Have you tuned your phone’s active idle screen? With a couple of minutes of easy configuration, you can save several key clicks on your phone everyday. Instead of opening menus to navigate to your favorite application, you can jump directly there using the softkeys or the active idle shortcut bar.

For those of you that aren’t yet fully fluent in S60-speak, “Active Idle” is the name given the “home” or “standby” screen from which you would typically start dialing a phone number. “Softkeys” are the customizable left and right menu keys at the bottom of the Active Idle screen. You don’t need to go along with the default choices; you can make them your own. But, the most important to remember is the productivity boost you get from customizing this launching point.

Clicks add up to seconds, seconds add up to minutes, minutes add … well, you get the idea. Just know this – the time I save using my turbocharged active idle screen let’s me enjoy a relaxing cocktail at the end of the day while you’re probably still working.

Here’s how you can join the productivity party.

• On your S60 phone’s main menu, choose Tools
• Choose Settings
• Select Phone (on E-series phones, or select General | Personalization on N-series phones)
• Select Standby Mode
• Select Active Idle and switch it to ON if it is not already ON.
• Then scroll down and select Active Standby Apps (you may have to re-enter Settings if you just switched Active Idle to ON as switching this setting dumps you back out to Active Idle).
• You’ll see a list of Shortcut 1 through Shortcut 6 which corresponds to the icons you’ll see across the Active Idle bar at the top of the standby screen. Select a Shortcut you want to modify.
• You’ll see a radio button list of applications on your phone, both standard and newly installed applications. Choose one you use frequently so that you’ll no longer need to scroll through your menu to launch it.
• Repeat for each of the Shortcuts on the Active Idle bar.
• Finally, while you’re here, adjust the left and right softkeys. Select Left Selection Key (on E-series on N-series you first select Shortcuts then Left Selection Key). You’ll see the same radio button list as you did for the Active Idle bar. For the most time-savings you should set the left and right softkeys to your most frequently used applications because you’ll be able to launch them with a single click.

I’m most aware of my active idle screen settings when I travel. On the road, I seem most pressed for time and feel the need to quickly check the details of the next appointment, reach a contact, check the weather, or some other urgent task. If I find I’m clicking too much, I tune my active idle screen.

Now your turn – have you adjusted the apps on your active idle screen? What applications have you configured for the softkeys or active idle bar of your phone?