Welcome back to Tech Notes! This week’s edition is all about Build a Better Workday: Desk Essentials—a collection of simple tools, tips, and tweaks to help make your desk setup and daily workflow just that little bit better.
QUICK WINS KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS THAT SAVE YOU TIME
When doing a lot of computer work, keyboard shortcuts are essential. From searching documents, to reopening closed tabs here are some of my favourites.
You don’t need to memorise dozens of keyboard shortcuts to work more efficiently. Learning just a handful can save hundreds of clicks each day and make navigating your Mac feel much faster.
Mac Shortcuts I use on the daily...
Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + T = Reopen a closed tab
Command ⌘ + F = Instantly search for text on a page/ document
Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + V = Paste text without formatting (I use this all the time!)
Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + 3 = Screenshot entire screen
Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + 4 = Screenshot selection of screen
Command ⌘ + Tab = Hold to show open apps, click tab to switch between open apps (also use this ALL the time!)
TOOL SPOTLIGHT F.LUX
If you also spend long stints at your computer, use f.lux to protect your eyes! and your sleep schedule!!
f.lux is one of my all-time favourite apps. I’ve been using it since high school! It automatically warms the colours on your screen as the sun goes down, reducing blue light exposure. You can customise the schedule and tint intensity, and I personally keep a subtle tint on during the day with a warmer tint at night.
Blue light in the evening can disturb your body’s natural sleep cycle, and combined with long hours of screen use, it can really strain your eyes. A warmer screen can make evening computer use much more comfortable.
You can download it (for free!) here Open original link ↗
A couple of extra tips...
1. 20/20/20 Rule
Every 20 minutes, look at something around 20 feet (6 metres) away for at least 20 seconds. It gives your eye muscles a chance to relax and can help reduce digital eye strain.
2. Schedule screen-free time
Give your eyes a break; For the past ~six months, I’ve avoided screens for the first hour and the last hour of my day. I’ve noticed a huge difference in my sleep, mood and focus. If you can, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try!
BETTER RESEARCH PERPLEXITY AI
Sick of getting out of date information from Claude? But also don't want to have to go through google search rabbit holes to find the information you need? Perplexity is here to help!
Unlike ChatGPT or Claude, which excel at writing, brainstorming and analysing, Perplexity is designed to find and summarise information from across the web, complete with links to its sources. It’s a fantastic way to quickly research a topic while still being able to verify where the information came from.
Some ways you could use it...
Research recent property market trends or suburb insights. -
Summarise the latest interest rate or property news. -
Look up government grants, legislation or policy changes. -
Find reputable information on schools, infrastructure or local amenities. -
Get quick comparisons of products or services for client recommendations.
Think of Perplexity as your research assistant. Use it to gather reliable, up-to-date information, then use ChatGPT or Claude to help turn that information into polished emails, reports or client communications.
You can find it here Open original link ↗
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER GRANOLA
Ever finish a meeting and immediately forget what you even spoke about? Granola is an AI-powered meeting assistant that helps ensure nothing gets lost.
It automatically transcribes your meetings and generates clear, structured summaries with key discussion points, decisions, and action items. But what really sets it apart is what happens after the meeting.
Instead of scrolling through pages of notes, you can ask Granola questions in plain English, such as:
“What did we decide about the website project?” -
“Who was responsible for following up with the client?” -
“When did we discuss the marketing budget?”
Granola searches across your meeting notes and provides the relevant answer in seconds, making it easy to revisit past conversations without replaying recordings or digging through documents.
Why it could be useful:
Capture meetings without worrying about taking detailed notes. -
Quickly find decisions and action items. -
Search past meetings using natural language. -
Keep everyone aligned on what was discussed.
AI meeting notes are a great starting point, but it’s still worth reviewing important decisions and action items before sharing them. Think of Granola as an incredibly organised meeting companion—not a replacement for your judgement.
DID YOU KNOW... FUN FACT OF THE WEEK 🧬
Every cell in your body contains a complete copy of your DNA; around 3.2 billion genetic "letters" (A, T, C and G) that make up your personal instruction manual.
To put that into perspective, if you read one DNA letter every second, without ever stopping to sleep or eat, it would take more than 100 years to read through your genome just once!!!!
It's incredible to think that all of that information is tightly packed into the tiny nucleus of almost every cell in your body. The Human Genome Project was the first global effort to map this entire instruction manual, fundamentally changing our understanding of genetics, disease and what makes us human.
Want to learn more?
If this sparked your curiosity, I'd highly recommend exploring YourGenome Open original link ↗ for easy-to-understand explanations and Genome.gov Open original link ↗ if you'd like to dive deeper into the Human Genome Project and modern genetics.
And that’s all for now!
If you found any of this useful, let me know and I’ll keep sharing things like this in future editions. If you have any questions about anything mentioned above, or need a hand getting set up, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Please enjoy your weekly dose of wholesomeness content here!!! Open original link ↗
And as always, if there’s anything I might be able to do to make your day a little easier, my door (and inbox) is always open.
Over & Out,
Bethy 🎀