Stupid Simple Mac Tip #58 - Automate Your Typing

Our inaugural app - specific Stupid Simple Mac Tips blog post is on TextExpander.

You may use already use it daily.

More likely, you own a license but rarely use it.

And even more likely, you’ve heard about it, but haven’t taken the time to set it up and start using it.

Over the next 3 weeks, I’ll put out a short post not meant to teach you how to configure the entire app, or to become an advanced superuser, but to do two things:

1) Either get you to start using it. (Who wouldn’t want to automate their typing?)

2) To have you start using it daily. (or use daily...more often)

If you could check those two boxes, it would be a worthy goal.

What is it?

If you’re unfamiliar, it is a productivity app that uses keyboard shortcuts to automatically insert longer blocks of frequently used text called snippets.

How many characters are in your email address? Your phone number? Your office address?

How often do you type those yet still make a spelling error, then have to go back and correct it?

If you could type 3 characters and have it type the rest for you and do so perfectly every time, would you want that?

Duh. ??

The biggest problem with this time - saving app is that it remains too complicated to get up and running.

Today’s tip and the three that will follow are meant to help you get over that hump.

Who is it for?

Anyone who types.

Yeah, that’s right.

And it works on Macs and PCs, so you forwarded this to your Luddite PC - using colleagues (just delete this last sentence)

How do I get started?

This week’s action is simply to go and download the app, you can try it for free. The cost, should you decide the ROI is worth it by the end of this series, is $3.33/month for a single license or $7.96 per user for teams.

Download the app and install it. (Check the comments for the link) Open it and walk through the initial setup (just do the basics, that’ll get you ready for next week’s tip.)

If you’ve already got it, bravo, tell a friend and help them out.

Here’s my personal report over the past year.

I expanded 3,310 snippets, saving 15 hours and 22 minutes. In order to make my Team account worth it, all I had to do was earn more than $6.27 per hour. Yup, that’s a huge ROI for me and I’m above that line ??, and I sure as heck hope you are as well.

Over the next 3 weeks, I’ll share the 3 tips that will single-handedly (triple-handedly?) increase your usage, therefore your ROI, on TextExpander.

What are the two or three most common snippets that you use daily or weekly? Share those in the comments below. ????