{click here to read about my new purse. or stay here to find out how it contributed to my productivity at work today}

I’ve got a folder set up in Outlook at work where hundreds of purchase orders have been piling up that I need to redact before sending them on to someone else. It’s a temporary situation that I volunteered for so that I could double-check the accuracy of the documents before I forward them on, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that a cluster of them this large wouldn’t come along quite so soon (as in, not until I can pass this task off to its rightful owner). Unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky.

Anyway, redacting PDFs isn’t so bad…if you have Acrobat Professional, which features a redaction tool. If you don’t have Acrobat Pro (which I don’t have on my work computer), then you need to get creative. You can’t just draw a text box over proprietary info (contrary to popular belief) because people can still highlight the text beneath, copy it, and paste it somewhere they can read it. What you need to do is place a text box (or multiple text boxes); then save the PDF; then examine it for hidden objects; then remove hidden objects; then save it again. It takes about four minutes per PDF, give or take depending on how many text boxes you need to draw. Pretty much the most inefficient thing ever, since a redaction tool does, in fact, exist in Acrobat Pro.

At four minutes per file with 128 files in my Inbox, I was looking at a little over eight hours of work…redacting PDFs.

I asked our IT department if we had any spare licenses for Acrobat Pro, but no such luck. I reluctantly began dragging the 128 files from my e-mail to a folder on the server. Then I sighed as a started renaming them. Then it dawned on me.

1. I’m not renaming 128 files. I’m combining them into one PDF.

2. I might have Acrobat Pro on my netbook.

3. My netbook is in my purse.

I ripped that netbook out of its case, turned it on, and sure enough, there was Acrobat Pro! Yesssss! I love having a computer genius for a boyfriend.

It took me about 25 minutes to redact the files and move on with my life.

“Did you already redact all those files?” someone asked.

“Yup.”

“Are you serious? How long did it take you?”

“Well, thanks to Pippa Middleton, it only took me about 25 minutes. I seriously thought it was going to take eight hours. Don’t tell anyone,” I stated.

“Pippa Middleton?”

“Mmmhmm. You see, if it weren’t for Pippa Middleton, I wouldn’t have discovered this purse. And if I didn’t have this purse, I wouldn’t be carrying this netbook around. And if I didn’t have this netbook, I wouldn’t have access to a redaction tool. And without that, this redundant task would have taken for. ev. er. So yeah. Thank Pippa,” I said.

“Well, okay then.”

This crazy trip has got me feelin’:  productive
And I’m singin’ along to: Show Goes On – Lupe Fiasco