Keep in mind that not every shortcut is worth using for every person, either. Once you're not even thinking about them anymore, add a few more to your repertoire, and keep the cycle going! Focusing on just a few common shortcuts and integrating them into your daily use will soon make them second nature. Don't worry if your memory isn't capable of remembering hundreds of shortcuts. If you were writing a paper in Word and took ten seconds to save the document every five minutes by manually clicking File > Save, you'd be spending two minutes of every hour just saving! A quick tap of Ctrl + S takes a fraction of a second and doesn't take your hands (and mind) away from typing like using the mouse does. Keeping that other hand on the keyboard and learning some keyboard shortcuts is an excellent idea your spare hand probably isn't doing anything else productive! You probably only have one hand on your mouse. Yet a mouse isn't required to use your computer at all you could get around with just a keyboard if you had to. After all, you can use your mouse to make selections, work with the toolbar options (like File, Edit, and Tools), launch programs, and navigate websites. If you're not accustomed to using them, keyboard shortcuts might seem like a waste of time.

Stay on board and you'll be mastering these tricks in no time! Why Bother With Shortcuts? We'll dive into specific programs after that, and finish up with a selection of alternative tricks. After examining how useful shortcuts can be, we'll first look at universal shortcuts that perform the same function in pretty much every program you could use.

Windows shortcuts 101 by ben stegner