5 MacOS tips to boost your productivity

Robin Nilsson • August 28, 2019

Reducing the time doing stuff you do regularly is necessary if you want to get shit done. It's called being productive. Start small and find shortcuts to the thing you do the most.

Next level is automating predictive tasks. But that's for another post.

1. Leveraging the spotlight search

You probably know that you can use something called Spotlight search to find applications and files. I use it all the time. But did you know it can do a lot more? It can tell you the weather, do math, currency conversions, unit conversions, find contacts, etc. 🕵🏻‍♂️

Currency conversion in Spotlight

2. Paste and match style

Sometimes when you paste text, it does not match the style of the rest of the content. To fix this, press CMD + SHIFT + OPTION + V instead of the regular CMD + V. This is universal and it should work in most applications.

Paste and match style

3. Save screenshots in clipboard

I use this one all the time. Instead of pressing CMD + SHIFT + 4 to take a screenshot. Use CMD + SHIFT + OPTION + 4. This will save it to your clipboard so you can paste it in most applications. I've even changed my shortcut bindings to the regular CMD + SHIFT + 4 for this one because I use it frequently.

4. Hide the dock

You know that bar at the bottom with all of your apps? It takes up screen- and workspace. Press CMD + OPTION + D to toggle it.

This is especially useful if you don't have a large external monitor.

5. Switching between windows

Having multiple browser and code editor windows open has to be something most developers have in common. I think that most people reach for the dock and right-click to application to change window. However – I think there is a much better way to do it. I use two different solutions.

Hot corners

This is the one I use most. It allows me to flick my cursor to the top left corner(pick any corner you want) to reveal all open windows of the application currently in focus. Great when you have a lot of open windows.

You can find the preference page by using Spotlight! 😎

The backtick shortcut?

CMD + SHIFT + `

Don't know what to call this one, but it's super useful when I need to switch between 2-3 open windows. More than 3 and cycling between the windows gets annoying.

Bonus