Put down the mouse
and keep your hands
where you can see them.
Here's a little experiment for you to try.
Take a pad of paper and a pencil and place it next to your mouse. Position it
so that you can use your mouse normally without bumping into it but still
within easy reach.
Now, every time you take your hands off of the keyboard and use the mouse,
place a hash mark on the pad. At the end of an hour or so, count the number
of marks on the paper.
Okay, what's your point?
The point of this little experiment is to demonstrate one of the great time
wasters of modern computing. When you remove your hand from the keyboard to
use the mouse it takes, depending on individual proficiency and the task you
are performing, anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds to use that mouse and return to
productive keyboard use. If you average that out at say, 10 seconds per use,
that mouse can cost a lot of time.
What you can do about it.
You are probably wondering how you can function in Microsoft Windows and
Microsoft Office without a mouse. Is it even possible? You bet! Here's
How
If you look at the menus in your applications you will notice that they have
a letter underlined. As an example, the 'File' menu in most applications has
the letter 'F' underlined so that it looks like this: File. This
indicates a keyboard shortcut for accessing a particular menu. To use the
shortcut, hold down the alt key (Alt) to the left or right of the space bar
and press the indicated letter. Voila! Down comes the menu. You can either
navigate via the arrow keys on your keyboard or by depressing the underlined
letter of the menu item (no alt key necessary) you wish to invoke and press
enter.
You should also note that to the right of some menu items you will see
something like 'Ctrl+P' located to the right of 'Print...' and other menu
items. These key combinations activate the corresponding menu item without
the need to access the menu at all!
Most modern keyboards (after about 1998) also have a 'Windows Logo' key, usually between
the control (Ctrl) and alt (Alt) keys. It looks like this:
There is also the 'Application' key, which looks something like this:
These two keys provide a lot of powerful functionality. The logo key in
combination with the letter D, E, or F, does the following:
-
Logo+D reveals the Desktop by minimizing all open applications. Pressing
the combination a second time restores what was minimized.
-
Logo+E opens Windows Explorer / My Computer so that you can browse your files if
you need to.
-
Logo+F opens a search for files dialog box.
Just a general note: The best procedure to use with these shortcuts is to hold
down the Logo key and TAP the letter. If you hold the letter down too
long, especially with a fast computer, you will end up with a whole bunch
of open windows.
More shortcuts
If you would like more time saving shortcuts for
Microsoft Windows
or
Microsoft Office
just click on the orange linked text to download the pdf files. You will need
to get
Adobe Acrobat Reader
to view and save these documents if you don't already have it.
These are long lists and I would suggest that you go through and highlight the
ones you think you'll use the most. This will make it easier for you to
reference to them while you are working. You might even (if you are really
industrious) cut the more useful ones into strips and tape them to your
monitor for quick reference until you have them down. With a little practice
using the shortcuts, you'll be a veritable nexus of productivity in no time.
Enjoy!
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