Mac|Life

Boost your productivi­ty

Streamline processes and save loads of time

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> OFFLOAD WEB PAGES

If you’re often distracted by clicking on interestin­g articles in Safari — or end the day with a dozen unread tabs — change your browsing habits. Use an RSS reader like NetNewsWir­e (free, netnewswir­e.com) to subscribe to favorite sites and peruse their headlines and articles at your leisure. And when you more randomly chance upon something interestin­g, send it to Pocket (free, getpocket.com). Both apps also have excellent iPhone and iPad incarnatio­ns that you can try out.

> USE VIPS

Email can seem like a never–ending deluge, but there are ways of coping with the flood. For any vitally important contact, click their name in an email and select Add to VIPs. Their emails will then appear in the VIPs mailbox, thereby filtering your inbox between what’s important and what is less so. Beyond this, get into the habit of not having Mail open all day. Instead, try to schedule two or three sessions a day where you focus on email and nothing else, to blaze through your inbox at a set time.

> PRUNE NOTIFICATI­ONS Notificati­ons can be an annoying distractio­n sometimes — and most of their demands can wait until later. Therefore, head into the Notificati­ons section of System Preference­s and turn off any that aren’t critical. (The same goes for your mobile devices, which can pull you away from your Mac.)

Remember that when you need full–on quiet time, Do Not Disturb’s available in Control Center — and can be easily scheduled in the aforementi­oned System Preference­s pane.

> PIN THINGS

Over time, we create a lot of data and documents, and it’s easy for things of importance to get lost. In Notes and Messages, you can Control– click a message or thread and pin it to the top. Similarly, Safari tabs can be pinned. Use pinning sparingly, otherwise you’ll end up pinning everything and be back to square one.

> DIG INTO APPLE APPS There are two types of Mac user — the one who never installs anything beyond what comes with their computer, and the one who can’t stop installing new apps and trying new things. Ideally, be balanced, ensuring that your apps align with your needs and how you work. But if you’ve long ago ditched Apple apps, take another look at some of them. Pre–installed apps might not be the most powerful, but they are baked deep into macOS and tend to work well with iCloud, thereby reducing friction, and enabling you to be efficient and productive. These apps could streamline your work.

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