On the right-hand upper corner of the WP dashboard, you will find pull-down tabs with labels ‘Help’ and ‘Screen Options’. When you click on Screen Options, this brings up the customization options related to the dashboard. Turn off/on widgets based on what you want to be hidden/shown at a given time. Simply uncheck widgets to remove and this hides them automatically. Beginners may not alter default dashboard but WP facilitates minimization of the widgets for drag them to new locations. For example, you might want to place the frequently used widgets at prominent positions. Find the needed information with ‘Help’ tab regarding customization with helpful links for support and documentation.

Move over sidebar to find buttons for access to the different website areas. Upon the selection of menu items list of the sub-menu items appear below. Hovering over the mouse on the buttons displays sub-menu. Click on them for easy access to various site subsections.

The main menu items include:

Dashboard:

Receive statistics and updates regarding websites here. The home admin page displays the dashboard and gives general website overview.

Posts:

Create, manage posts on blogs along with management of categories and tags.

Media:

This is for the management of the library of media content as audio, video, and images.

Pages:

This is for the creation and the management of site pages

Comments:

Use this to manage the feedback from the visitors.

Appearance:

Use this for choosing the themes, setting up widgets, creation of the menu for custom navigation and more.

Plugins:

It gives the users an ability to extend website capabilities and facilitates their management, activation, and deactivation.

Users:

It facilitates management and viewing the users on the site. Use this to edit personal profile, with options for changing a password, screen name, and email address.

Tools:

It provides powerful options and tools to import and export content.

Settings:

It maintains the bulk site options such as name permalink setting and the privacy of the websites.

Admin Bar:

Located on the top of the page, it provides an access to the commonly used information and features.

Changing Your Password:

For this navigate to profile at ‘Users’ and ‘Your Profile’. There is a place for entering the new password on the page bottom with another box for confirming the same. Strength indicators assist in the creation of strong passwords for users. Replace old password with ‘Update Profile’.

Settings to Change Immediately after Setup:

Navigate to the ‘Settings’ followed by ‘General’. Now verify time zone and email. If needed add personal www address. Navigate to ‘Settings’, ‘Permalinks’. The page determines the appearance of page addresses and blog posts. Choose the preferred structure.

Next Steps:

From this point, one can understand the basic settings and move on to better and bigger things.
Most users consider WordPress dashboard as the page to click on admin menu for navigating to the specific page. Others consider it a nuisance filled with some useless widgets. Once you can control the dashboard, it becomes an amazing tool, a place for saving ideas, replying to comments, and viewing statistics of current traffic. WordPress provides tools for controlling the dashboard but it is up to the users to optimize the benefits.