So let’s talk about work efficiency. I get the chance to see plenty of people work on computers, and I always notice that they make everything much harder than it really is. You can save hours of time by learning how to use keyboard shortcuts and program functions. I’m going to go over some really basic ones that might just save you some extra time (and stress).
1) Keyboard Shortcuts.
No, keyboard shortcuts aren’t just for nerds! Many simple keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of clicking.
Ctrl-C ( means hold the control button and press C ): This will copy text that you’ve highlighted.
Ctrl-V: This is the shortcut for paste. Since C and V are right next to each other, you can you can you can you can you can copy and paste things in less than a second!
Ctrl-T: This will open up a new tab in your internet browser. If you’re one of those people that minimize the browser, find the internet explorer icon on their desktop, double click that and open up an entire new browser instance just to visit another website, this one’s for you! Hit Ctrl-T and you’ve got a clean new window to do whatever you need to do. You can then switch between tabs to change between your sites, all in one program!
Apple-Q: For the Mac users here, most of the above apply with the Apple button instead of Control, but something neat Apple has is Apple-Q, meaning quit. You can exit a program in less than a second.
Ctrl-F: This function doesn’t get used enough! How often do you search for something specific in Google, let’s say… a 30 inch Dell monitor, model 3007WFP and you click on a result because an awesome price was right next to the model number, and you see a long page with lots of different products. It’s going to take you at least a minute or so to find it now. This happens all the time, no matter what you’re searching for. To quickly find what you need on that page, just hit Ctrl-F to bring up the browser’s find window. That will enable you find whatever text you want on the current page. Type that model number in there and in one second, you’ve located exactly what it is you were looking for, without scanning!
Ctrl-Z: This shortcut is the undo function. Something a lot of people didn’t know is that it even works in form fields on websites. Use this instead of going up to Edit->Undo when using word processors or coding and it’ll save you a lot of time.
Ctrl-S: Probably the mother of all keyboard shortcuts… Save! Get in a habit of using this and you’ll never loose your work. Ctrl-Alt-S to Save As.
2) Your Browser
If you’re still using IE (Internet Explorer), that’s fine, but try giving Firefox a shot:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html
It’s faster, more secure, and easier to use than IE… oh and it’s free!
Besides just being a faster browser and loading pages faster, Firefox also has some neat features:
- The Ctrl-F (find) function is integrated into the window, not like IE, so it’s faster and MUCH easier to use.
- You can install add-ons to help you with all sorts of things! You’re thinking what kind of add-ons…
- Firefox comes with Spell Check built-in, so when you’re typing an e-mail and you mispell something, it’s already underlined. Right click to select the correct spelling, how awesome is that? Those kinda things! Broswe more here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
3) The Desktop Button
How often do you have like 20 windows open and you need something on your desktop. Are you really going to go through and minimize each window? Sure you can use Alt-Tab, but that’s still not fast enough. You need the desktop button on your taskbar (on the left). If it’s missing, here’s how to create it:
Copy and paste the five lines below into Notepad.
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
Save it as Show Desktop.scf and drag it to the task bar.
4) Google Searching
Finally, for today anyway, let’s hear some tips on searching Google more efficiently to find what you’re looking for faster.
- Putting stuff in quotes ensures that it’s found together. Let’s say you’re looking for a guy… John Doe in Tampa, Florida. Don’t bother putting in “Florida” because it will limit your results. You need to always think about what MUST be in the website, as opposed to what you might search to find it.
Your search would be: “John Doe” Tampa
This yields 33,000 results. If we did it without the quotes, we get 55,000.
- Use a timeline. If you’re searching for something fresh, bring up the advanced search link (on the right of the search field), select “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more,” and put in a date.
- Searching individual sites. So you were looking on that article site for something, or eBay, or Amazon, or wherever you may be. Regardless, if you need to find something on a particular site, you can use site search. For example, I’m a small business and am looking for resources on Tampa’s city site. I know sites like that are usually terribly organized, why would I bother even going to the site and trying to find what I’m looking for… let Google work for you!
My search would be: “small businesses” site:http://www.tampagov.net/
Bingo! First result - small business brochure.
- Negative Keywords. Last but not least (for now)… Using negative keywords can help a lot! Many sites in addition to Google allow you to use negative keywords. This helps the most when you’re looking for a range of things, like a range of products and you know what to exclude, but you don’t want to put in keywords that will limit your result set.
Feel free to post more, there’s many I’ve left out, but I think that’s enough to try and grasp for some right now. Just getting used to these few things can really improve your efficiency!
