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I put these 5 shortcuts on my Android home screen and save hours
I put these 5 shortcuts on my Android home screen and save hours
There are certain tasks I find myself doing over and over on Android, like texting with my wife or best friend, sending a Slack message to my boss at MakeUseOf, or checking for app updates in Google Play.
But thankfully, Android has a way to fix my problem: app shortcuts—skip the menus and jump straight to what you want to do. App shortcuts provide deep links to key app functions that you can isolate, add to your homescreen, and even organize into folders. The net result is less hunting and pecking to do the things you do regularly, and best of all, it saves a ton of time every day.
Explore the app shortcuts on your phone
Just go into the app drawer and press and hold any icon to see available shortcuts
To see which app shortcuts are available to you, just open your app drawer and press and hold any icon. You might be surprised to see direct links to your favorite podcast in Pocketcasts (but perhaps you're tired of podcast ads) or a direct link to the new album you've been listening to in Spotify. In addition, you'll find actions, like a direct link to scan a document into Google Drive or a direct link to navigate to your home or office via Google Maps. If you press and hold any of these app shortcuts, you can just drag them directly to your home screen and put them within easy reach.
As you can see, if you drag all of the Instagram app shortcuts to your homescreen, it can get kind of messy. But by putting all of the Instagram shortcuts into a discreet folder, you can have an "Instagram Actions" folder that puts your most-used Instagram functions within easy reach.
App shortcut organization
Think about how you use your phone most
You can get really creative with how you use and organize app shortcuts. You can base shortcuts on actions (reading, working, kicking back), on time of day (morning, afternoon, night), or even on people (text wife, call wife, WhatsApp mom, telegram dad, etc.). Let's explore some of those scenarios.
Shortcuts based on actions
One way to organize app shortcuts is by action — think about it in terms of verbs. You read, you listen, you watch, you call. You can set up folders with these action names and put corresponding app shortcuts into each folder so that you put all your reading actions (like quick access to the book you're reading in Play Books, or a direct link to search the Amazon Kindle store) within the same handy folder.
Shortcuts based on time of day
Another way to organize your app shortcuts is based on time of day. For example, every morning, perhaps you check your Slack messages, turn on the downstairs lights via your Hue app (be sure toproperly automate your lights), and order your Starbucks drink. You can put most of those actions into your Morning folder. Similarly, at night, perhaps you browse your YouTube subscriptions, continue listening to your podcast on Pocket casts, and mindlessly scroll YouTube shorts. You can place all of these shortcuts into your Night folder.
Shortcuts based on people
Our phones are meant to communicate, so another approach is to organize your app shortcuts by messaging app, then place shortcuts within those folders to connect directly with familiar contacts. Your Slack folder can contain shortcuts to quickly DM the three or four people with whom you talk on a regular basis. Your Messages app can send a new text message to your wife and best friend right at your fingertips, butbe mindful of SMS scams. Or, you can add a widget from the Contacts app that links directly to the contact card for the people with whom you most communicate — this way, you don't have to pick which messaging platform to use, you can pick from any of them if you just place direct links to your favorite contacts right on your homescreen.
Save time with app shortcuts
A lot of people don't realize that Android has this amazing ability to let you both open an app and jump into a particular part of it. If you just spend time in your app drawer, tapping and holding on various apps to see which shortcuts are available to you. Whether you organize your homescreen based on action, time of day, or people depends on how you use your phone most. Just think about which apps and what parts of those apps you visit most. Chances are, an app shortcut exists to let you save a ton of time by jumping directly into parts of apps that you use the most.
