In case you missed it, last week I talked about how in Curling, sweepers guide the stone by controlling the friction. 

We can apply this to our business by looking at tasks we perform, or processes, and trying to smooth that over. 

But what does that look like…practically speaking?

Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the best ways to reduce friction is keyboard shortcuts and text expansion (or autocomplete). 

Imagine reducing 2-3 actions to a single keystroke. 

Or never having to remember an affiliate link. 

Just last week, I had to take dozens of screenshots for a project – so I set up a single keyboard shortcut that would take a screenshot, then advanced to the next screen automatically. 

But it doesn’t have to be that complicated. 

Are you always typing something? An email address? A link? Heck, an entire email? 

Maybe you find yourself doing the same action in the same app a lot: like adding new tasks to your task manager

And I mean…who isn’t doing something like that? 

4 Recommendations

So I have 4 recommendations for you: 

1. Both macOS and Windows have “text replacement” options built in – and on macOS, they can sync to your iOS and iPadOS devices. 
2. Most apps have some native keyboard shortcuts. Todoist allows you to customize your shortcut, so I have CMD+T mapped to new tasks. 
3. If you’re looking for something more powerful, TextExpander is a fantastic, cross platform app that can not only do simple text replacement, but put together full blocks of text with variable inputs, Mad Libs style. 
4. For even more power, you can check out Raycast. This has text expansion and deep keyboard shortcut integration. 

I’d start with the native apps and then as you get more comfortable, move to apps like TextExpander and Raycast! 

One More Thing…

As you can imagine, the more keyboard shortcuts you have, the harder they are to remember…which is the reason I have 3 Stream Decks. 

The Stream Deck is a great tool, not only to help with live streaming, but to assign specific buttons, with graphical indicators, to keyboard shortcuts. 

It’s been perhaps the number one device I’ve used to reduce friction in my work. 

I highly recommend it. 

Are you using keyboard shortcuts or are you stuck and not sure where to start? 

Leave a comment and let me know!