Simple Windows 11 Tips And Tricks To Maximize Your Efficiency
Windows 11, released by Microsoft on October 5, 2021, came with plenty of features that complemented its fresh look and design. Since its release, Windows has added more features with its newer updates, making the world’s most popular desktop operating system even better.
In this blog post, I share with you 12 Windows 11 tips and tricks that will help you become more organized and maximize your efficiency.
In the following sections, I will discuss each in detail.
Speech-to-text applications are nothing new but have always required some third-party application. With Windows 11 you get an inbuilt speech-to-text or voice typing option. To access the voice typing feature, press the Windows log key + “H” or select the mic button on the tough keyboard whenever you are in a text box and start dictating text with your voice.
Windows 11 voice typing comes with an auto punctuation option, which when enabled automatically adds punctuation marks such as commas and full stops. This feature works seamlessly with desktop applications as well as web applications.
Image: Windows 11 Voice typing settings
The Windows 11 Snap Layout feature is a visual aid that allows you to organize windows on the screen more efficiently. You can access the feature by hovering your cursor over the maximize icon or by dragging a window to the top of your screen. It has four predefined layouts that you can choose from.
Image: Windows snap layout
Windows 11 has reorganized how Windows works with multiple windows. It now allows you to display the taskbar on multiple screens. This has made it easier to access the taskbar for those who work with multiple displays.
To access this feature, right-click on your desktop, click on “Personalize”, scroll down the window, and then click on “Taskbar”. This takes you to the Taskbar setting that allows you to control taskbar behavior. Once again, scroll down and click on “Taskbar behavior” to reveal the taskbar alignment options. Now click on the checkbox against the option “Show my taskbar on all displays”.
Image: Windows 11 taskbar display settings
Once this feature is enabled, the taskbar will be visible on all displays and you don’t have to move your mouse over to the main display to access the taskbar.
Note that this option will be grayed out if you don’t have additional displays connected to your device.
The increase in features and functionality in Windows 11 comes with a downside, the increase in the number of notifications. Frequent system notifications are an unnecessary distraction and thankfully, you can turn them off.
On the taskbar, click on the “Start button”, then on “Settings”, and under “System” click on “Notifications”, to open the notification settings. The radio button next to notifications is turned on by default. Click the arrow next to the radio button to reveal more options.
Image: Windows 11 system notifications settings
Although you can toggle the notifications off completely, you may not want to since you’d still want to receive notifications from important apps such as the calendar, incoming calls, etc. So what you can do is scroll down and toggle notifications off for apps that you are certain you do not want.
If you scroll all the way down, there are additional settings. If you are comfortable using Windows, then you can uncheck the boxes for tips and suggestions.
Image: Windows 11 system notifications additional settings
Next, click on “Privacy & security” in the left-hand side menu and then click “General” under “Windows permission”. Here you will find settings related to your advertising ID. You can toggle off all of these settings to turn off personalized ads.
Image: Windows 11 Privacy settings
You can find the Widgets feature on the taskbar. Clicking the widget icon launches a window that contains a set of widgets that access information from the world wide web. You can drag and move around the widgets however you like. You can also pin the widgets or customize them by clicking on the “More” options, i.e. the three horizontal dots. To add more widgets, click on the “Plus” icon and select from the list of widgets.
Image: Windows 11 widgets panel
One annoying thing about the widgets panel is that there seems to be no way of managing the news feed. Clicking the profile icon on the top right of the widgets panel brings up the “Widgets settings” that contains a “Manage interests” button, which opens a settings page on MSN.com in your browser.
Image: Windows 11 Widgets settings
Even after several attempts at selecting the topics of my interest, the widgets panel continued to news stories unrelated to my interests. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon because it definitely holds great promise.
Autocorrect is another feature that has been around for a long time and we all have it enabled on our phones as well as on word processors such as Microsoft Word. But you can also enable autocorrect on Notepad, file explorer, etc.
To do this, head over to the “Settings” menu by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting “Personalize”. On the left-hand side menu, click on “Time & language”, then click on “Typing”. Now, toggle on the button next to “Autocorrect misspelled words”. If you would also like to get word suggestions while typing, turn on “Show text suggestions while typing on the physical keyboard”.
Image: Windows 11 Autocorrect settings
Windows 11 start menu is a really handy feature that you can customize in more ways than one.
Use Pinned Apps For Quick Access
When you launch the start menu, you see the search bar at the very top followed by the “Pinned” apps, and below that, you see the “Recommended” section, where you see recently used apps and files. Finally, at the bottom, you see your profile icon and the power button.
You can add apps that you use frequently to the “Pinned” section for quick and easy access. To do this, launch the start menu, then click on the “All apps” button near the top right. On the list of apps, right-click the app you want to pin and select “Pin to start” from the pop-up menu.
Image: How to pin app on Windows 11 start menu
To remove an app from the start menu, right-click on it and select “Unpin from start”.
Navigate Faster Using App Headers
When you click the “All apps” button on the start menu, you will find that the list of apps is very long and it can take time to scroll down to locate the one you are looking for. To speed up the process, you can click on the header, i.e. the starting letter of the app to condense the list. From here, you can click on the first letter of the name of the app to get to the app without having to scroll all the way.
Image: Navigation by clicking on app list header
Image: Condensed app list
Start Folders (Icons)
Finally, you can also customize how the start menu appears to show more pins or more recommendations, as well as add navigation icons next to the power button.
To do this, launch the start menu and right-click on any blank space on the start menu, then click on “Start settings” from the pop-up menu. On the settings window that opens up, you can choose the layout of the start menu from the three options- More Pins, Default, and More Recommendations.
The settings also give you control over whether or not you want to display recently added apps and recently used items in the start menu. To change these display settings simply toggle on or off the appropriate button.
Finally, at the bottom, you see the “Folders” option. Clicking it will take you to the settings page where you can choose which folders appear on the start panel next to the power button. From the list, simply toggle on the button and the folders will appear next to the power button on the start panel.
With virtual desktops, Windows 11 allows you to create additional desktops that can be independently used. This is a useful feature that allows you to keep your tasks organized.
To create a virtual desktop, click on the “Task view” in your taskbar and then click on the “+” icon. This will create a new desktop that can be used independently from the first one. Any apps or files you open on this desktop will not be visible on the other desktops. You can create multiple virtual desktops. To keep track of them, you can rename them as well as change their backgrounds. To bring up these options, simply click on the “Task view” icon and then right-click on the individual desktop.
Now, when you hover over the “Task view”, you can see and navigate to the various desktops you have created. And if you click on the “Task view” icon, you get a preview of the different desktops. From here, you can hover the cursor over any desktop and then right-click on any open application or file on that desktop and move them to any other desktop or to a new one.
Image: Windows 11 virtual desktop navigation
To close a virtual desktop, hover your cursor over the “Task view’ icon, then click the close button on the desktop you want to close. Closing a desktop doesn’t close the apps and files open on it but moves them to the desktop on its immediate left.
I am sure, almost all of us are aware of the shortcuts for copying and pasting. But Windows has a lot of shortcuts that are really useful, especially if you wish to use some of its newer features. Here are some of the new shortcuts:
Windows logo key + W - launches the widget panel
Windows logo key + A - opens up quick settings where you find volume, brightness, network, and other connectivity settings.
Windows logo key + N - opens up the notification panel and calendar.
Windows logo key + Z - opens the snap layout. You can then select any of the displayed numbers to snap the current window to the selected position.
Image: Windows 11 snap layouts shortcut
It is common to have a number of applications, folders, files, and shortcuts on their desktop. But when we are sharing our screens on a video call, taking screenshots, or giving presentations, we may not want to show our cluttered screens to our audience.
Windows 11 has a quick and easy way to solve this problem. With just a few clicks you are able to declutter your desktop and be ready for your presentation. Right-click on your desktop to bring up the pop-up menu and select “View”, then select “Show desktop icons”. This will hide everything on your desktop. To restore all of the items on your desktop, simply repeat the same steps.
Image: How to hide desktop icons on Windows 11
In the contemporary workplace, most of the communication happens on messaging applications such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. And the asynchronous communication on these platforms is facilitated by the generous use of emojis and gifs.
Windows 11 lets you in on the fun way of communicating by making it easy to add emojis, GIFs, kaomojis, and symbols. To launch the emoji picker, click the Windows logo key + ; (the semicolon key).
Image: Windows 11 emoji picker
We all know how copying and pasting works on Windows. You press Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste. But did you know that pressing the Windows Logo Key + V brings up your clipboard, which shows the list of items that you have copied? This allows you to keep track of and paste any of the items that you previously copied.
Image: Windows 11 clipboard
Conclusion
These are some of the Windows 11 features, tips, and tricks that can add to your workflow to improve your efficiency. But working efficiently also depends on the performance of your device. If your Windows 11 device is feeling sluggish or starts to feel sluggish after enabling any of the above features, check out our blog How To Improve Windows 11 Speed And Performance to fix any Windows 11 performance issues.
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