Tech tips

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Over the last year, the goal of these letters has been to support fellow Christian entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in finding and honing vocational purpose, why we work and what we are called to, based on my own experiences.

But I also want to discuss vocational productivity as well. If we have amazing ideas but don’t have the tools to implement them, we are no better off.

As someone who spends more time than I would like on a computer for work, I am constantly looking for ways to make my work more effective, reducing repetitive tasks and leveraging the best of what technology can help me with.

Today I want share three productivity tips that have made my computer time smarter and faster.

1. Get a password manager. Store all your passwords securely and log in to any site with one click. You can even copy them to your bookmarks bar. Either LastPass or 1password work well. This has literally saved me days of cumulative time with hundreds of unique passwords.
2. Try a text expander. We all have common things we type. Perhaps it’s a link to a video conference, or a standard email response. A text expander lets you save this text, and paste it at any time with a few keys. I use Alfred on Mac and highly recommend it.
3. Learn keyboard shortcuts. This is a huge one, but it takes purposeful effort. Almost every app and many websites have keyboard shortcuts. Learning these for the programs you use regularly will save a significant amount of time and movement by not having to switch between mouse and keyboard. Whether it’s going through your inbox or organizing photos, use the keyboard and go faster.

I know these aren’t life changing tips, and they sure are not very inspiring, but by helping you work faster and with less thinking, you can dedicate your mental energy to that tasks you are called to that really matter.

~ Sean