟的菜单栏上拼命找，只要按快捷键就可以打开VS，Mind Manager 和 Live Writer。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
看了她的五个，以下是我的版本了：
五个让我生活更简单的小玩意
Dash Command
这是一个轻便快捷的运行应用软件，它可以很快地运行你电脑上的所有应用程序。
它的功能不仅仅是运行程序。它自动粘贴文本碎片（例如邮件签名）。它还有一些功能如查找每个程序的程序库，并且立即到达命令提示符。
Jott
Jott是这里最高效的应用软件。它就像个人秘书一样，能记笔记，设定约定平且能转录你的博客。
发现它的好处，是在一次开车的时候。当时我正不断在头脑风暴。我要么在想精品博文，要么Achieve-IT1的软件增强！想法通常会消逝，因为在开车的时候我没法键入这些信息，或者我把它们存在掌上电脑里，让它们在电脑里呆上几个星期直到我转录这些记录。
但是现在，我用Jott写入提醒到GOOGLE CALENDAR（谷歌日历）里。我的谷歌日历与OUTLOOK同步，因此它们都在同一个地方停止。我也常常把博文“写入”记录到Evernote。 如果你还没有，可以查查我发表的LIFEHACKER。
MobiPocket Reader
这是一个免费的掌上电脑电子书阅读器。当然啦，现在有很多各式各样的阅读器，我也大多都试过了。我喜欢MP，是因为它有很大规模的畅销书集合，和也能使用不同的格式，比如文本或高文本格式。
但最重要的是，你能使用精简版牛津英文字典。一开始可能感觉不是那么吸引人，不过还是让我说完。当我阅读一本书，然后发现不认识的字时，我可以突出它然后点击“查字典”
这个可以让所有的书、文章或者小说加入学习的一部分。
像有些人坚持阅读小说（跟浪费时间一样），我现在也能报着至少能学一些新词汇的态度读一本小说。能增加我的词汇量嘛。这就是我的经历^^
谷歌桌面工具
Beth指出WINDOWS系统最近文档的显著好处，那么，如果你想要的文档不是那么“最新”呢？谷歌桌面工具来帮你了。我每天用它来查阅邮箱和散步在我硬盘里的重要文件。
GDS转位系统非常地快，它可以在一秒之内给我结果。
免费下载：http://desktop.google.com/
记事本
是的，如果你看清楚了，我是说“记事本”。记事本是计算机最基本的文字处理器。它的简易让它成为很好的省时工具。
面对编写程序、置标语言和复杂的文档格式化，你再不能仅仅复制粘贴了。格式化操作会选取所有格式化编排，把它们编入目标文档，有时会把你想保存的文件破坏掉。
记事本可以即时去掉所有格式化操作。简单的粘贴文本，把隐藏的格式化扫除。
好了，这些是我的五个宝贝。那么你的又是哪五个呢？
1. 一种软件：大约是目标设定/个人数据管理那一类的；知道的朋友可以过来交流一下