First 10 Productivity Setup for a Macbook: Settings & Tips

Akash Bhattacharya
4 min readApr 23, 2022

Are you new to Macbook — follow this?

The first 10 minutes after you open your new MacBook can make or break your experience.

It sets you up for the way you want to work. Are you looking to understand the very basics of interacting with MacBooks, or do you need a starting place for getting it ready?

In this post, I will set up the basic environment so that you can be productive right away! I will discuss tips and tricks for starting to use Apple product — Macbook (M1)

Photo by Arnav Singhal on Unsplash

1 General Fingerprint

Why useful?

☑️ Normal folks set up one fingerprint, usually the pointed finger of the right hand.

Tips: You can set up a MAX of 5 fingerprints. So, set up for your other fingers as well — Left-hand fingers, right-hand thumb etc

2 General Scroll Bar

Why useful?

☑️ By default, the scroll bar is hidden

Make it explicit by selecting “Always” — helps you to see the page position.

3 Dock & Menu Bar

Why useful?

☑️ Default is at Bottom

By Mac design, it takes away the screen position. I always prefer to have that on the left side. Easy to save some space and doesn't interfere with the active window.

4 No Spotlight, Hello Alfred Raycast

Akash Bhattacharya

Software Product Maintenance. Writes about #book, #people, #product, #productivity