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How do you improve your accuracy quickly in boring tasks?
GH | Oct 7 2006
At work my job involves, more and more, tedious indexing of documents in a database. My problem is that our IT dept. is so paranoid of security breaches, they won't let us edit our *known* mistakes; we have to sumbit our errors to them. This is frustrating and embarrassing to me, because, while I don't have bomb squad level accuracy and attention-to-detail, I am conscientious and proofread everything I submit, and now I can't. Does anyone have any tips on how to bring my clerical (first and only pass) error rate down quickly from about 1% to, say, under 0.1%? MIght I add that the (proprietary) software lacks basic data validation features. 2 Comments
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 I feel for you! I'm a...Submitted by DStaub11 on October 20, 2006 - 10:57pm.
I feel for you! I'm a book indexer, and I'm always looking for ways to improve my accuracy with the details so that I can concentrate on the conceptual and creative parts of my work. It helps to automate as much as possible. My indexing software (Macrex) uses macros to record keystrokes and keywords to record frequently typed sequences (which for me means any nonautomatic word that I'm going to enter more than once!). For instance: if I have to enter certain locators with complicated coding, I create a macro that enters the beginning and ending codes and puts my cursor in between them: {[I]}//^ ^//{[i]} (this is invented, but it can get pretty complicated!). A keyword for an often-repeated phrase might look like this: ]hir and produce this when entered: Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. This greatly reduces errors because I only typ the complicated entry once (as long as the definition is correct!). Another strategy is, after entering each item (or at the last stage when you can change it), to do a quick proofread just of that item. It means a tiny mind switch from entering mode to checking mode, but has become a habit. I don't know if any of this is applicable in your situation, but I hope it helps! Do Mi Stauber Author, Facing the Text: Content and Structure in Book Indexing » POSTED IN:
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