HOME OFFICE
If you’re working from home, the battle is to stay focused on the job at hand whilst keeping a nice, clean working environment. Here’s how to set up Windows for work and a minimal new look for your home office PC
VIRTUAL DESKTOPS
Virtual desktops come into their own when you’re juggling projects and need visual separation between them. You can have different sets of apps, or even different instances of the same app open on each desktop, letting you keep your head where it needs to be.
Alternatively, you can use them as a focus tool. You can have, say, all your communications tools (Outlook, Slack and so on) open in one desktop, and work apps in another, so that when you’re 30 paragraphs deep into a report, you’re not distracted by an incoming email or Slack ping.
One feature added in the 2004 update was for virtual desktops to be given names, which helps you sort between them. Click on the Task View button in the taskbar, then tap on the name of the virtual desktop at the top of the screen and give it a new label.
By the way, if you want to quickly flick between open virtual desktops, press Windows+Ctrl+left/right arrow to move between them in order.
CONNECT YOUR PHONE TO WINDOWS
In the current homeworking climate, there’s a strong chance your mobile is doubling as your office phone. The recent improvements made to the Your Phone app mean your Android phone and Windows can work more closely than ever before. (iPhone owners, look away now.)
Once your phone is paired with Your Phone (you’ll get instructions the first time you open the app), you can read and reply to SMS messages from your PC, drag photos from your phone straight to the desktop, and get your mobile notifications displayed in Windows. You can even make phone calls through your PC as long as it supports Bluetooth audio, meaning you don’t need to take one hand off the keyboard or use a headset.
If you’ve got a high-end Samsung device, such as the Galaxy Note 20, Your Phone will soon support Android app mirroring too. If your business uses a smartphone app for data entry, for example, you’ll be able to use the full-sized keyboard on your PC to fill out forms and more.
LIMIT DISTRACTIONS
The problem with connecting your phone and all its notifications to Windows is that it’s merely adding to the noise that will disrupt getting stuff done. However, Focus Assist can once again ride to the rescue here.
In the gaming section, we talked about using Focus Assist to knock out everything except alarms because notifications can blight games. In the home office scenario, you might not be able to simply block out everything. If the boss calls on Microsoft Teams, for example, you’re expected to answer.
Focus Assist has a “Priority list” mode that lets you block notifications from all but exempted apps or contacts. This will stop you getting distracted by news alerts outlining the latest coronavirus lockdown, but will still let calls from the guv’nor through.
To set up your list, search for “focus” in Windows search, open the Focus Assist settings and click on the link that allows you to customise your priority list. Pick the people or apps you want to let through. You can activate Focus Assist by clicking on the notifications centre bubble in the bottom-right corner of the screen and scrolling through the various Focus Assist modes.
LAUNCH APPS WITH KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
Nobody has time to waste when they’re working (no, you spent 13 minutes watching YouTube video
THIS WILL STOP YOU GETTING DISTRACTED, BUT WILL STILL LET CALLS FROM THE GUV’NOR THROUGH
since writing the last paragraph).
One of the quickest ways to make things happen is to assign a keyboard shortcut to commonly used apps, so you can jump straight to something.
To do this, find the app in the Windows Start menu, right-click on it, select More and then “Open file location” (this only works for EXE apps, by the way, not Windows Store apps). Now find your app, right-click on it and select Properties. Move to the Shortcut tab, click in the “Shortcut key” field and type the shortcut you wish to use. Take care to avoid using a shortcut that’s already been assigned.
Another way to quickly fire up apps is to use PowerToys Run. This is basically the Windows equivalent of the Mac’s spotlight search, allowing you to press Alt+Space to open a floating search bar, type the app’s name and launch it (normally after you’ve entered only the first two or three letters).
Get the latest version of PowerToys at github.com/microsoft/PowerToys .