These directions are for an iPhone. My world changed a little for the better when I learned how to use text replacement on my iPhone. Custom responses I can just ping out to people helps so much when I’m doing outreach.

This quick tutorial by Dobedo will walk you through setting up text replacements on your iPhone. I’m sure it’s very similar on a different phone. Text replacements are part of what makes a phone accessible to some humans and it’s likely available on any smartphone.

How to use text replacement on iPhone directions

From your iPhone home screen, go to

—Settings
—General
—Keyboard
—Text Replacement

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Phrase is what your phone will automatically put in place of the shortcut you choose.
Shortcut is what you type that will automatically expand into the word or phrase as you type.

Video showing text replacement location on iPhone.

Shortcut Best Practices:

—Don’t use something you will regularly type.
—Keep it short
—Start with just a few

If you’re really into this, before you go all ham— check out Text Expander.

Text Expander is the same as text replacements on your phone, but better … Text expander works on your computer, and your tables, and your phone. Instead of setting up text replacements on all fo your devices, you can set it up in your Text Expander account and have your expansion snippets saved on multiple devices. It works across a company, too. Each member of your organization can have both personal an organization snippets set up.

If you’re going to spend more than 30 minutes playing around with Text Extender. I have pro. It’s $200/year, but worth it all if you start with text replacements and are like, “Woah. This will save me.” Maybe it’s something worth trying this month.

Like the idea of trying something this month?

Sign up for our program, try something new every month. It’s $27 for a year of nudges in the right direction and worth its weight in gold. Probably more. But who’s counting?