We are all about enabling productivity here at GTconsult. We work with Office 365, SharePoint and a number of other great services the Internet has to offer to help us and our clients become more productive. This year we are committed to providing you with the Top 5 productivity hacks we use in our everyday lives to save us time and make us better and faster at what we do. All tips are provided by the team here at GTconsult and the best most awesome ones are published monthly.

*Bonus hackAn introduction to mindfulness meditation in the workplace

1. **Email attachments with Office 2016
   **

If you are running Office 2016 or have an Office 365 subscription which enables you to have the latest version of Outlook and Office products you will love this Outlook feature. In the past when you sent an attachment via outlook you always had to remember where you saved the attachment, scroll through a cluttered desktop or documents folder, sometimes even opening the file to check and then attaching it. That’s the best-case scenario, I know for myself I have replied to three diferent emails, made a cup of coffee and had a conversation with a co-worker during the email attachment process. Outlook 2016 Insert Recent Items feature allows you to attach the most recent files you have accessed, so simple yet so effective.

**2. ****Meeting Minutes in OneNote
**

This is an oldie but a goodie. Meetings are a big part of everyone’s lives, and while it is a debatable as to how long one should meet for and who should attend meetings, they are here to stay. What everyone can agree on is that meetings need to lead to more action and decision than they currently do. Introducing Outlook and OneNote, the ultimate cheap and easy meeting manager. This is by no means the best possible option and doesn’t compete with Boardpacks, but for everyday casual meetings and team collaboration, capturing meeting minutes, notes, video and audio capture and media Outlook and OneNote combined provide amazing value. If you are not already using this feature you should really do so right away, this is how.

**4. Turn notes into calendar items
**

Creating tasks is great and ensure productivity, the key however is to manage and complete them on time. You can use Microsoft’s note-taking tool, OneNote, inside of Microsoft Outlook. So, if you write a to-do list in OneNote, you can easily convert it to a bunch of tasks with deadlines and reminders on your calendar. You can add automatically add calendar meeting details like date, location, topic, agenda and attendees, to your notes. Then you can email the meetings notes to you team using the “Email Page” button.

**5. Smart Lookup in Word
**

Creating content is part of everyone’s job roles these days, at some point you will be required to complete a write up on something. The main issue with making content is the research and information gathering part can take up a lot of time. Introducing Smart Lookup, the ultimate personal assistant built right into word to help you create awesome content without leaving word.

Here is a great example, I wanted to send out a memo on the importance of having a healthy breakfast every morning. I needed some context, images and known great recipies, so I simply opened word and typed “Healthy Breakfast Options” right clicked the words and clicked Smart Lookup.

Smart Lookup bought back all the images, web searches with facts for my research and I could complete the write up by copy and pasting within minutes.

Smart Lookup can also be used when reading content to understand it better, like most big words I use to underline in a book and never remember to return to look at.

That’s it for this month’s productivity tips, we hope you enjoyed them, we look forward to showing you more in February.

On-boarding new employees has never been easier, ensure that from day 1 your new employees are set up with IT assets, parking spaces, access to the correct buildings and most importantly access to their Mail boxes and SharePoint sites.

When your new hire joins they are eager to get going, equip them with the support and hardware they need from the very first day.

To ensure that all new employees are productive, they will need access to a computer, a desk to sit at, and a mailbox to work with, but that’s not all…. Have you thought of?

• Access card to the correct buildings
• Access to SharePoint sites to access and share content
• Phone
• Parking space
• Access to printers and scanners
• Additional HR forms that need to be completed
• Medicals

A first day can be daunting but even more so when you have no equipment.

GT Solutions have developed a solution just for this, Employee On-boarding and Off-boarding that simplifies the process and streamlines the turn-around to ensure that you enable your new employees to be productive from the outset.

The off-boarding module will ensure that when an employee is ready to leave, you have recovered all company assets and documentation, allowing them to enjoy that farewell party without the need to fill on countless forms on the last afternoon.

For more information on the On-Boarding and Off-Boarding solution please contact sales@gtconsult.com  

**Starbucks for Outlook add-in! **

Can you believe it? Starbucks and Outlook join forces, download the new add-in here

You can now add Starbucks as your meeting location just as you would add Skype for Business AND you can send gift cards for Starbucks from your inbox…

Give it a try, it might be a little while till they pick up the Starbucks across the globe, USA is up and running.