Quickly put your Mac to sleep with the power button

Macs are great at reconnecting to wireless networks when waking from sleep, so opening the lid of my MacBook and getting back to work has never been an issue for me.  But sometimes closing the lid of the MacBook does not put it to sleep.  To ensure that your Mac goes to sleep when you want it to, or as a means of securing your Mac when you are walking away for a moment, simply press the power button for a second — not too long, or else you will force your Mac to shutdown.  A dialog box will pop up and ask if you want to put your Mac to sleep.  Simply press the ‘S’ key on your keyboard to give your Mac a nap.  And if you happen to have a second-generation MacBook Air or one of the new MacBook Pros with a Retina display, Mountain Lion will allow your Mac to take a Power Nap.  With this feature, even while your Mac is sleeping it will continue to fetch content like email, software updates and other notifications.