132 PCWorld MAY 2020HERE’S HOW TUNE WINDOWS 10 FOR LASER-FOCUSED PRODUCTIVITY
make a big difference. Sure, Alt + Tab-bing
through all your open programs can work,
but taking the time to set up some sort of
organization can help keep things running as
smoothly as possible. Windows 10 includes
several tools that can make multitasking even
more productive.
First off: Multi-monitor setups rock for
productivity, and I highly recommend using
more than one monitor if possible. Our
guides on how to set up two monitors (go.
pcworld.com/2mon) and Windows 10’s
individual display scaling (go.pcworld.com/
dscl) can help you out in that case. In a
pinch, you can even use a TV as a computer
monitor (go.pcworld.com/tvmn), though
they work better as auxiliary displays. That
said, not everyone wants (or can afford)
more than one display, but there are
Windows 10 tools that can help even ifyou’re stuck on a
single screen.
Don’t
underestimate the
power of Windows
Snap, a native way to
easily divvy up your
monitor into multiple
segments devoted to
separate apps. Grab
an open window by its
title bar—the
horizontal bar at the
top that says its name—
and drag it all the way to the left or right of
the screen, until your mouse cursor touches
the edge of the display. You’ll see a
transparent outline flow out from your cursor
to fill half the screen. Let go, and the chosen
program will expand, taking up that space.
Any other programs open on that monitor
will appear on the other half of the screen,
and if you select one, it’ll expand to fill that
space. Boom! Now you’ve got two
programs on the screen at the same time,
split right down the middle.
If you’ve got a large monitor, or a pixel-
dense 1440p or 4K display, you can use Snap
to divide your screen even more. Dragging
open windows to a corner of your display will
Snap them into that quarter of the screen,
though using this method won’t trigger a
prompt asking you what to fill the rest of the
screen with. You’ll need to Snap theFour windows Snapped into four quadrants of the screen can put a lot of
info at your fingertips at once.