Stephen Robbins here. Welcome to the get it done guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Bernice is infatuated. Fortunately, it's with Melvin, her boyfriend. Melvin's an introvert. He doesn't talk very much.

This is a godsend for Bernice. Not only does it give her ample opportunity to hear

herself talk, but it means Melvin is her perfect, a man, biologically at least. I hear him say

hello to her on the way to his desk. She rushes over to me, gushing. Did you hear him? He's so romantic.

He just promised to help me pick out China patterns for our new home.

He did?

Uh, what new home?

The one we are going to buy, once we return from the Bigfoot hunting expedition,

we'll be taking for our honeymoon.

Bernice is hearing a bit more than what Melvin actually said. He says

one word and she fills in the details. All of the details. Bernice, when infatuated, is a text

macro. You surely remember my episode on text macros a mere 159 episodes ago. If not, there's a link in this episode's

transcript. Macros let you type a few short characters and have those expand into much longer

text. Some handheld devices like the BlackBerry have this capability built in. It's called

autocorrect on the Blackberry. You tell the BlackBerry what your abbreviation is and

what it should expand into. Voila, you're on your way. Many desktop products also offer

autocorrect capabilities, and there are some that are explicitly for macros and expanding text

in any application. If you check out this episode's transcript, it includes links to some of my

favorites. Once you have the ability to turn abbreviations into full-fledged text, you need to have some

abbreviations to expand. Marlena wrote in asking how to choose abbreviations for macros and expanded

text. After all, if you use a lot of abbreviations,

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