My 7 favourite productivity hacks

In the two previous articles of this 3-articles serie on productivity, we’ve first seen the methods to be effective, make sure we work on the right things and second how to be efficient, making things right.

These are the most important and are timeless. I will however recommend here some tools and tips I use that I think are helpful to apply the said methods.

Disclaimer: Neither actiondesk nor I are affiliated in any way with any of these tools and companies.

1/ Use shortcuts

Most programs you use often have shortcuts that can really save you tons of time if you make the effort of learning them. Depending on what you use, it’s up to you to understand which operation you perform often and whether there is a shortcut for it. Here are the ones I use the most often:

Gmail: you have to activate your shortcuts in settings / general / shortcuts

- j, k respectively to go to the previous / next email

- shift + U to mark non-read

- shift + r to reply to an email

- shift + A to reply all

- ctrl + shift + C to add cc recipients

- ctrl + shift + B to add bcc recipients

- ctrl + enter to send the email you were working on

- ctrl + shift + 8 to start a bulleted list

- ctrl + shift + 7 to start a numbered list

- ctrl + K to add a hyperlink to a selected text (works in most apps)

Chrome:

- ctrl + W to close a tab

- ctrl + L to jump to the URL / search bar (this one’s a gem)

- ctrl + shift + T to reopen the last closed tab

- ctrl + D to bookmark a page

- ctrl + H to open your history

- ctrl + R to refresh a page

- ctrl + page up / down to navigate between tabs

- type the name of website and press tab to search directly in this website (example: drive + tab to search in your google docs, doesn’t work for all websites but for more and more)

- doc.new, sheets.new to create new google doc / google sheets, etc

Excel / Google Sheets:

- F2 to enter in a cell

- Shift + arrow to select several cells

- ctrl + arrow to jump to the next populated cell in that direction

- shift + space: select the whole row where the cursor is

- ctrl + space: select the whole column where the cursor is

- ctrl + alt + m to add a comment (only in google docs)

- F4 to reproduce the last done actions (if you applied yellow background on a cell, then do F4 on another cell, it will apply the yellow background to that cell)

Windows:

- Alt + F4 to close a program

- Alt + tab to switch between applications and windows

- right click keyboard key. This one is super useful for people like me who use their trackpad and not a mouse. This reproduces right click. I use it a lot. If you don’t have it on your keyboard, shift + F10 does the same thing.

2/ Create your own shortcuts

On top of those shortcuts, I use a really cool plugin called AutoTextExpender which enables you to create shortcuts for frequently used pieces of text.

For example, when I typed “typf”, it replaces it with the link of a typeform form I use a lot at the moment.

I also use it for any response to an email I write often, like

“Hello,

Thanks for your email but I’m not interested in your service. Please remove me from your email list.

All the best”

Or

“Hello,

Would love to jump on a call to better understand your needs and use cases. You can pick a time that will work for you here.

Speak soon”

On the word “here”, you’ll attach a hyperlink linking to your appointment scheduling software, which leads me to:

3/ Use an appointment scheduling software such as Calendly

Sick of the email back and forth with people to set up a meeting or a call? Use calendly or a similar tool. They are integrated with Google Calendar (and most popular calendar apps). You just have to send a link to the people you want to meet / have a call with, and calendly will suggest times when you’re free. Once the person has chosen the time, it will send both of you a calendar invite.

This is just great.

4/ Use clipboard buffering

This was recommended by Tim Ferriss on his blog. It’s basically ctrl + C on steroids. This enables you to access quickly and easily the ~40 elements you’ve copied recently. Tim recommends Jumpcut, but it only works with Mac. I’m on Windows and I use Ditto, it works with any format, specifically images, which is awesome. Also you can access the list of elements copied easily with a simple shortcut: ctrl + ~

5/ Listen to the ambient sound of a cafe

According to this study, ambient sound is good for creativity. I’ve got to admit I was very skeptical the first time I read about this. But I decided to give it a try using Coffivity, which recreates the ambient sound of a cafe. I find it works great for me both in terms of focus and creativity and I use it pretty much every day when working on a long and deep task (typically, writing this article). I also find it’s much less distracting than listening to music. Finally, you can’t actually understand anything people are talking about, contrary to the ambient sound you might have in an actual cafe or coworking space.

6/ Hide your inbox

This is one of my very favorite tools. As I said previously, emails should be managed in batches, and it’s better to not check your emails outside of the time slots dedicated to it. Now during the day, as part of your tasks, you might have to write an email to someone or search your inbox for information. Usually, when you do that, you see your received emails and inevitably, you’ll check some of them, or at the very least seeing you received emails will distract you.

I discovered this awesome chrome plugin called Inboxwhenready. This will install a button on gmail, Show Inbox / Hide Inbox. By default, your emails are hidden. So you can go on gmail, write some emails, and search in your emails all without seeing your recently received emails. For example, in the screenshot below, I can’t see my inbox whereas I have around 50 non-read emails.

If you’re worried you’ll miss urgent emails, there is a way (although I think there should be no such thing as an urgent email). Thanks to gmail, you can label some emails as urgent (when they come from a specific sender or when they contain some specific words in the subject line, for example). With Inboxwhenready, you’ll still get to see whether or not you have such emails. To know more, check out their article on the matter.

7/ Change the default time length of your calendar event

In google calendar, go to Settings / General / Event Settings / Default Duration. Unfortunately, you can’t set a default lower than 25 minutes. Another problem with google Calendar is that setting an event with unusual timing, say 25 minutes, is not user-friendly at all. I’m still on the lookout for a better calendar solution if anyone has one to recommend!

I’m always eager to learn more. I’d love for you to share your methods, tips and tools you use. Feel free to share your best tips here, on Twitter or Linkedin (Linkedin: Jonathan Parisot, Twitter: JoParisot).