8 Mac Shortcuts and Tricks to 10x Your Life

I have been an avid Mac and iPhone user since 1997 when my middle school bought the beautiful candy-colored iMac like one below. Did you also get introduced to an iMac at school?

Today, I spend at least 10 hours per day on Apple products. Isn't it essential that I get maximum productivity out of this time? Is there any way I can accomplish 10 hours of work in 9.5 hours?

The last 2 years I have significantly improved my productivity on Apple products because I sought out shortcuts and hacks. Please practice each one as you read through each.

1) Keyboard Text Shortcuts

Problem: Do you hate typing out your home address, email or phone when texting with someone, filling out forms or writing an email?

Solution: You need ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’!

1. In your iPhone or Mac Settings, search for ‘keyboard shortcuts’
2. Click on ‘Text’ tab
3. Click on ‘+’

Now, if I start typing ‘usm’ then my full email address will auto-complete. Is not it awesome?.

• Below is a list of shortcuts I use

2) Screenshots

Problem: It takes too many clicks and applications to take a screenshot

Solution: Command + Shift + 4 turns your mouse into a crosshair. This lets you click and drag the frame for your screenshot part of your screen.

3) Preview

Problem: There are 5 similarly named files and you want to take a quick look to see how they differ. It takes too long to open them one by one.

Solution: Take a sneak peak of 1 or more PDFs, documents or images.

• Select 1 or more files and then press your spacebar. (Did you try it?)
• Your file is now viewable without opening the Preview or Microsoft Word.
• To close the file, press your spacebar again.
• You can also quickly view and exit a file by selecting a file, holding the spacebar to preview it and then releasing the spacebar.

4) Spotlight

Problem: It takes too many clicks to find a file in a certain folder or quickly convert 100 Fahrenheit to Celsius

Solution: Use Spotlight (Cmd + spacebar):

• Use it as a search bar, calculator, file search, get weather in Sydney, app launcher, calculate exchange rates…
• Can do conversions (FYI 100 Fahrenheit is 37.8 Celsius, Spotlight told me)

5) Rename a File

Problem: To rename a file you need to right click, choose ‘Rename’

Solution: Press ‘return’ after selecting file

6) Sign documents using Preview

Problem: You need to sign a PDF. How can you do it easily?

Solution: Open the file in ‘Preview’ and follow the 3 steps below to easily sign documents.

7) Emoji Palette

Problem: You want to quickly nice, bubbly emojis to your emails

Solution: Quickly pull up the emoji palette by Control + Command + spacebar.

• You can search for the emojis and even arrows, characters and math symbols

8) Saved Passwords

Problem: Do you need to regularly open certain websites or apps (i.e. Bank of America) on your iPhone, making you type and retype your username and password? Is it getting time consuming to type out the full username? Do you wish you could securely store your passwords on your iPhone and unlock them using FaceID?

Solution: iPhone passwords to your rescue. Save your frequently used credentials for emails, apps and websites. Now with just one glance you can login! Remember to save your passwords whenever your iPhone asks.

My 2 questions to you:

1. What was your favourite shortcut of the 8 above?
2. What iPhone or iMac hacks do you love to use to maximize your productivity? Please leave it in the comments.