10 Ways To Be More Productive On Your Mac

1. Keep only your most used apps in your dock
It may seem obvious, but go through your dock and check what apps you’re actually using. If you don’t use it often, just take it off. It’s so easy to launch an app with Spotlight or Quicksilver, there’s no need to let it clutter your dock. And if it changes from time to time, try changing it up a bit, or rearranging.
2. Make Expose work for you
Expose has great defaults, but try changing it to work best for you. If you find yourself running into a hot corner with your mouse unintentionally, change it up. I know I keep Sidenote on the bottom right of the screen, which is really close to a hot corner, and I’d always bump into, so I turned it off. It may seem simple, but it will cut down on frustration quite a bit.
3. Close apps your not using.
I love to multitask, so I’m very guilty of keeping a lot of programs open at the same time. From time to time I have to remind myself that I don’t need EVERYTHING open at the same time. However, with the All Applications hot corner I have set for myself, it’s really simple. Just go through, check what’s been lying idle for a few hours, and hit Command+Q. Just cleared some clutter. And if you don’t want to close everything, try Command+Option+H, and hide everything else away until you need it again.
4. Add some items to your Finder window
The standard Desktop, Applications, Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures work well, but if you find yourself going into Documents and opening the same folder over and over, go ahead and drag that right under the Documents on the left and make yourself a shortcut. You’ll be saving yourself so much time. Give it a custom icon too, something to make it stand out so you can also find it without having to read. This comes in handy when you start to have more than 2 or 3 shortcuts in your sidebar.
5. Find a quick way to take notes.
The best I’ve found so far is Sidenote. I’ve mentioned it before, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate. Sidenote will site on the left or right of your screen(your choice), hidden until you mouse over or hit Ctrl+Option+O. You can also drag into it. It will autosave anything, and keep track all of your previous notes. And it’s free. Can’t beat that.
6. Organize your stuff!
Your Mac should take care of most of this for you, if you let it, with apps like iPhoto and iTunes. However, there will be times you’ll want to organize your own stuff, so find your own system. I trust iPhoto with my photos, but I’d go nuts if it organized all my image files in it’s own system. Organizing things by project has saved me a lot of time. Of course I do occasionally forget to save something in the right place, but don’t get lazy. Find some free time to move your files to appropriate folders, or create them if you need to. Don’t forget that you can color code if that’s easier, or even find icons for different folders. It’s always faster to recognize by image for me, rather than by text.
7. Keep your desktop icons to a happy medium
I really like the look of a clean desktop. I also tend to leave my downloads there for longer than I need to. Check it every once in a while, and clear it off. There’s no need to clear off everything, just what you won’t be using in the near future. Move it to one of those folders you’ve made for yourself.
8. Get an external hard drive
This is mostly for laptop users, but pieces of this could apply for a desktop. For all that stuff you don’t need to take around with you, especially large media files like videos, get yourself an external drive for it. I love to watch movies and TV on my computer, but if I saved it to my laptop hard drive, I’d be out of space in a second. Because it’s the kind of stuff I don’t need to bring with me to a class or to get work done, it’s much easier to just keep it organized on a separate drive. It’s a bit of an investment, but you can also use it as a back up.
9. Let Mail check for email by itself
If you’re using Apple Mail, let it check for e-mail by itself, every five or ten minutes. Have it play a sound when something arrives. This keeps you from checking your mail every five minutes if you’re not getting anything. I know it’s a bad habit I have, but Mail makes it easy to break with a selection of unobtrusive sounds to alert you.
10. Take some time to learn the shortcuts you’ll need.
Look through the shortcuts of programs you use often. You may find some shortcuts for tasks you spend time going through menus to complete. Being able to keep your hands on the keyboard while typing makes things so much easier.
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