Things I thought everybody knew, but it turns out they don’t.

For those of you that don’t know, I am obsessed with workflow automation and efficiency. This personality train can be very frustrating for those people that work with or live with me. However, I a firm believer that a few nanoseconds saved doing something redundant is that much time gained to do something more productive. 🙂 

Evidently, I’m not the only person who thinks this way. Here is a video of New York Times tech column writer, David Pogue, sharing his “10 Top Time Saving Tech Tips.” 

The Web

1. Tap the spacebar to scroll down a page. Hold Shift and tap the spacebar to scroll back up.

2. When filling out forms, use the Tab key to navigate through boxes. When there’s a pop-up menu for your state or country, type its first letter repeatedly until your location shows up in the box.

3. To make text larger on a web page, hold CTRL and push “+.” To make it smaller, hold CTRL and push “-.”

Smartphones

4. When ending a sentence, instead of toggling through your keyboard layout for punctuation and shifting to start the next sentence, just tap the spacebar twice. Your phone will automatically add a period and be ready to start your next sentence with a capital letter.

5. Tap the Call or Dial button to automatically call the last number that you dialed, instead of spending time typing the number back in.

6. When leaving a voicemail, to bypass the voice greeting and instructions, you can press a key to interrupt and go straight to the “beep”. Unfortunately, all carriers do not offer the same interrupt key function, so you’ll have to know which plan the person you are calling is on.
Verizon: *
AT&T, T-Mobile: #
Sprint: 1

Google Tricks

7a. Google acts as a dictionary when you type “define” followed by your word into the search engine without even completing the search by pressing Enter.

7b. Google also functions as a flight tracking tool. Just type your flight number and it will show you the flight’s status without you having to press Enter.

7c. Google can also convert your units. Type what you need to be converted, such as “12cm in inches” and Google will automatically respond without you having to press Enter.

Text Basics

8a. Double-click on a word to highlight it.

8b. After double-clicking a word to highlight it, you don’t have to delete it to replace it; just type over it.

8c. Double-click and drag your mouse to highlight in one-word increments (as opposed to the regular one-character increment).

8d. Triple-click to highlight an entire paragraph.

Cameras

9. Eliminate shutter lag by half-pressing the shutter button to allow it to focus, then fully press the button to snap the picture without any delay.

Presentations

10a. While giving a PowerPoint presentation, demand focus to yourself (instead of your slide) by pressing “B”. This act will black out your slide. Press “B” again to resume your slideshow.

10b. Along the same lines, press “W” to whiteout your slide, and “W” again to continue.

For all my NinjaTrader friends reading this post, here are some bonus tips and tricks for using the NinjaTrader day trading platform.

Do you have any additional time-saving tips to share? If so, please put them in the comments box below.