Note: The following is an excerpt from the Scale Smarter Newsletter.

At one point I did the math… At Uber in the early days, city teams responded to their own support tickets (we didn’t outsource this yet), and I answered over 10,000 support emails from drivers 😱

I told myself I would never answer the same question twice. So when I wrote a very thoughtful answer to a common question, I’d save it so I’d never have to write it again.

And so began my love affair with text expanders—a tool that magically replaces a set of keystrokes with an expanded snippet of text.

Let’s say I saved a conservative average of 2 minutes not having to type out the same answer for a support email. That means I saved myself 333 hours per year, or 2 FULL WEEKS.

Here are 26 ways I personally use text expanders that you can steal and start using at your startup to get your time back (plus 3 of my favorites that I use all the time at the bottom):

Introductions

• Introduce two people (see 🥇My Favorite #1 below)
• Places and times I prefer for a coffee meetings
• Confirm time and that a calendar invite is coming
• Request someone’s availability with Calendly info included (see 🥈My Favorite #2 below)

General Meetings

• Notes template to add meeting notes and action items
• Personal Zoom meeting room info for a quick call
• Message if someone is late to our Zoom call (see 🥉My Favorite #3 below)

Recruiting & Hiring