Clear the Notification area
A thing that strikes me is how quickly the notification area of the taskbar can become a mess, filled with apps trying to grab our attention.
If I don’t know any quick solution to avoid apps stuffing their icons in there—some will provide an option to turn their icon off (thanks so much, guys), many won’t (booh!)—Windows itself provides an easy way to decide which icons you want to see and which must stay hidden until you decide otherwise.
This is how my notification area usually looks like on my desktop, showing only the apps I want to check on a regular basis: the status of my VPN, the status of OneDrive sync and the volume button.
All other icons are kept hidden, but still quickly accessed, behind the up arrow, on the left.
The selection of icons will be slightly different on my laptop, showing also the Battery status indicator, which also lets me quickly switch between the power saving or power hungry modes.
How do you change that?
Continue reading 10 tips to reduce clutter and to get the most out of the taskbar