How to Speed up the way you work

Getting around your Mac much faster and more efficiently isn’t just about relieving it of an excessive number of tasks. There are also plenty of significant gains to be made by limiting how much of a burden that you place on your own shoulders, too.

Here, we’ll show you some useful methods to achieve this. These include shutting out any distractions, and moving around your Mac’s storage faster than digging down through folders every time you need something.

All of these methods are built in to macOS, so they’re free.

1 Turn off notifications

Unless you really need them, turn off notifications that you don’t need popping up on the Desktop. Go to Apple > System Prefs > Notifications, and go through each app, choosing None as the alert style for those you don’t want.

2 Dock Shortcuts

Folders you use a lot can be dragged into the Dock’s right–most group for easy access. Ctrl–click it there to tailor its appearance. You can view it as a Stack to see a preview of the most recent file added, or show files in a fan, list, or grid.

Use Finder’s sidebar

Another option for faster access to folders is to drag them into Finder’s sidebar. They’re then a click away in every Finder window, and in Open and Save dialogs. To remove an item, Ctrl– click it and pick “Remove from sidebar”.

Use tabs in Finder

Tabs are an alternative to multiple Finder windows, particularly when you’re moving files from one folder to another. With a Finder window open, press Cmd+t to open a new tab. Drag and drop a file onto a tab to move it to that tab’s folder.

Use Desktop Stacks

A cluttered desktop makes it more difficult to find files, slowing you down. Stacks solves that by grouping files. Click an empty area of the desktop, and choose View > Use Stacks. Pick the attribute used to arrange by in View > Group Stacks By.