1.2K
Productivity tip of the day: take advantage of keyboard shortcuts on your iPhone and never type your email address again!
If you do a lot of mobile browsing, you’ve likely mistyped out your email address about a hundred billion times. “There’s gotta be a better way!” Well, there is, Kevin!
The iPhone OS allows you to set custom keyboard shortcuts. Your email address is an absolute no-brainer for this option, although you can set them for any frequently used word or phrase. In this example, I’ll use “#portsbkfstclub,” since that’s something I type frequently and have to check each time to make sure I’ve spelled it correctly.
Here’s how:
- Go to your iPhones Settings > General > Keyboard. Under Shortcuts, you’ll probably see a few defaults such as “omw” = “on my way” that the iPhone comes preinstalled with.
- Add a new Shortcut with the “+” link.
-
Enter first the full word or phrase you want to never type again, then the keyboard shortcut. (I suggest using a combination of letters that it’s unlikely you’d regularly type. For example, if you use “to” as a shortcut for “tomorrow,” every time you type the word “to,” tomorrow will appear in its place.)
- Save & done!
Adding your email alone turns approximately 10-15 seconds into 1.5 seconds each time you’re asked to type in your email. That’s a pretty significant time saver (math says that’s a 1000% productivity increase)!
Things you might want to Shortcut are:
- your email address
- frequently typed hashtags
- your business name
- an elaborate or cumbersome emoticon (such as mine under “hh” above)
- frequently typed URL
- your phone number (or biz phone number)
- your fax number (haha! j/k.)
What do you use Shortcuts for?