Turning your computer off each night while you sleep can save you a little money (in power savings) as well as a little unnecessary wear and tear on certain components, like cooling fans. My problem is that I always forget to turn it off before going to bed.
Here's a little tip that will help you take advantage of these savings while not requiring you to change your habits.
If we open System Preferences and navigate to the Energy Saver button, we will see a "Schedule..." button sitting quietly in the lower right corner.
Let's click that to explore our power scheduling options.
There are two types of events that we can schedule. The first is when we want our Mac to start or wake up, and the second is when we want to put our Mac to sleep, restart or completely shut down. You will notice that we can choose to use one or both of these options independent of the other by checking the box next to the appropriate item.
As you explore the options, you will also notice that you can set this schedule based on several recurring options... every day, just on weekdays/weekends, or even just on specific days of the week. It's completely up to you.
So, the question is, what does mine look like? I set mine to turn off at 11:00p each day, and then turn back on the following day at 6:00a. That will save 7 hours of unnecessary power consumption and wear and tear on the computer while I am (hopefully) sleeping.
One additional note related to turning your computer back on after it is shut down. The turn on command will only run if your computer is plugged in to a power source. This, of course, is obvious for Mac Pro, iMac and Mac mini, but maybe not so obvious for portables. Something to keep in mind.
