My Favorite Apple Productivity Hack to Type Less
Hello readers, this is my first time posting on Medium — ever!
I enjoy writing but I’m a bit shy when it comes to sharing, so this small article is a big step for me. Thank you for reading.
Let’s get to it: how often do you type your email address? If you’re an average internet user, probably dozens of times per week. Sometimes our browsers add it automatically, but not always. Well, for those cases, there’s a way to make your life easier by saving little bits of time. It’s only a few seconds, but they add up, and learning how to do this makes the time savings compound. It’s a simple trick: using Apple’s Text Replacements.
Here’s how it works: instead of typing your email address, you can just type something like “gml” and it will instantly expand to the full email address. Boom. No typos. No searching for the “@”. Fast, easy and satisfying: a little dopamine kick of efficiency, every time.
Let’s do some math here: let’s say you type your email 12 times per week, or 50 times per month. It takes 10 seconds to write your address, while the shortcut takes only 1. If you save 9 seconds 50 times per month, it means that every year you get… 90 minutes back. You read that right. One and a half hour just typing the same thing over and over again, every year.
It does add up.
And it’s not just email addresses. You can create text replacements for phone numbers, home addresses, and my favorite: emojis.
Scrolling through the endless emoji keyboard takes time and focus — next time, why don’t you take the shortcut and stay in the writing flow?
Here’s some examples of my emoji abbreviations:
You might be wondering, how did this all start?
Well, I’ve always been very optimistic about time and logistics, so… I tend to run late. As an Italian, I’m often too busy enjoying life or choosing clothes to leave on time. Sure, I became more punctual after moving to Germany, but my chronic optimism remains mostly untreated. However, as a polite and respectful person, I always text in advance, and that’s why my very first custom abbreviation was a full sentence, the one below, meaning “I am slightly delayed”:
One last thing: replacements only save you time if you use them. When you set them up, you might want to “practice” them a little bit, so you remember they exist, and that you can add more. Your future self will be grateful for the extra typing speed!
Setup Guide
For Mac, iPhone, iPad.
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Here’s how you do it:
- Press CMD+Spacebar or swipe up to search for “text replacements”.
- Click on it (duh)
- Add your desired text replacements by clicking on “+”
That’s it!
Keep in mind that Text Replacements sync with your iCloud account, so you only need to set them up once.
Little effort to set it up, big gains from using it. Hopefully this productivity tip will make you type better and feel smarter, for years to come.
Thank you for reading my first little gift to the Medium community.
If it makes your life a little bit smoother, I’ll be happy.
Ciao!
