Have you become frustrated searching for a password you swore you wrote down somewhere? How about trying to resize windows so you can view two of them on the same screen? In some cases, technology doesn’t feel like a helpful tool but more like an unavoidable hassle. Here’s 10 shortcuts and hacks that will help you use tech to your advantage and make your daily life a little easier.

1. Use a Secure Password Manager
How much time do you lose trying to remember forgotten passwords? The average person spends 12 days of their life searching for their login credentials. There are secure online password managers you can use to manage and store this information, and we’ve partnered with some of the best companies out there. They integrate with your web browser so you can log into websites and other services seamlessly, saving you tons of time guessing or getting locked out of what you need. These tools can also generate secure passwords for you, making your accounts harder to hack.

2. Enable 2FA/MFA
Hacking is never going to stop and with AI it will only increase in intensity and severity. Make it a goal to enable 2FA/MFA on all your accounts, including things you don’t think should be more secure like basic websites, gaming websites, etc. We highly recommend 2FA/MFA on anything related to finance/banking websites, credit card websites, and anything linked to those types of sites such as your email accounts. When possible, implement MFA over 2FA as MFA requires at least two steps to identify a user such as a password plus one-time passcode or fingerprint scan over 2FA that only requires one form of authentication.

3. When All Else Fails, Reboot your device
It’s a good rule of thumb to reboot your computer once per week, our Managed IT Services do just that by forcing devices to restart at least weekly. This flushes system memory, completes windows updates that may have started running, and can lead to better productivity and performance.

4. Install Windows Updates and Security Patches
Never skimp on ignoring that popup that says Windows needs to be updated. Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday of the month and that’s when Microsoft pushes out patches, bug fixes, security fixes and vulnerability fixes for their software and operating system. It’s extremely important to install these and to restart the computer afterwards. Sometimes their updates can be troublesome so you may want to delay installing the updates for a few days and do a little research to make sure the patches are OK to install so to not damage Windows from being usable.

5. Take a Screenshot
On a PC, right-click the ” Start” button, choose ” search,” and type ” Snipping Tool.” Select ” New” and click and drag the cursor over the desired area. Once finished, you can then share or save the snip. On a Mac, Press and hold ” Shift+Command+4.” Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen to capture.

6. Quickly Re-Open a Closed Tab in Your Web Browser
If you accidentally close an important tab in your browser, you can easily re-open it by pressing ” control + shift + t” on a Windows PC.

7. Search From the Browser Bar
Why waste time opening a new tab and going to Google? Today’s browsers allow you to search directly from the browser bar at the top of the page. Simply input your query into the area where web addresses are typically displayed, and the browser will immediately populate a results page related to your search.

8. Use Google to find your Android phone or iCloud.com to find your iPhone
When you are signed into your Google account in your web browser on your PC, Google ” find my phone.” If using Google Home, you can also say, ” Hey Google, find my phone.” This will ring your Android phone. For Apple devices, you can use Find My iPhone on iCloud.com.

9. Set Up Email Filters in Microsoft Outlook
In the Microsoft Outlook ribbon, select ” File,” click the ” Manage Rules & Alerts” button, and then select ” New Rule.” In this menu, you can assign tasks to emails under certain conditions, such as automatically filing emails based on criteria like the sender or specific words in the subject line.

10. Schedule Emails to be Sent Later in Microsoft Outlook
In Outlook, when you open a new email, click ” Options” at the top and click ” Delay Delivery.” Under delivery options, you can choose the date/time next to ” Do not deliver before.”

11. BONUS: Mute and Unmute Zoom Meetings with the Space Bar
When you are called to speak, stop scrambling to click the microphone button. You can press and hold the spacebar to quickly mute and unmute your mic when on a Zoom call.

12. BONUS: Keyboard Shortcuts

• Windows Key + D – Helps you hide or show the desktop at once despite how many tabs and windows are opened on your desktop.
• Spacebar – Scrolls down the page.
• Shift + Spacebar – Scrolls up the page.
• Windows Key + Left/Right Arrow – Allows you to select and work on two windows side by side.
• Alt + Tab – Switches between multiple windows quickly.
• Windows Key + L – Locks your computer in a second. This comes in handy if you’re working on something confidential and someone comes over, and you need privacy quickly.

These shortcuts will free up some time in your day. Contact us for more technology tips or if you have any questions.