Design Your Startup Experience
When you shutdown your computer, you know you will inevitably have to “power it up” again at some point. That startup process - how long does it have to take? Google can provide 13.5 million links to the search “fastest computer startup”. You know how this goes because you’ve probably been through it a bunch of times - when you first get a computer you might have some initial setup time, but turning it off and turning it on again isn’t going to take all morning. It is much faster in the beginning, but then over time you start to notice that it is taking longer and longer and eventually you hit a point where it seems like turning your computer off and on again might be the biggest time investment of your week. Technology is supposed to speed us up, not slow us down, right?
This isn’t just about speed, it is about control. You can actually be in control of the speed of your own computer. You can be in control of how well it functions. And you can gain this control in three simple ways:
Be in control of your startup apps
Be in control of your start menu/dock
Be in control of your system updates
This process is not really about your computer as much as it is about YOU. What programs do YOU need started right away when you open your computer? What do YOU want to see most prominently, and what do you want out of sight? How important is it to YOU for your computer to have the latest software and programming?
This computer bends to your will and it’s sole purpose in this world is to serve you and your needs. It just really needs you to tell it what to do, or else it can accidentally make decisions that may seem logical and supportive, but are actually not. Let’s make sure that you are the one in control here, not your computer.
Be in control of your startup apps
I would love to know more about the history of how it became an option for applications and software to just “open” magically on their own when you turned on your computer. Wherever it came from, it has been slowing down computer start-up times for many years. A lot of software that you download now will give you the option when you are installing to choose whether you want it to open when your computer gets turned on, but not all of them will. And eventually you’ll find that you have programs opening without you knowing or realizing. YOU get to choose what you need to open right away every time you open your computer, and typically the only applications that you need open ever are the ones you are actually using for your work at the moment. Since you can only be doing a very short list of things at a given time, the list of apps that startup with your computer should also be pretty short:
PC:
Mac:
Be in control of your taskbar/start menu/dock
This part will typically slow you down more than it slows your computer hardware down, but it is still an essential part of the computer start-up process. Your taskbar or dock should have the icons of only the few essential applications that you use most frequently. You don’t want them to start automatically when your computer turns on because there is no way you can be using them all at the same time. But there is also a list of apps that you will likely need at some point during your day or during your week that should be easily accessible to open up. There isn’t one single “right” way for your dock or taskbar to look. Here is my example of how mine looks:
Don’t be weirded out by the fact that I keep my taskbar vertically on the left side of my screen. I know most people keep it horizontally at the bottom. Here are some articles from 2009, 2011, 2014, 2017 on this very not new topic.
UPDATE: Having upgraded to Windows 11 on my PC, now we are unable to move the taskbar to the side of the screen. Microsoft must answer for their sins!!!
Here is what I’ve got and my “why” for each one:
Explorer or Finder: You know, it’s a folder, but we call it a window. Aren’t computer nerds such poets? These folders are like opening windows into the possibilities of your computer. In a nutshell, It lets you find other folders on your computer. In those folders are files and things that you need. Honestly, in Windows 10 the search function is usually good enough to get me whatever I need, so this might just be an old habit. But I do find myself using it a lot to get to files I recently downloaded or saved.
Chrome: My gateway to the internet. Of course this is super important.
Dashlane: My password manager. It is like my key to everything on the internet that I need to access securely with a login username and password. One of the biggest time and energy savers of all time.
Excel: It isn’t that I get to use it every day anymore, but I do use it enough to be on this list. A lot of the reason I have it there is because I love it so much!
Slack. My main messaging app, I’d rather have this open than email any day.
Notepad++. This is my go-to note-taking app for quick notes that I know I’m going to transfer somewhere later in a better format. I don’t recommend it for anyone who doesn’t have to look at some kind of coding, like HTML or something similar. You can use plain old Notepad to make things easier.
aText. This is one of my favorite apps. It is a shortcut typer for me. You can check out my full explanation here.
TechSmith Capture. This is the app I use for taking screenshots or short videos of my screen movements. It used to be a much better product called Jing, but the company made some mistakes with this new version, and I’m not super happy with it. But some kind of screen-capture tool will always be on my taskbar, because I use them every single day, multiple times a day (a pic is worth a thousand words, right?).
Zoom. I don’t think I need to explain this one.
Visual Studio Code. I can probably remove this one. I was really trying to use it to write and edit code, but I’m just not there yet.
Movavi Screen Capture. Because TechSmith totally failed me with Jing and Capture.
Be in control of your system updates (by moving your files off your computer)
This will be a mindset shift for a lot of people. It is something I still work on. Because even though Apple or Microsoft is often “pushing” their updates to your computer, you have to actually want the update or else you’ll just be super annoyed and may avoid it and then you can get into a whole tangled software update mess. I found a few articles online about why it is important to update your computer, and they were mostly so boring that I just skimmed them. But I found one that made sense - 5 Reasons Why It’s Important To Update Your Software Regularly, and the top 4 of them are about security.
It isn’t sexy and it isn’t fun, but security should be one of your top concerns when using your computer. Software updates help protect your data and your personal digital stuff from being hacked, stolen, ransomed, dispersed, misused, etc. If you want to be safe, you want the latest security available. Software updates are often about improving security.
This mindset of updating your computer software quickly and consistently will become pretty easy once you are used to shutting down your computer on a more regular basis. For now, if you have some hesitation about updating your computer, just take a deep breath and know that everything will be OK. Are you saying to yourself “But wait, Emily - don’t just say it is going to be OK, you don’t know that. I’ve done updates in the past and they’ve messed up everything. It was a headache. I hate it. I don’t want to go through that again.”
This happens a lot less frequently than you think. If it has happened to you once, you might feel like that is more frequently than it should ever happen. I get that. You have been burned in the past, so you are hesitant. But that was when the computer was more in charge, and now YOU are in charge. So take charge of your files and your personal digital property and move them OFF your computer and into the cloud. That’s right, the cloud. This way, if an update does mess anything up with your computer, you shouldn’t lose any files or work.
Focus on being in control of your computer and your security, and updating your computer is an easy step to take. Everything changes, we all have gotten a harsh lesson in that with this pandemic. I’m sure you have come to this point equipped to be able to deal with any minor changes that you notice from your system updates.
