Sure you can always hit the “Apple” icon on the upper left-hand corner and select sleep. You can even adjust your Energy Saver setting under System Preferences to do put your computer to sleep after a certain amount of time. All is good until you throw in little kids in the mix, or if you are in an environment where there may be a concern to keep your computer secure from the curious or fidgety little fingers. Sometimes you need to get up to use the bathroom or get the door quickly… yes, Sleep on demand is necessary.
Activate Sleep on demand
Being able to activate sleep on the spot is essential. So how to do you get On Demand Sleep? How would you do it on a portable Mac without having to shut the lid? There are several ways to do this depending on what Mac you are using. Pick your poison.
On any Mac
On any Mac, you can use set a hot corner under Mission Control to put your Mac to Sleep. Go to System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners to set this up.
Or if you prefer a keyboard shortcut instead, you can use the Option–Command–Media Eject key combo which works on an Apple keyboard and the Logitech K750 keyboard.
On a portable Mac
On A Portable Mac such as the MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, you may use Option–Command–Media Eject key or Option–Command–Power Button key combo. Or my personal fave… hold down the power button for about 1.5 to 2 seconds and let go (this may take some practice but it works great).
Require password upon wake
You should also set your Mac to “Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins”, whose option can be set under System Preferences > Security & Privacy.
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This password requirement is important so that if someone were to Wake your Mac, they’d need a password to get in. I can’t stress enough how important this is if you have kids – trust me the last thing you need is having a toddler delete paragraphs of text from something important you were writing.
Waking up your Mac
To wake up your Mac, simply press any key (except the power button on portable Macs or tap your trackpad. You will then be presented with the login screen requiring you to put in your password. So if a toddler found his or her way to my computer, they’d have to know the password to get anywhere or mess with anything. This saved my bacon many times.