The time-saving shortcuts you probably don't know

When something in our life is useful, it becomes instinctive – we do it without thinking. Just like driving. For me, one of these useful things is computer shortcuts. How many times today have you pressed Ctrl/Cmd + Z (undo) without thinking? Or Ctrl/Cmd C (copy) , then Ctrl/cmd P (paste)? I have a couple of times already just writing this blog. Copying and pasting what the boy’s favourite shortcuts are!

We live in a fast-paced world of immediates , deadlines & next-day delivery. The pace of life is picking up & it’s time to decide, are you going to find more efficient systems to work with, or are you going to find the most efficient way to work with the systems you currently have?

Windows Shortcuts

We wanted to share with you the shortcuts we love, our favourites that save us time and help us work more efficiently.

F2: Press this after clicking on a document and to quickly rename it.

Alt & tab: Flick through your applications with ease.Hold alt and press tab until you find the application you want next.

Ctrl & Tab: Flick through tabs you have open in your browser, same as before - if you press 1-9 it will also choose that tab number instead flicking all the way through.

Windows + L: Locks your computer returning it to the login screen. I find this useful when the cat decides to jump up onto my keyboard. Locking the computer quickly means Paddy the Cat can't ruin a document or type something he shouldn't!

Crtl + F = Find in a browser, if you are trying to find a word or name on a webpage Ctrl + F is your new friend. - Try to find the word llama in this post using the shortcut…

Alt + D. Put the cursor into the browser's address bar.

Ctrl + W, or Ctrl + T. Close or open a new browser tab.

Ctrl + Shift + T. Reopen the last browser tab you closed. (This comes in handy when if you hit Ctrl + W too quickly!)

Windows + E = Mark’s favourite shortcut! This brings up the explorer window. (Anybody who Mark has ever been sat with Mark at a computer will have seen him use this, if you haven’t watch out for it in the future! )

Mac Shortcuts

We are all using windows in the office so I asked my favourite mac user for his favourite shortcuts:

Command-F Start a Spotlight search in the Finder window.

Option-Command-D Show or hide the Dock. It's useful to have the dock in place to quick-launch any app you might need. But sometimes, it gets in the way. When you're working near the bottom of a document and it keeps being 'activated', it can slow you down and kill your flow. This is the perfect time to hit command-option-D to make it vanish from your screen. Don't worry though, just press it again and it will be right back in place.

Command-I Show the Get Info window for a selected file. I use this all the time to check file sizes of documents. You highlight a file, and press command-I, and it brings up a window with details about the file. When it was created, where it's saved, how big it is... stuff like that. It’s really useful.

Command–Space bar Spotlight: Show or hide the Spotlight search field. To perform a Spotlight search from a Finder window, press Command–Option–Space bar.

Command-Tab Switch apps: Switch to the next most recently used app among your open apps

Twitter Shortcuts

Did you know twitter has its own set of shortcuts? If you press Shift + ? you will get a little menu of shortcuts.

J & K: These two let you jump from tweet to tweet J goes down and K back up again.

U: This is probably my favourite, mute! If somebody is tweeting too much you can mute them so they don't appear in your timeline until you unmute them again. Useful if you don't want to unfollow but don't want to see something for a few days - I use it when there is a disaster or horrific news story going around so I don't see it appear constantly.

. : The full stop key will bring you back to the top of the timeline and also reload new tweets, it works quicker than a refresh.

What are you favourite shortcuts?

We love to learn, so if you have some incredible time saving shortcuts that make your life easier - please share them with us!

Either comment below or send me a quick email so we can try them out!
sophie.parden@milesb50.sg-host.com

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