Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up.  How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible?  Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly -  The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery.  Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen.  Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance.  Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background.  Itunes, Desktop Search, etc.  All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life.  Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery.  Remove or shut them down when not in use.  It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory.  Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse.  Even having one in the drive can be power consuming.  They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used.  Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7.  Keep the battery contacts clean:  Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol.  This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery – Exercise the Battery.  Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time.  Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does.  Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler.  Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner.

11. Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery.  Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3′s, set your mind to one thing only.  If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands – The more you demand from your PC.  Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD.  If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop -  Laptops  are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries.  Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function.  MS-Word’s and Excel’s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.

Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks – Thanks Andrew

Here’s a brief 11-step guide to reclaiming insane Focus.

1. Know what actually matters. Be honest with yourself about the actions that truly move the needle in your business and your life. If you’re stuck, just think of the tasks you fear the most–that give you anxiety just to think about. Those are likely the most important.

2. Pick your top 2-3 core tasks each day. These are the things that must happen no matter what. If you get these done your day is a success. Stick to no more than three, or better yet one. They must move you closer to your big goals. Checking email does not count.

3. Do them first thing. For me writing is one of my core actions, so I write for an hour or so as soon as I roll out of bed or after my morning workout (it’s 5:45 am right now). The longer you wait, the more distractions will intrude. Nothing happens before these get done.

4. Do not connect to anything until your core tasks are done. Don’t convince yourself you need the internet or email to do your most important tasks. 95% of the time you don’t. Leave the internet off and phone on airplane mode until you crush through the important.

5. Kill multitasking. Stop thinking it’s more efficient. It’s not. No surfing during phone calls, reading during meals, chatting while writing. Do one thing at a time. Simple. Not only is multitasking terribly inefficient but it stresses you out and it’s rude to anyone around you.

6. Turn off email and notifications (and anything else that interrupts you). When you sit down to do something, nothing else gets attention. Just because someone decides to email, chat or call you, doesn’t mean it’s more important. Those things can wait. But if you know they are waiting there, you’ll be too tempted. Avoid temptation at all cost. We are too weak. I don’t trust myself with email on my iPhone so I totally removed it.

7. Don’t check email in the morning. This is the most effective (and difficult) single practice I’ve found. I know every one of you have heard this one. So why doesn’t anyone actually do it? It will change your life. It feels terrible to know we’ve spent a couple hours refreshing and going in and out of email without really getting anything done. I assure you that if you check it, you won’t be able to help yourself, and you’ll stumble face first into the worm hole. So don’t even open it until you have a few hours of focused action under your belt (this is at least 11am for most).

8. Batch your emailing to two times a day MAX. Maybe 30 min before lunch and 30 min late afternoon. If you need an email for your core task, do not go to your inbox. Go straight to the search feature and find it. If you need to write an email as a core task (which should very rarely be the case), write it offline in a simple program like notepad. Save reactionary items for after you get the important done.

9. Try to get less done in a day–practice Slow Working. Don’t fill every moment of your calendar with tasks (this is a huge one I’m working on). You’ll be stressed and rushed the whole day. Slow down and move through your core tasks calmly. Then maybe you do a few more things with the remaining time but don’t cram them in. If you do, you’ll always feel behind.

10. Plan more time for each task. This is the easiest way to alleviate the schedule. And things always tend to take longer than we think. If your core task will take you 45 minutes, then block out 90. Actually schedule it on your calendar. If it only takes you 40 minutes then suddenly you have free time–how freakinawesome (and rare) is that!

11. Take breaks and reward yourself. Most of us can only intensely focus on something for an hour at best. Take at least a few-minute break every 30 or 60 minutes to clear your head. I love going up to my rooftop for a couple deep breaths and a view of the Golden Gate. Find a fun way to get you free and clear. Take a walk, meditate, feed the ducks, breathe, get a snack or some water or listen to an inspiring song. You pick.

Do the above and your day will be a victory before most people wake up.

It’s a pretty awesome feeling. You’ll get way more done than you planned but your mind and schedule will also be clear to enjoy life a little more. Few things feel worse than an unproductive day. Nail your big things early and use that energy to take the rest of the day by storm. Take a walk with your wife, play with your kids, go down to the beach and read. Do whatever you want. That’s the point.

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