So far in this book, I’ve shown you a whole raft of features and utilities that you can use to help you become more productive when using your PC, and to help you enjoy the experience more. Individually they can perhaps seem quite complex and daunting, so I want to spend some time looking at how all of this fits together, so you can create a cohesive working experience, and how you can use some of the more useful features in more depth.
Getting Your Day Started
Your day starts at the lock screen (see Figure 5-1). Bleary-eyed you’ll stare at it for a few seconds before dismissing it, and signing in to start another dreary day. Well, this might be exaggerating the point somewhat but I’m sure you know what I mean. The lock screen is just an artificial barrier between you and your working environment.
Organizing Your Workspace
Okay, so you’ve dismissed the lock screen, are safely ignoring the huge mass of email that can only mean some crisis or another has arisen, that everybody will be looking to you to sort, and you’re now staring at a blank desktop. Now what? Well, you open apps, right? You open Outlook and other Office apps, such as Excel or PowerPoint.
Managing Virtual Desktops
So now you’re organized, but you could still be working more efficiently and effectively. For this, you can use keyboard shortcuts to very quickly and easily switch between all these running apps and desktops. Here’s how…
- Snap an app left or right. Press the Windows key + Left and Right cursor keys to snap an app to the left or right of your screen
- Snap an app up or down. Press the Windows key + the Up or Down cursor keys to move a snapped app to the top or bottom left or right corner of the screen
Conclusion
Being organized is one thing, and Cortana and the basic search functionality is great, but many of us build up huge volumes of files and documents, and just working on a project at work can end up producing many more documents itself. Navigating your way through all of this can be daunting, so in the next chapter, we’re going to delve into the advanced search and retrieval facilities available in Windows 10.
