Unleash Your Windows 11 Productivity Power
You’ve probably spent a lot of time over the years gathering productivity tips for your favorite applications – after all, that’s where you get most of your work done. But if you’re like most people, you’ve managed to find your way around Windows 11, yet figured there’s not much you can do to improve your productivity in the OS itself. Well, I beg to differ, my friend.
There’s a whole world of Windows 11 productivity tricks just waiting to be discovered. And I’ve delved deep into the operating system to uncover the best of the best. Get ready to wave goodbye to distractions and hello to a faster, more efficient workflow.
Banish Distractions with Focus Sessions
The biggest productivity-sapper for office workers these days is one that has been drastically worsened by technology. Many of us are unable to focus on one task at a time, constantly bedeviled by the distractions that are always at hand when you work on a computer. If you find yourself in this club, don’t worry – you’re not alone.
Luckily, Windows 11 has a feature called Focus sessions that can help put an end to those pesky attention-snatchers. It enables the operating system’s Do Not Disturb mode, which turns off all Windows notifications. Apps in the taskbar won’t flash at you, either, if they require a response.
Focus sessions use the Windows Clock to let you set a time limit for the session, so you won’t be distracted by worrying about how long you want the do-not-disturb period to last. And if background music helps you work, you can even have Spotify play tunes you specify for the length of the session.
To use Focus sessions, just click the three-dot menu in the Daily progress area, then hit Start focus session. From now on, whenever you start a Focus session, you’ll see how often you’ve met your daily goal. It’s productivity magic, I tell you!
Dictate Like a Pro with Voice Typing
No matter how fast a typist you are, it’s unlikely you can keep up with the speed of your own thoughts – or even the pace of your speech. And the faster you type, the more mistakes you’re going to make. But Windows 11 has a solution: voice typing.
Hold down the Windows key and H, and you’ll summon the operating system’s built-in voice typist. Click the microphone icon that appears, and start talking. The first time you use it, Windows will install speech-recognition software to improve performance, but once that’s done, you’ll be surprised at how fast and accurate it is, provided you speak in a clear voice.
There are a few things to keep in mind, though. There’s sometimes a lag between your speech and when your words appear on the screen, so don’t repeat yourself if you don’t see the text instantly. Also, the voice typing won’t automatically use punctuation – you’ll have to say “period” or “comma” to get those. But you can turn on automatic punctuation in the settings menu.
And if you want to use voice typing in text boxes within Windows, like inside a dialog box, there’s a special setting for that, too. So ditch the keyboard and let your words flow freely, my friends.
Harness the Power of the Clipboard
For decades, the Windows Clipboard has been a rather brain-dead affair. You’d copy something into it, paste that clip into an application, and that was that. The next time you copied a clip, the old one would disappear. Not these days, though.
Microsoft has smartened up the Clipboard in Windows 11, and now it stores multiple clips and lets you preview them so you can choose which one to paste. You can even store clips permanently – a great way to keep boilerplate text or a graphic of your signature around for quick pasting.
And if you sync your Clipboard history across multiple Windows devices, you’ll have access to all your copied items no matter which machine you’re using. Just press Windows key + V to see your Clipboard history, scroll through, and click the clip you want to paste.
The Clipboard has a few other tricks up its sleeve, too, with icons across the top for pasting emoji, kaomoji, and popular GIFs. Your clips are deleted when you turn off your PC, but you can pin certain ones to keep them around permanently. And you can manually clean out your Clipboard by deleting individual clips or clearing them all at once.
Harness the Power of Virtual Desktops
You generally use your PC for many different purposes – one set of apps for creating presentations, another for making videos, and yet another when researching and writing. And let’s face it, you might even want to do something non-work-related on your machine sometimes.
So, you probably waste a lot of time hunting for the right apps for each situation. But Windows 11’s virtual desktops can help put an end to that productivity drain. You can create multiple desktops, each with a different set of apps, and switch between them with a click.
To set up virtual desktops, just click the overlapping windows icon to the right of the search box on the taskbar. If you haven’t created any yet, you’ll see your existing desktop and an option to add a new one. Click the “+” sign, and voila – a new desktop appears, ready for you to customize.
You can rename each desktop to make them easier to distinguish, and even set a different background image for each one. Then, when you need to switch between work, home, and leisure tasks, just click the overlapping windows icon and select the desktop you want. It’s a simple way to keep your digital life organized and your productivity high.
Snap into Productivity with Snap Layouts
Speaking of keeping your digital life organized, Windows 11’s Snap Layouts feature is another great productivity booster. With it, you can group your open windows into one of several pre-built screen layouts, making multitasking a breeze.
Let’s say you’ve got a couple of apps you need side-by-side, each taking up half the screen. Or maybe you want one app on the left and two stacked vertically on the right. Snap Layouts has you covered. Just hover your mouse over an app’s maximize icon, and a panel of layout options will appear. Choose the one you want, and your windows will snap into place.
The grouping is saved as a Snap Group, which you can then quickly return to if you’ve opened other apps or minimized any of the group’s windows. Just hover your mouse over the taskbar icon of any app in the group, and you’ll see thumbnails of all the apps in the layout. Click the one you want, and you’re back in business.
It’s a simple way to keep your workflow organized and your productivity high, no matter how many balls you’re juggling at once. And with a little practice, you’ll be snapping windows like a pro in no time.
Unlock the Secret Start Menu
Hidden in the bowels of Windows 11 are many powerful tools that can make you more productive – things like Network Connections for managing your internet, Device Manager for handling your hardware, and Terminal (also called Windows PowerShell) with its extremely powerful command-line tools. But unless you use them all the time, it’s easy to forget they even exist.
And even if you do remember, it’s often not easy to find them. Some are buried deep in the Settings app, others require launching from a command line, and still others are squirreled away in places you’d never think to look.
But there’s a trick for getting to them quickly: the secret Start menu. To access it, just right-click the Windows icon to the left of the search box, or press Windows key + X. A menu appears with a whole list of these productivity-boosting tools. Click whatever you need, and get to work.
It’s like having a hidden compartment in your desk, filled with all the office supplies you need but never seem to be able to find. Except in this case, the supplies are productivity-enhancing tools that can help you work faster and more efficiently. So next time you’re looking to unlock your inner Windows wizard, just remember the secret Start menu.
The Future of Windows Productivity: Windows Copilot
Microsoft has been building some pretty impressive generative AI capabilities into its entire product line, and that includes Windows itself, with a feature called Windows Copilot. As of this writing, it hasn’t been launched to the general public yet, but the company has given us a sneak peek.
In a blog post, Microsoft described Windows Copilot as an “AI assistant that can help you be more productive across Windows and your apps.” The company recently made an early preview version available to some members of its Windows Insider program, but it’s still focused mainly on the user interface.
What that means is that the real power of Windows Copilot – the features and capabilities that could turn it into a true productivity powerhouse – are still under wraps. But if Microsoft can harness the same kind of generative AI magic it’s bringing to Microsoft 365, it could be a game-changer for Windows users.
So keep an eye on this space, my friends. Windows Copilot might just be the productivity boost you’ve been waiting for. And who knows, maybe it’ll even be able to write the rest of this article for me. A writer can dream, can’t they?
Conclusion: Unlock Your Windows 11 Potential
There you have it, folks – a veritable treasure trove of Windows 11 productivity tips that can help you work faster, smarter, and with fewer distractions. From banishing notifications with Focus sessions to harnessing the power of the Clipboard, virtual desktops, and Snap Layouts, you’ve got a whole arsenal of tools at your fingertips.
And let’s not forget about that secret Start menu, which can unlock a world of powerful Windows utilities you never even knew existed. Plus, with the promise of Windows Copilot on the horizon, the future of Windows productivity is looking brighter than ever.
So what are you waiting for? Head on over to ITFix.org.uk and check out our computer repair services. We’ll make sure your Windows 11 machine is running at peak performance, and then you can put all these tips to the test. Happy (and productive) computing!
