Tutorial: Give Your Mac a Natural Flow

Macs are amazing but sometimes they just feel slow and cluttered (like a PC), and sometimes they just aren’t healthy for you so today in this tutorial I will show you how to bring zen to your Mac. I guarantee that if you follow these steps you will feel better.

1. Background Flow
Macs are preloaded with 26 hi-res nature backgrounds that showcase nature really well. It’s a shame that you have to stare at the same boring background. The thing is you don’t actually have to. One of my favorite ways to relax and prevent writers block is to turn on “Change Picture” in preferences and set it to every minute. The pictures smoothly fade in and out and change each minute. This keeps things fresh and is proven to cure writer’s block. Why does it? Because when the colors change the image leads you to think differently than you were before and frees your mind. You can technically do this with your family photos and more too but it is less effective and I find the natural backgrounds extremely relaxing.

2. Clean Your Screen And Keyboard
Turn your computer off for a few minutes and give it a full wipe-down with a slightly damp paper towel. I find that smudges on your screen and keyboard can detract from the beauty of whatever is on screen and distracts me. The keyboard is also one of the most germ filled places on earth so cleaning it will reduce your chances of getting sick.

3. Clear your dock and organize your desktop
Clearing your dock is important because too many applications can make the ones you need harder, and more annoying to find. I try to keep my application count on my dock to under 15. Organizing your desktop is important for a few reasons. Anything in the background on your desktop is taking up Ram even when it is closed. It blocks out the nice background from step 1. It makes things harder to find. Organize what you do need on your desktop to folders and move anything you don’t need to your documents folder. If you want a faster computer then you may eve consider deleting some files you don’t need. As a principle you want at least 7/24 of your disk to be available.

4. Even more from the app store
If you want some more great wallpaper you can get it for free from some mac apps like Wallpapers HD Lite (Free!). Another great way to relax is to have some ambient noise in the background to help you focus. You can get some for free with Chill Lite (Free).

Don’t let life stress you out!
Keep your mac clean, clear, and natural by following these steps and your life will be a lot more relaxed.  These solutions are all free and work great so try them out!