“@@”: Automating the Entry of your Email
An Ongoing Written Justification of My Laziness
One of my core philosophies is that any technologist worth their full value is lazy. I’m not talking about poor work ethics or procrastination or even half-assing a task. Those are unacceptable kinds of lazy. Instead, I’m speaking to the type of “lazy” where an individual recognizes repetitive, mundane time-sucking tasks and operate towards automating a solution so they can focus on more important work. To me, laziness and a desire to automate mundane repeatable tasks show a high level of self-awareness, creativity, and absolute mastery of one’s skills.
The Dull Task of Task Entry
Recently I realized I was repeating a task that in our modern age has become a bit of a nuisance: typing my email address(es). I have a long last name, getting to the ‘@‘ symbol requires an extra step, and I am typing it constantly. Evoking my proclivity towards laziness, I wanted a better solution.
The solution? Using iOS/Mac’s “Text Replacement” system, I type “@@“ and the OS replaces that with my personal email address. If I type “@@@“, my work email gets entered, and finally “@@@@“ is a spam email.
It’s quick and straightforward, but most of all it’s incredibly useful. I’m confident that I am not getting massive productivity gains, but it is fast to do, and more importantly, it is a reminder that sometimes, in the right context, laziness is a noble and valuable trait.
The Setup
To set this up on iOS, hop into Settings. Tap on General. Scroll until you find Keyboard. Once in the Keyboard Settings, tap on Text Replacement and then create a new replacement there.
On Mac, open up the Keyboard panel in System Preferences. Select the “Text” tab for the Mac equivalent of text replacement.
Congratulations, you have now opened the door to a new host of possibility. I get that this isn’t an Earth-shattering life hack, but it’s a simple way to shave a few seconds off of the mindless task of text entry. Even more than the minuscule time gain, this shortcut opened my imagination to a whole bunch of other ideas about text shortcuts and replacements.
