At work, I often use TextExpander for checklists plus information collection for various tasks. For example, when I move a workstation, I use TE lists both to collect needed information (jack and room numbers, MAC address, etc.) and things I need to do (add printers, update inventory, etc.).
This week, I became responsible for VOIP phones. Our VOIP admin site has no useful portal, just links with ugly URLs full of random characters . So my TextExpander checklists for various VOIP admin tasks now include the ugly URL so I don’t have to keep looking it up, or clutter up my bookmarks.
A minor trick but it’s kept my favorites bar from tripling in size to accommodate one new task.
I’ve done this for years and it’s opened a new category of why I use TextExpander—not only to save time writing things but to save mental stress remembering things.
For example, for my business I publish when an app goes on sale to 20+ internet channels. There’s no way I can remember the sign-up links for each one, so they’re all in TextExpander with their name and poof, problem solved. Likewise, every blog post I write goes into TextExpander with a consistent shortcut name so I never have to remember it. So helpful.
Each month, I only save 30-40 minutes of time according to TextExpander’s report; but this is only typing speed. If I had to store those URLs somewhere and copy and paste them, it’d be far more time. And if I had to remember all those URLs…I’d go insane .
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