New Year’s Resolutions for a More Productive You

Every year, as the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, people around the world make resolutions that they hope will better their lives. From losing weight to quitting addictive habits, the most popular resolutions are often centered around self-improvement. However, these quintessential resolutions are also the most prone to failure. That is why, this year, consider making a resolution that will benefit you in all aspects of your life: living more productively. And one great place to start is the place you spend the most time at – your Mac.

Here are five tips on how to make your workspace a more productive one:

1. Clean Out the Clutter

As a blogger, I constantly load my Mac with tons of photos, videos, and documents for article writing and deadlines. After a couple of months of doing this, my Mac ends up being sluggish, filled with junk, and just in need of a good cleaning. To ensure that your Mac works to the best of its ability, you must periodically clear out useless files.

If you find this task daunting, seek refuge in an application whose job is to clean out your Mac. One application that I always recommend is Magican: this application goes through your Mac and presents you with a list of files that may not be necessary for the way you use it. Along with all your applications, you can look through and choose what to remove. Plus, since it’s free, there’s no reason not to at least try out the application.

2. Load Up Your App Arsenal

Adding a few applications that you can incorporate into your workday, or even when you are getting errands done, can add a bit of productivity to your Mac. One key to productively incorporating any application into your Mac is to ask yourself a couple of questions first: Will this application solve a problem or make something easier for you? Does it seem like an application that’s complicated to get started? Are you willing to pay for this application in the possibility that it wouldn’t work?

Going through this checklist will allow you to pick an application that isn’t a waste of megabytes and allows you to just jump in and get started. A couple of suggestions to get you started are Evernote to keep notes, documents, and more in one area, Dropbox to save files and transfer them easily, and iClockr for timekeeping for freelancers and workers alike.

3. Hook Up Your Mac

Switching from your Mac to your iPad and then to your iPhone to get things done can be a bit time-consuming. You may feel that it’s necessary when you have your email in one place, a document in another, and a spreadsheet on a third device, but this doesn’t need to happen with Mac.

If you have iOS, Mac has provided a perfect way for you to connect your life on your various gadgets easily: this is done through iCloud, a cloud service that allows you to easily have certain productive aspects of your mobile life automatically added to connected devices instantly.

Currently, this is widely implemented in calendars, contacts, iWork documents, and more. Various applications like Smartr for example, are hooked up with iCloud. This prevents you from having to put in the added effort of creating multiple calendar events or contacts and allows you to work on documents when away from home.

4. Calibrate Your Battery

One annoyance that comes with working hard on your computer is that you must remember to have a charging cable nearby when the battery starts to run low. When typing or working at your computer for a long period of time, doing power-intensive activities, this can feel more frequent than you may have thought. It’s also more noticeable when you find yourself with an un-calibrated battery.

Battery calibration means that you are setting your battery status to become more aligned with its actual capacity, which can sometimes become offset with active use. Calibration is very easy to do: Simply use your Mac’s battery until it gets to the point of shutting down on its own. When this occurs, connect to the charger and allow it to charge fully without powering on. You’ll know when the charger light turns green.

5. Extend Your Office

So, you’re typing away at a report or article, and then you’re interrupted by something that makes you leave your workstation. It can be anything from having to drop the kids off at practice to even a road trip, but it means time away from your desk. How do you extend your office, outside of the actual office space? You can make sure that all of the email addresses that you use are connected to your mobile device.

You may have shied away from this out of fear that the frequent emails would run up your phone bill, but you can simply switch “Push”, where an email is brought in each time a new message comes in, or “Fetch”, where your email is checked at a certain interval set by yourself. By doing this, you never have to worry about missing a vital email when you’re away from your desk.

Final Thoughts

Making New Year’s resolutions doesn’t have to focus solely on exercising or eating habits; it can be about making productively-geared changes in your life. Our workplace, the digital world, is just as important to clean up and maintain in a way that allows us to work productively, engage with family and friends, and enjoy life. So, give these tips a try and make 2021 the year of productivity.