http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-use-gmail-slack-zoom-teams-easy-shortcuts-8f27579c?
How to Use Gmail (and Slack and Zoom) Better Than Anyone in Your Office: 19 Easy Shortcuts
We’re all expected to be fluent in countless softwares, even if we were born before email existed. These tips and tricks for everything from Chrome to Microsoft Teams will help you power through tasks faster—and actually enjoy your summer.
AS SCIENCE fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. No wonder your tech-savvy co-workers often seem like wizards. You know the ones I’m talking about: those unflappable souls who can instantly find the file, email or thread that will prove them right in a dispute, while barely breaking eye contact with anyone who might challenge them.
The good news: Your work laptop, and the software it runs, aren’t actually magic. Computers are tools. And like all tools, they get easier to use with knowledge and practice. Most of the things your humbling co-workers do with the speed of big spotted cats are simple enough to master. But to do so, you must be willing to explore the scariest part of any digital workstation: the settings menu.
If you’re intimidated by the idea of tabbing through confusingly titled folders and toggling mysterious functions on or off, focus on the upside. Once you’ve struggled through a few tweaks, and learned some choice keyboard shortcuts, you can plow through work as speedily as any cheetah in your office. That’ll free up more time for you to do the truly important things this summer—like literally nothing. Here, a guide to using eight often-daunting programs more efficiently.
HUNT AND PECK Once you have toggled certain settings and learned keyboard shortcuts, your computer might start to feel a lot simpler. ILLUSTRATION: JACK RICHARDSON
Gmail
To stop duplicating efforts: Stop writing the exact same email, or some version of it, from scratch again and again. Open Gmail’s settings by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner, then the “See all settings” option, then find the “Advanced” tab. Here, you can enable “Templates.” Then, once you’ve written a draft, you can save it as a template. Find the three-dot icon (to the right of the “Send” button), hover over “Templates” and click “Save draft as template.” That is also where you’ll find your templates when you need to use them.
To save time: Everything about Gmail is faster if you learn the keyboard shortcuts, which you can enable in Gmail’s “General” settings menu. Once you’ve turned the shortcuts on, you can jump through the emails in your inbox with just “J” (to go to the next message) and “K” (to go back) and archive an opened message with “E.” Even better: If you turn on the “Auto-advance” feature, located under the “Advanced” tab, each time you archive an email you’ll instantly see the next message, allowing you to zoom through to Inbox Zero.
Slack
To zip through channels: Channels with unread messages are bolded in the left sidebar. You could click each of these, one at a time, to open them. Or, you could use a shortcut. On PC, hold “Alt” and “Shift,” then use the up and down arrows to quickly jump between conversations. (On a Mac, it’s “Option” and “Shift.”) With this, you’ll quickly jump through each channel with an unread message in your workspace. Go too fast and miss anything? Hold “Alt” and press the left arrow on a PC—or hold “Command” and press the left square bracket on a Mac—to go back to the last channel you had open.
The Slack interface might seem intimidating, but it has all sorts of hidden features. For example, if you mouse over a message you can ‘Save for later,’ which lets you use the program like a digital to-do list. PHOTO: SLACK
To save it for later: Mouse over any message and look for the icon in the pop-up that resembles a bookmark ribbon. Anything saved this way will appear in the “Later” section at the top of the left sidebar, where it can then serve as a digital to-do list. You can mark them as “Completed” or archive them for easy reference.
To monitor mentions: It can be easy to miss requests directed to you, especially among chatty co-workers. Get in the habit of checking the “Mentions and reactions” section toward the top of the sidebar. You can see every time someone mentions you in one place, making it easy to find any messages you might have missed.
The ‘Mentions & reactions’ tab is located in the top left corner of your Slack window. PHOTO: SLACK
To declare bankruptcy: If you’ve been away from work for a few weeks, there’s no real chance you’ll catch up on everything. Admit this to yourself, then hold “Shift” and press “ESC” to mark all channels as read. Ah, that’s nice!
Windows
To speed up launch times: Hunting for files or apps in Windows 11 can be annoying, so don’t waste time clicking around. Just open the Start menu on the bottom of your screen start typing the name of what you’re looking for, then hit enter when it shows up. Houston, we have liftoff.
Once you’ve hit the start button, this search bar will appear in the center of your screen. PHOTO: MICROSOFT
To keep apps handy: Pin them to your taskbar in the bottom left of your screen: Just right-click their icon and hit “Pin to taskbar.” Once there, you can open them either by clicking or by holding the Windows key and pressing a number—“1” will launch the left-most pin, “2” will launch the next, and so on.
To use the clipboard more capably: Ever copied something important only to accidentally copy over it? Windows has a built-in clipboard manager to prevent this. In “Settings,” head to “System,” then to “Clipboard,” where there’s a switch to turn on clipboard history. Now, whenever you hold the Windows key and press “V,” you’ll see the 25 most recent things you’ve copied.
To access bonus tools: PowerToys is a collection of tools Microsoft MSFT 0.47%increase; green up pointing triangle makes that adds a bunch of basic functions your computer really should come with. That includes letting you quickly resize images, paste without formatting, and add accents to letters. The tools are free and available in the Windows App Store.
MacOS
To rev up search: Instead of searching for apps and documents through Launchpad or clicking through folders on Finder, launch Spotlight search by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the menu bar on the top right of your screen (or pressing “Command” and the space bar). Type whatever you’re looking for and hit “enter” to open it.
Once you launch Spotlight, you can quickly search for any file or application you need. PHOTO: APPLE
To get more elbow room: Does your screen feel crowded? Instead of just buying a second display, open System Preferences and head to the “Displays” tab. Here, you can change the display size—the “More Space” option will shrink everything, giving you the room to look at multiple windows at once. If you have difficulty reading small text, it isn’t ideal. But if you’re constantly going back and forth between different apps, it’s a godsend. For even more room, go back to Preferences, find the “Dock & Menu Bar” tab and click “Automatically hide and show the Dock.” Now, your dock will only appear when you mouse over its former location.
Google Chrome
To find lost tabs: Close a tab by mistake? Reopen it by holding “Ctrl” and “Shift,” then pressing “T” on your PC (on a Mac it’s Command-Shift-T). Whatever tab you just closed will reappear. Much faster than going into your History.
To instantly conjure a Doc: To create a new Google Doc file, just type “docs.new” into the address bar. That is it! This also works with Google Sheets (“sheets.new”), Google Meet (“meet.new”) and even Adobe Photoshop (“photoshop.new”).
Zoom
To simplify invites: Ever spent the first minutes of a Zoom meeting waiting for co-workers, only to realize you didn’t invite any? To make sure that you can quickly rectify this in the future, open Zoom’s settings menu and check the “Copy invite link when starting a meeting” box. Now whenever you start a meeting, you’ll automatically be able to paste the invite link into any chat app or email.
There are plenty of useful features buried within Zoom’s ‘Settings’ menu. PHOTO: ZOOM
To see no evil: There is a reason most conference rooms don’t have mirrors—our own faces can be distracting. Zoom, sadly, shows your face by default. You can change this by opening the settings, heading to “Video,” and checking the “Hide Self View” option. Now the only people who have to see you are…everyone else. Don’t worry, if you want to make sure your lighting is OK (or that your camera angle isn’t showing your unmade bed), you can right click any person’s image in a meeting and hit “Show Self View.” Then, quickly, turn it off again.
If you forget to turn off self view before entering a meeting, just look for the three dots in the corner of your video feed. There, you can ‘Hide Self View.’ PHOTO: ZOOM
Microsoft Word
To transcribe speech to text: Have a recording you would like to turn into text? Use Microsoft Word. Just click the arrow below the “Dictate” button in the “ribbon” (Microsoft’s name for the main toolbar above your document), and choose “Transcribe.” Upload any audio file, wait a few minutes, and presto…you have a text transcription. The transcriptions aren’t always perfect, but it’s much easier to make corrections to something that exists than it is to type it all out yourself. One note: The feature is offered in Windows and Web versions of Word, but not the Mac version.
Microsoft Teams
To jump around: Hold “Ctrl” and press “E” on your PC, or “Command” and “E” on Mac, to jump to the search bar. Here, not only can you search for messages, but also trigger all kinds of commands with the slash key. For example, “/away” sets your status as away; “/mentions” shows you a list of times you’ve been mentioned; “/call” followed by a name quickly starts a call with that person.
Find the search bar at the top of the Microsoft Teams window, identified with an icon of a magnifying glass. From there, you can search for messages, and trigger commands like ‘/away’ to change your status. PHOTO: MICROSOFT
To limit pings: Too many notifications? Go to “Settings” then “Notifications” and choose to get notifications for “Mentions & replies” rather than “All activity.” Here you can also turn off email notifications, so that you can stop wasting time deleting emails notifying you about messages Teams has already shown you in the app.
OLD-SCHOOL TO-DO LISTS: A CELEBRATION
Historically the simple analog list has both sped up mundane tasks such as grocery shopping and formed the basis for directives as weighty as the Ten Commandments and the U.S. Constitution. And while you can digitally formulate a to-do, software like Trello and Asana rarely offers the same satisfaction as writing one out by hand. Here, how four C-suite executives use the time-honored tool to ensure both productivity and accountability.
Joy Altimare, Chief Marketing Officer of Kindbody
“My Moleskin planner helps me stay organized and also holds inspiration that I swipe from magazines or newspapers. It’s great to know I won’t lose a history of my thoughts, motivations and actions if I install an update.”
Hugh Forrest, Co-President and Chief Programming Officer of SXSW
“I use a Mead composition notebook for everything: a daily to-do list, meeting notes, random brainstorms. The process of engagement with pen and paper gives me a sense of progress and, eventually, completion.”
Deena Bahri, Chief Marketing Officer at StockX
“I keep a small StockX notepad on my desk at all times and truly relish adding, then crossing out, items throughout the day. A new day brings a new page, so that, even if I have to carry over items, there’s always a fresh start.”
Chris Thorne, Chief Marketing Officer of Beats By Dre
“My white board at home helps me work through big problems I’m trying to solve, forcing me to keep them top of mind. The board changes as issues get solved, or my son erases it—whichever comes first!”
—Edited from Interviews with Rae Witte
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