Starting anything new is indeed overwhelming, since there is so many things to comprehend, adapt into a routine, decide on how to improve on your talents, and keep it up to date. It is a state of mind, and if you are to become good (at anything), there is time needed to learn, experiment and practice, decide on how and when to do it, and then, make it a routine. One way you my want to understand a program is to make a simple project for yourself to develop these principles. It can be maintenance on your automobile or building an organizer (with a blank spreadsheet) for your garage or workshop. It can be anything that you could use, and over time make it something to improve and detail. But like any blank page, everything start with a vision and purpose that you create; then, it starts with that first line, text, or image. At the same time, plan on also creating your files for real time records keeping. The personal file activity will be what you experiment and try new things with, while the real records would be what you apply from your experiences of what works and what does not work. Some programs come with help and practice files already built, to try to help you understand how to apply a program to your true purpose, but I felt I forced myself to learn from the practice of trial and error using real time activities, but always starting out with a copy of my file and building and advancing on it. This way, if it is wrong, I can always go back to the original file and start over, only losing time (not true, unless I give up; otherwise, if I get right back to work, it was an “investment” in time to learn from). If everything came out ok, I then went to “Save As”, and saved it with the original file name, which replaces the old file.

It becomes Important The Day You Start

      When I brought my scanner onboard the truck, it was to commit myself to scanning receipts, and build a routine around that. Of course, the day already commanded my role and responsibilities towards transporting loads, so I first started out making this practice something to do when I had the time. Anyone who drives a truck knows that when the truck stops for the day, you just want to “vegetate”.I already had a binder and organizer billfold for my piles of receipts. This made it easy to let the first activity be a last activity, and it didn’t get far…at first. I had to make it important, and become conscious of the activity that falls to the wayside. Sitting in an office while the trailer was being loaded, I would look through the customer’s window, and see a wall of file cabinets containing everything business related for them. This was where I sat, and focused on how I don’t have room in my truck for file cabinets, let alone a binder and billfold full of receipts. Eventually, it would have to be recalled, and the computer was to replace the extras that got tossed in a corner or cabinet. Everyone also knows that receipts sit on a dashboard and fades from the sun and elements, or gets wrinkled and ripped. Eventually, I decided the activity needed to become something done at the end of the week. The priority was no longer something that could wait.

      My level of priorities was basically determined by the job I was doing. When starting out in trucking, my first priority was towards recording my assigned loads. The second was building my routine around planning my trip on a mapping program (which I easily found important, since I had a personal interest in maps), and my spreadsheets grew to recording my fuel stops…and that was when things started to merge. Fuel stops included receipts. My concept went to merging those receipts with the spreadsheet that I recorded the fuel on, by “Hyperlinking”. Hyperlink is a tool in my spreadsheet that allows me to link a cell to another place in the same file, or link it to another file, such as the receipt. The only thing I had to make important was scanning the receipts into an organized folder of the computer….you cant hyperlink to a file that is not there.

      Learning To Organize

      The building of an organized folder was easy for me. There is a “parent – child” relationship concept that helped me understand the role that the parent folder would keep or contain everything that is in it…the children. When it came to links or hyperlinks, this would be important to know. My spreadsheet had to be in a parent folder, along side another folder, that became a parent to the files that I scanned. Of course, I learned this the hard way. My first spreadsheet had links to files elsewhere on the computer, but when it came to making backups, those links would be looking for the path to the file, as if the path would always be including the computer. I needed the links to the receipt files stay linked when copied to a DVD or external hard drive. It took awhile to know that the first folder would contain my workbook and a folder that was the parent to the receipt files. When backing up or moving to an external hard drive, I would have to copy the whole parent folder. By doing this, the computer remapped the path.

      Basically, a path is the steps to get to the target folder. Your internal hard drive on the computer is known as the “C” drive, and the path would look something like this: C:\Documents and Settings\User\ToddHarris\My Documents\TheParentFolder\…from here, the path continues to where my spreadsheet and folder “containing” other folders that hold my receipt files. A DVD drive is Typically the “D” drive. An external drive can be any other letter not already assigned. When you hyperlink to files not in a containing “parent” folder, then when you copy from the C drive to another location, the hyperlink makes a best guess (in spreadsheets), or keeps the original path established. So, when the spreadsheet is copied to the D drive, the path may still look for the C drive path. By making sure that a folder contains everything in it, the spreadsheet will change the path to keep the hyperlink connected to file. This has been successful when using Microsoft word as well. Other programs don’t typically change the path. What you link to from lets say Microsoft Publisher, it becomes a permanent path when copied (it does not figure out the changes in drive letters).

      Because the role as a Professional Driver took priority over any business development, it set the tone of how much could be accomplished at any given time. It challenged me to set up a 34 hour period of off duty, to catch up and analyze what I was missing, and where I could improve. Over seven years, a workbook can contain twenty three spreadsheets reflecting each year, while the Driver’s Daily Log program only needed to be reviewed and improved, when it came to recording the activities, and the appearance of each days logs. But, even a reader can look at the archives of this Blog and see how much time was available to Blog, where the less amount of blogs was when the work or workload was the heaviest. Blogging at the time couldn’t become a practice into my routine. But before coming off the road, my daily routine was to review yesterdays logs and paperwork, before printing them in paper form, scanning the previous days completed paperwork (but the receipts were not a daily priority, as was left for those 34 hour periods). Along with my responsibilities of Pre Inspecting the Truck and Trailer, I would set up my other computer that did all the mapping programs, use a digital camera to show any new issues,  and both parts of this routine would get done and I would be moving within a 30-45 minute time average. During the day, like the log, stops for fuel, repairs, and notes at the customers were recorded “as they happened”.

      I did make a few attempts to scan receipts as I acquired them, but there were various issues that kept me from including it in my work routine…at least for now. The hopes of being off the road for now is to contemplate activities like this, and figure on what can be implemented and improved, before returning to the highways. As I lightly mentioned in previous blogs, my focus in this project was to see how much could actually be accomplished while in the course of the work day, and without it interfering with deliveries. Over time, I also explored making a database or two,one reflecting the loads, locations, and customer information (like my own telephone book), and another database that reflected my Blogs, computer activities, and other tasks that I had made important to myself. The purpose was to actually be familiar with as much as possible, so when an individual came up to me with a program related issue, I would have a concept of what they were attempting to do. In short, many drivers may like the idea of a customer location database, but have no interest in recording loads, fuel stops, service information, or maps on computers, while another would like to focus on doing everything as a record by mapping program, and not all the other records. In seven years, I think I have accomplished much of what I envisioned, but would like to go further.

      This Blog also include a category called “Down Time” and it was to be filled with articles that related to photography, writing (to include poetry), drawing, and anything else to pass the time. Crafts, such as making cards and other print related activities, was just the tip of the iceberg. A computer for me is a machine that may reflect multiple codes of communication and hold the universal language of math, but it will always be described in two words, “To Create”. It has to do with making something out of nothing, and the computer screen is a palette to some, a virtual blank paper to another, and the purposes can go on. Making the Down Time category will be more active, because it is important. It is important to me.