4.Add Contact, Bookmark, or Directions Widgets for Common Tasks

If you want to take the last tip one step further, you can add contact widgets to your home screen. The 1x1 contact widgets can also be added into a folder, so you can reach all of your favorite people via any medium with just a couple taps. You can also create icon-sized widgets for bookmarks, frequent navigation queries, Google Drive files, Dropbox folders, Gmail labels, settings submenus, and plenty more. If you're an old Android veteran, you might know this feature better as "shortcuts". Some phones still label it as such and hide them under different categories, but in general Google seems to be steering the language away from "shortcuts" and just lumping them all together as widgets.