10 Windows 11 tips and tricks we use to customize our PCs

We use these Windows 11 tips, and we think you should too.

- MARK HACHMAN

The best Windows 11 tips are the ones you use to make you more efficient and productive, and to customize your PC so it's exactly how you want it to be.

But to integrate a tip, you have to actually try it out. So that's what we'd like you to do: Give each of these tips a quick whirl, see if they work for you, and if they do, great! We want to share what helps us and hope that it helps you as well. The list below includes tips for both older features and newer ones. Either way, enjoy!

1. OPTIMIZE YOUR STARTUP APPS

Everyone hits the gym to start off the year. So why not use the time to trim some of the holiday bloat from your PC? There are potentially dozens of apps that can quietly load during your PC's startup, adding to the time it takes your PC to boot and gobbling up memory when it's completed.

Take a look at your startup apps inside the Windows 11 Settings menu (Settings > Apps > Startup) and start considering flipping off apps that you won't immediately need, especially those that are marked "high impact." All this will do is force you to load them when you want to use them, which honestly isn't so bad. Just don't turn off a background antivirus process or anything associated with Windows (Edge is fine). If you have any utilities associated with your PC maker (Dell, HP, and so on), it might be best to leave those alone.

2. SET UP YOUR PC FOR MULTIPLE DISPLAYS 

Hopefully you use more than one display (fave.co/3Je76hD) with your desktop and/or laptop, and you can buy great monitors on sale right now (fave.co/3j1iDpZ). They're hugely productive, and if you're worried about desk space, you can go vertical instead (fave.co/3Ddaln5).

With Windows 11, you'll want to do two things: Arrange your displays within Windows, and make sure you have your "primary" display picked out.