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/Patricia Dwyer

About Patricia Dwyer

My experience with both computers and management makes me uniquely qualified to help you manage your digital life. We’ll start with a free one-hour phone consultation so that I can understand your systems and your needs, and then we’ll agree on a plan to address those needs. At the completion of our plan, you’ll be well on the way to understanding and managing your digital life.

Here’s an easy way to manage projects using a spreadsheet-based tool

If you’ve read my post on how to manage projects here: How to Stay on Top of Your Project Management, then you know that a good tool can help you:

Collaborate
Stay on top of tasks
Reach your goals and deadlines within your expectations.

If you use spreadsheets to manage projects (or even if you haven’t but you’re familiar with Excel or Google Sheets), then you might want to check out Smartsheet. Smartsheet is a full project […]

By |June 28th, 2016|Project Management|Comments Off on Here’s an easy way to manage projects using a spreadsheet-based tool
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Here Are Five Important Questions to Ask After a Completed Project

A project postmortem is a completed project review session.
A postmortem is essential to make sure that you’ve learned something from the process. And if you’re worked with others on your project, the postmortem is a great forum for knowledge sharing.

The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit defines the postmortem as:

 1. “a meeting held following the conclusion of a project to discuss its strengths and weaknesses 2. “billed as a constructive forum geared toward improving a process but […]

By |June 24th, 2016|Project Management|1 Comment
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How to Use a Visual Task Management System to Stay On Top of Stuff

Do you want smooth and efficient task management?
Tasks are those often-reoccurring items that you need to complete on a timely basis. Poor task management may leave you feeling frustrated because your to-do list keeps growing and it seems like you’re not getting anything done.
Most task management and productivity tools focus on very linear thinking. But what if you’re a visual thinker?
The whiteboard is the traditional system for making a visual representation of a project and […]

By |June 22nd, 2016|Task Management|1 Comment
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Here is a Free Project Management Cloud Tool That’s Easy to Use

Are you staying on top of your project management?
A project management tool helps. A good tool will give you a visual view of dependencies, progress, and slips in schedule. You also want your project management tool to give you:

An overview of the project
Completed tasks
Tasks in progress
Assignments
A calendar.

(Read my blog post here about project management: How to Stay on Top of Your Project Management.)

I often recommend Insightly […]

By |June 17th, 2016|Project Management|Comments Off on Here is a Free Project Management Cloud Tool That’s Easy to Use
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How to Stay on Top of Your Project Management Milestones and Deadlines

Projects have defined start dates and end dates (even if that end date keeps moving!) and it’s important to stay on top of milestones and manage schedule risk. If you’re managing projects with milestones and resources, then you should be using project management software such as Microsoft Project, Insightly, or Asana. (Task management software, on the other hand, is less complex.)
Here’s how to start the project management process:

Determine your start date for the project […]

By |June 16th, 2016|Project Management|Comments Off on How to Stay on Top of Your Project Management Milestones and Deadlines
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Who Else Wants to Easily Find Photos When You Need Them?

Most of us have an abundance of digital photographs – so many that we are not taking the time to look through them and organize them. The problem is that when you want to go back and find photos, you might find yourself in a time-consuming and frustrating search.

I was recently looking at an old photo of my brothers, and it struck me that I had a recent photo of my brother and son that […]

By |June 14th, 2016|Digital Chaos Control, Photo Management|Comments Off on Who Else Wants to Easily Find Photos When You Need Them?
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If a Mac User, Are You More Hip? If PC, More Practical?

Are you Mac or PC? What does that say about your personality?
Let’s look at a little history to see how we got here with this question. The Apple II was the first personal computer, released in 1977 after Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded the company – followed by the IBM PC in 1981, running Microsoft MS-DOS.

Always one step ahead, Apple under Steve Jobs released the Macintosh in 1984 – its windows interface was a […]

By |June 13th, 2016|Computer Management, Technology|Comments Off on If a Mac User, Are You More Hip? If PC, More Practical?
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Office on Mac? What you ought to know…

Office on the Mac has always been an afterthought for Microsoft, and not as full-featured as its PC equivalent.
Microsoft has a different development team working on Office for the Mac, and, over the years, people have wondered if the team was just a couple of engineers working in the Microsoft basement. (If you’re curious, here’s a video of the team from a couple of years ago: Office for Apple Team).

Microsoft has made many improvements […]

By |June 8th, 2016|Digital Chaos Control, MS-Office|Comments Off on Office on Mac? What you ought to know…
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How To Easily Follow-up on Those Important Emails in Outlook

If you’ve gone through the process of email organization (see my blog post here: 4 Steps to Becoming More Responsive), then you hopefully have a streamlined inbox with just the most important emails.

You also should have a daily routine of dealing with those emails that consists of:

Evaluating
Acting On, filing, or flagging for follow-up

Flagging an email in Outlook creates a follow-up to-do item.
Your email is not only marked with a flag in your Inbox, it’s also […]

By |June 7th, 2016|Email Management, Task Management|Comments Off on How To Easily Follow-up on Those Important Emails in Outlook
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What Everyone Ought to Know About Office Alternatives

Microsoft Office has been a workhorse for years.
Many of us first became accustomed to it in our corporate work. If you’re still working in a corporate setting or if you’re creating detailed documents, spreadsheets, or presentations on a PC, there’s still nothing that beats Office for standard and more advanced content creation.
Office is not cheap.
A single license of Office Home and Student costs $120, but we’re often working on multiple devices these days. If you […]

By |June 6th, 2016|Cloud Services, Digital Chaos Control, Email Management, MS-Office|3 Comments
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ABOUT PAT DWYER

My experience with both computers and management makes me uniquely qualified to help you manage your digital workflow. We'll start with a free one-hour phone consultation so that I can understand your systems and your needs, and then we'll agree on a plan to address those needs. At the completion of our plan, you'll be well on the way to understanding and managing your digital workflow.

Contact Patricia Dwyer

Salesforce Admin Certified

CONTACT DIGITAL CHAOS CONTROL

Patricia Dwyer, Proprietor
Phone: 650.517.3142
Email: pat@digitalchaoscontrol.com

Helping You to Get In Control Of Your Technology

RAVE REVIEWS

Pat is very knowledgeable, organized and patient. She explains things clearly and made it all very easy for me. I highly recommend her to anyone needing help with any kind of technology.
Bill Welch, San Mateo, CA
Pat was a patient problem solver and I'm much happier with the organization of our iTunes Library now. If you want an IT expert who listens well and responds to your needs, I highly recommend her.
Beth Harrison, San Carlos, CA
Pat's prompt and expert help got me back online with my email straightened out in no time at all. Her calm approach soothed my frustration and made the whole experience a positive one. I would highly recommend her to bring order to your digital life.
Joanne McMahon, Millbrae, CA
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Phone: 650.517.3142