Organization tips and more shortcuts!

Hi there! What's going on, guys? Great to have you back and blah blah blah. Let's get down to business!

So, today I am going to share a few tips regarding my current Windows 10 setup and my workflow. If you use Windows 11, then that's it's something I know little about, and I don't know if these tips will be something useful to you.

Great, so, ahem! What's the best and fastest way to launch your most-used programs on Windows? You might say: typing its name on the Start menu or leaving a shortcut to the specific program on the Desktop area or Taskbar. What if you forget its name, what if you have a lot of bull* files and folders on your Desktop area, or even if the Taskbar gets too crowded?

Fortunately, for us, translators and alike, we don't use 20 programs at the same time. And we often use the same programs all the time, a browser, a CAT tool, MS Office or alike, etc. There is always repeated use of programs along our day. So we must care just about these ones! Just forget about Solitaire, Paint, 3D Viewer, you will never use them!

Look at you taskbar right now! You are realizing how many programs you don't use and are just there to clutter up visual space in your workflow? Unpin all the ones you don't use. You can do that by right-clicking on the little icon and select "Unpin from taskbar", then repeat this process to each one you don't want.

You should know by this time in your career as a translator, which programs you use the most. Pin all these ones on your taskbar in the order where you use them the most.

Here is my setup:

Why and how this does help us?

Now, you have a idea of what you use and can use keyboard shortcuts to acess your most-used programs.

Hit Win+1. Not Win+Numpad1, but Win+1. You will see the first program on your taskbar being executed.

Hit Win+2. You get to see the second one being executed.

Hit Win+N. Where N is a number between 1-9. You will see the nth program being executed.

Tip: If you hit Win+0 (this is a zero). You get to execute the tenth program on your taskbar.

There's no way to use this trick to manage more than 10 programs (at least, not a way I know about). So, just pin on your taskbar your 10 most-used programs. In need to open another program that's is not on the taskbar? Hit the Windows key and start typing the program's name.

That's it! Thanks for reading! Byyeee!