Digital Sticky Notes: A Time-Saver for Your Entire Team
February 15th, 2017 by admin
It's a familiar sighting in the workplace: the employee with half a dozen sticky notes attached to their computer monitor. While not the most confidential or elegant solution, these employees are on to something.
Fortunately, technology has stepped in to embrace this practice and increase productivity through digital sticky notes. Teaching your staff how to use this feature helps keep your office not only more organized, but also more secure.
Boosting Productivity and Security
Like their physical counterparts, digital sticky notes have countless helpful applications: They can serve as reminders, cheat sheets, and to-do lists, to name a few.
Employees can create and destroy as many digital sticky notes as needed without wasting any paper. And digital sticky notes actually work better than making notes in a Word or Google doc, because they are continually accessible/viewable when switching between tasks.
Digital sticky notes have the following advantages over physical versions:
- Content on the notes can be rearranged, edited, and erased at will. Reworking the list does not mean drafting a new note.
- They serve as excellent interactive to-do lists, helping employees stay organized.
- No physical waste is created when the sticky note is no longer being used.
- They are more secure because they're not visible when the screen is off, the user logged out, or the system locked.
- They come with theoretically unlimited space. Digital sticky notes allow for scrolling when more space is needed.
- They offer an easy place to store login credentials that all employees in the workplace can access.
- They provide a simpler platform to manage important, frequently used links than an ever-expanding bookmark list in a web browser.
- Employees can use simple copy-and-paste commands between programs to add to the sticky note.
- The notes facilitate email communication between devices and people.
- They won't fall or get knocked off the screen.
Sticky Notes with a PC
Windows calls its digital notation program "Sticky Notes." It behaves similarly to program windows and can be accessed via the Start Menu. Searching for "Sticky Notes" in the search bar may locate the program faster.
Accessing the application will expose all existing notes; if there are none, it will create one. Users can drag and expand these digital notes to any size they deem appropriate. Click the "+" icon on an existing note to make additional notes, and click the "X" icon to delete unwanted notes. Notes can also be color-coded via the "right-click" menu. Power-users may like the available keyboard shortcuts as well.
Sticky Notes with a Mac
Macs also support a built-in digital sticky note solution called "Stickies," which can be accessed via the "Applications" folder. Users can drag and drop the Stickies to any desired locations and resize the windows by clicking and dragging the corner icons. Employees can customize individual note colors through the "Color" menu and can add shortcuts to media files by dragging and dropping icons over notes as well.
Mac OS even features a handy keyboard shortcut to create a sticky note from highlighted text: "Command + Up Shift + Y."
Both of these applications are free and included with the computer your employees are already using. Some employees may find digital sticky notes an incredibly valuable tool—but, if nothing else, they will help your team create a cleaner, more secure workplace. If your business is looking to boost its productivity through stronger IT practices, contact the experts at ATS today.