As most people use their mouse or touchpad as their primary Windows navigation tool, it is worthwhile to spend a few moments learning how to work more efficiently with this simple tool.

Few things annoy me more than sitting down to help someone with a computer problem only to find that I have to move the mouse about three feet across the desk to get the cursor to move just a few inches across the screen. Good exercise perhaps, but how can these people get any work done?

On a laptop, the equivalent is moving your finger across the touchpad three or four or even more times to move the cursor completely across the desktop. Arrgh!

By default Windows seems to require a relatively large mouse or touchpad motion to move a cursor across a desktop. Fortunately it is very easy way to make your mouse more sensitive, that is, make it so that a smaller mouse movement moves the cursor further across the desktop.

Assuming your IS Department hasn’t locked you out, you can change your mouse configuration by clicking on Start; selecting Settings, then Control Panel; and then double-clicking on the Mouse icon. This opens the Mouse Properties dialog box.

Look for the Pointer Options or Motion tab. Within this tab you will see a Motion or Movement slider. By moving the slider from away from slow towards fast, you can make your mouse more sensitive. Try moving it to about three-quarters of the way to fast.

But be warned, don’t speed your mouse up too much at once. It will take you some time to adjust to a faster mouse. Initially you will likely find that you can speed it up a fair bit. After getting used to working at that faster setting, you will likely find you can speed it up a bit more.

I like to have a very sensitive mouse and touch pad. On my laptop about ¾ of a stroke across the touch pad will move the move completely across my desktop. And just an inch or so on my mouse will do the same. Find a speed that works for you.

A faster pointstick can be helpful too, but if you are a heavy pointstick user, you may find that an acceptable faster mouse or touchpad setting will be too fast.

Within the Mouse Properties dialog box you can also change some other mouse settings, including your double-click speed and cursor size. Look around to see if there are any other mouse tweaks that will help you.