15 Windows 10 tips to help you be more productive in school
These are the best features and tools that every student should know to stay productive in school using a Windows 10 device.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
If you’re looking for different ways to be a little more productive during the school year,Windows 10comes with a lot of features and tools to help you stay focus and tackle those new projects, papers, and about any kind of schoolwork.
Some features are best to stay focused on the task, such as Focus Assist, Snap Assist, Night light, and virtual desktops. Others can help accomplish specific tasks like keyboard shortcuts, quick access to symbols, clipboard history, Timeline, and built-in apps designed for productivity, such as OneNote, Voice Recorder, Calculator, Snip & Sketch, and others.
Alongside the tools to help you stay productive, proper maintenance is also essential to make sure your device is ready for the school year. You can use these instructions totune up your laptopjust in time for school.
In this Windows 10 guide, we’ll highlight 15 features and tools that every student should know to stay productive throughout the school year.
1. Stop notification overload with Focus assist
If you want to stay productive, you need to stay focus on the work you’re doing. However, nowadays, it’s difficult to concentrate as online services and apps continue to push notifications like never before adding unnecessary distractions.
On Windows 10, focus assist is a feature designed to minimize notifications to avoid interruptions, whether you’re working on a school project or playing an exciting game.
To enable focus assist to stop notifications, use these steps:
Get the Windows Central Newsletter
All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.
Once you complete the steps, notifications will no longer interrupt while you’re in the middle of the creative process.
Schedule focus assist during school
Alternatively, you can also schedule focus assist in enabling automatically during school hours using these steps:
After you complete the steps, notifications will be suppressed during the time you specified.
2. Insert symbols quickly
It’ll eventually come the time when you need to insert a special language, punctuation, currency, or another type of symbol. Instead of doing an online search to copy and paste the symbol you need, you can use the Windows 10 emoji panel, which includes the ability to quickly insert symbols in addition to emoji and kaomoji.
To insert symbols on Windows 10, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, the symbol will insert into the text document or post.
3. Pick up project where you left off with Timeline
On Windows 10, Timeline is a feature designed to make it easier to resume activities you’re working in the past. For example, you can resume a website you were reading on the web, continue working on a Microsoft Word document, or pick up where you left off on virtually any app.
To get started with Timeline, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, you can continue where you left off this week or four weeks ago.
4. Organize school work with virtual desktops
If you’re working with a single display and need extra space, you can always connect a second monitor, but if it’s not possible, you can still use a virtual desktop.
A virtual desktop is a powerful feature that allows you to create additional desktops to organize your tasks better and overcome the limitation of not enough display real estate.
Create a virtual desktop
To create a virtual desktop on Windows 10, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, you can start using the new desktop.
Switch between desktops
To switch between virtual desktops, use these steps:
Alternatively, you can use theWindows key + Ctrl + Left arroworWindows key + Ctrl + Right arrowto quickly jump between desktops.
Transfer apps between desktops
To move apps between virtual desktops, use these steps:
If you don’t need the virtual desktop anymore, click the close (X) button on the desktop from the Task View.
5. Work more efficiently with multiple windows using Snap assist
On Windows 10, Snap assist is a feature that allows you to organize the space on the screen more efficiently to improve productivity. Using this feature, you can quickly snap windows to the sides (or corners) perfectly aligned using the mouse, keyboard, and touch without needing to resize and position them manually.
Snap two windows
To snap two windows side-by-side, use these steps:
If you don’t see the window thumbnail in the list, open the window manually, and drag it manually to the opposite side.
Alternatively, while the window is in focus, you can also use theWindows key + leftarrow keyboard shortcut to snap a window to the left, orWindows key + rightarrow keyboard shortcut to snap a window to the right. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you can press the right or left arrow twice to snap the window in a second monitor.
Snapping three windows
To snap three windows, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, you’ll end up with three apps perfectly aligned on the screen.
Snapping four windows
To snap up to four windows, use these steps:
Also, you can use keyboard shortcuts to snap windows into the corners. For instance, if you want to snap a window in the top-left corner, use theWindows key + left arrow + top arrow.
Snap Assist works with keyboard and mouse, but you can also snap windows using touch gestures by tapping and dragging a window to the left and right edges or corners of the screen.
6. Save multiple items for later use with Clipboard
If you usually copy and paste the same text and images, you should be using the new clipboard experience, which keeps tracks of the content you copy and includes an interface to view, paste, and organize content.
Enable Clipboard
The clipboard experience comes disabled by default, and you can enable it with these steps:
Once you complete the steps, text, and images that you copied will be stored in the clipboard experience.
Use Clipboard
To use clipboard on Windows 10, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, the content you selected will insert in the document.
7. Automate common tasks with Windows 10 shortcuts
On Windows 10, keyboard shortcuts can help you to work more efficiently as they provide a quick way to navigate and operate features using a single key combo, which otherwise will take more time to complete the same task using the mouse.
You can usetons of keyboard shortcutsto work more quickly, but these are the essential ones that will help you stay productive in school:
8. Reduce eye strain with Night light
If you usually stay up late working on school projects, you should use “night light” to stay productive and reduce eye strain.
Computer displays produce a blue light that can alter your internal body clock and affect the production of melatonin, causing disruption of your sleep quality and discomforts in your eyes.
On Windows 10, night light is a feature that reduces the amount of blue light on the screen by using warmer colors that can help minimize eye strain and help you fall asleep after staying up late working on a school project.
To configure night light on Windows 10, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, night light will activate automatically in the schedule you specified. Alternatively, you can always enable the feature using theNight lightbutton in Action Center (Windows key + Akeyboard shortcut).
9. Capture screenshots with Snip & Sketch
Screenshots can come in handy in many situations, especially in school. You can use them to quickly save a piece of content for later review, such as receipt, form, text, etc. You can use them to complement a paper you’re working with a particular image. You can use them to save something you don’t want to forget, and more.
If you’re using Windows 10, you don’t need a third-party tool, since there’s a built-in app known as Snip & Sketch to take screenshots of the entire screen, active windows, or particular section of the screen.
To take a screenshot on Windows 10, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, you can repeat the instructions to take additional screenshots.
Quicker access to snipping
To take screenshots with Snip & Sketch using the “Print Screen” dedicated key in the keyboard, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, you can use the Print Screen key to take screenshots.
10. Open files with correct app
Windows 10 includes apps to handle almost every file format you can imagine, but many people have their preferences and needs when it comes to using an app to complete a task. For example, you may not want to use Microsoft Edge as your default web browser experience on Windows 10, but rather Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Or you have a photo editing tool because you don’t want to use thePhotos app.
If you’d like to quickly open a specific file with a particular app, or specify your default browser, Windows 10 includes the settings to decide the app you want to use as default.
To set an app as default on Windows 10, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, when trying to open a file, it’ll launch with the app you specified without additional steps.
11. Tackle math homework with Calculator
If your schoolwork includes a lot of math homework, you don’t need to purchase an expensive scientific calculator since Windows 10 includes one built-in to help you quickly tackle any mathematical problem.
To switch modes with the Calculator app, use these steps:
In addition to the different calculator modes, the apps also include 13 different data converter modes, including currency, volume, length, weight and mass, temperature, energy, area, speed, time, power, data, pressure, and angle.
12. Control flow of email and events with Mail and Calendar
It’s not uncommon for people to manage different email accounts to keep things separate. For instance, you may get an email from your school while maintaining another for your personal stuff and another for work.
If you have multiple accounts, managing them individually using the respective web portals can be time-consuming. However, Windows 10 includes the Mail and Calendar apps that allow you to manage all your emails and calendar events (no matter the service provider) from a single experience.
Set up Mail app
To get started with the Mail app, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, you can start managing your emails more efficiently with the Mail app.
Add multiple email accounts
If you have multiple email accounts, you can add them all to the Mail app using these steps:
After you complete the steps, you may need to repeat the steps to connect additional email accounts.
Once adding the accounts, you’ll be able to manage all your email messages from a single experience without the need to log in to different accounts on the web.
Set up Calendar app
As you add new accounts to the Mail app, they’ll also be added to the Calendar app automatically. However, you can always use the same steps outlined above to add additional accounts within the Calendar experience.
To get started with the Calendar app, use these steps:
Calendar is a straightforward app, and it includes all the essential features to keep on top of your events. The app consists of different views (Today, Day, Week, Month, and Year) to see your events and a search box to find calendar events quickly. The experience to create new events provides all the features and settings you come to expect to create and share events and even calendars to stay on top of holidays and never miss a show or sports event.
13. Store school files in OneDrive
Part of being productive in school includes having the ability to access your files no matter the device or location quickly, and OneDrive is arguably the best cloud storage to connect all your files for anyone using Windows 10 computers as well as Android and iOS devices.
When you use OneDrive, you can store and protect your school and personal files in the cloud, share them with other people, and access your files from anywhere.
To configure OneDrive on a laptop to protect your school documents and other files, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, you can start saving files inside the OneDrive folder to upload them to the cloud automatically, and then they’ll be available anywhere, including from another Windows 10 computer, macOS, iOS, and Android devices.
Share file
To share a file with OneDrive, use these steps:
Once you complete the steps, the recipient will receive an email with a link to the file.
14. Take notes of anything with OneNote
OneNote is your personal digital notebook to capture pretty much anything. The app isn’t meant to replace your word processing or similar apps. Instead, it’s a notebook to take notes or record audio in class, which you can then refer to complete your homework or research paper. You can also use it to brainstorm ideas, create lists of things you need to complete or remember later, and thanks to its digital ink capabilities, you can sketch on a touched-enabled device.
You can also share notebooks to collaborate with other people, organize your notes in sections, move pages around, take a picture of paper notes, and import them into your notebook, and a lot more.
The app is free without the need to install Office, and you can get started using these steps:
Once you complete the steps, you can start using OneNote to take school notes, work in research papers, or for anything you need.
The app offers all be basic features you’ll ever need to take notes with the ribbon menu, which includes four main sections. The “Home” tab has the most common tools, such as undo and redo, fonts, highlighter, an option to clear formatting, and tags, which will come in handy to create To-Do lists as well as mark things as important or question.
In the “Insert” tab, you can create tables, attach files, insert images, start a voice recording, work with mathematical equations, and more.
The “Draw” tab includes a bunch of features designed for touch-enabled devices, and the “View” tab houses tools like Immersive Reader, zoom, translation, and the ability to change the page rule lines for a more real notebook experience.
15. Record lectures using Voice Recorder
The Voice Recorder app on Windows 10 is a quick and convenient solution to record lectures in school, conversations, and record interviews, and podcasts.
To record a lecture with the Voice Recorder app, use these steps:
After you complete the steps, the recordings will be stored in theSound recordingsfolder inside “Documents.” You can always access the file location by right-clicking the track and selecting theOpen file locationoption.
If you use OneNote, you may want to use the app built in voice recorder feature, instead of the Voice Recorder app, as the recordings will sync with your notes across devices (thanks Andrew G1 for the tip). However, if you prefer the Voice Recorder app, and you want your recordings to sync accross devices, either transfer the files to your OneDrive folder or enable the OneDrive backup feature for the “Documents” folders as shown in this guide.
Wrapping things app
Although Windows 10 includes tons of ways to keep you productive, and you can install a lot of other tools, we’re focusing this guide only on the tools built into the OS.
Of course, you can always purchase aMicrosoft 365 subscriptionto download and install Office to access the most productive tools in the world, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Or you can download tools, such asMicrosoft To-Doto manage all of your tasks.
Mauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years.
