View all posts

Keyboard Shortcuts to be More Efficient

10/05/2022

Keyboard Shortcuts to be More Efficient

Depending upon your work arrangements, you may be working in a hybrid environment of both in the office and from home. Hybrid work arrangements balance the in-person interaction with co-workers and the time you need to be home for all the family & school events. But what happens when you frantically get to work and forget your mouse?! How can you function without one? Here are some keyboard shortcuts that will make you want to stop using the archaic mouse.

WINDOWS KEY + Tab (Task View Toggle). Admit it – you have multiple documents up while you read this. To quickly get back to a document, hold down the Windows key and the Tab key to show all available documents and applications currently open. This works well if you are also using multiple screens to help keep one document on a screen but change to a different document on the other screen. Finding it difficult to bend your left thumb back to the Windows key? An alternative to this command is Alt + Tab and then you can cycle through open documents. PS – this is a good command to know to quickly switch screens so you look busy as your boss walks by.

CTRL + TAB (Cycle browser tabs). Similar to the previous shortcut, hold down the Ctrl key and tab key to quickly go through multiple browser tabs open. This is great to smoothly cycle through multiple Chrome or Edge browser tabs to find exactly what you needed.

WINDOWS KEY + PERIOD (Emoji panel). Did you even realize there is an emoji panel available on your computer? To access the emoji panel, hold down the Windows key and the period. Some of the most common emojis will appear. Not everyone uses emojis when writing but we thought this may help add some fun to the day.

WINDOWS KEY + L (Lock your computer). One IT security item that is not routinely discussed is locking your computer. This is not physically locking it like a bike but exiting out of your screen and switching to the home login. Some hackers have been known to pose as third-party vendors (pest control, HVAC, utilities, etc.) to gain access inside your office building and then go about their service unsupervised. An unlocked computer opens up a security risk that an individual may access or even copy sensitive information. Using the Windows key and the letter “L” quickly locks your computer as you step away for a moment. Plus, this stops your fellow coworkers from flipping your desktop upside down or sideways.

ALT + Equal Sign (Excel automatic sum function). Switching gears to some Excel spreadsheet-based shortcuts, a favorite to utilize is automatically summing data in a column. No longer will you need to drag and highlight all the cells you need to summarize. At the bottom of the data that needs to be summarized, click the Alt button and the equal sign and Excel will automatically select the cells directly above it to summarize. You’ll thank me when you have hundreds of rows to sum.

CTRL + Z (Undo). While using the delete key may rank first for most frequently used key, control + z may save some fingering stretching. To undo a previous action, hold down the Ctrl key and the letter “Z” key. Continuing pressing the “z” to undo even more actions. This may save some headaches when you messed up something or accidentally clicked a wrong key.

Alt + H + H + N (Unhighlight a cell). If you are a visual person or like to color-code in Excel, this shortcut may be for you. Holding down the Alt key then pressing the letter “H” key twice and then the letter “N” key, the cell(s) selected will be unhighlighted for you. This does automatically change the Fill function to “No Fill” but it can save some time once you start to get the feel for this shortcut key stroke. Slow down as you use the Alt key and “H” and you’ll see Excel illustrates associated keystrokes to use on the Home ribbon for the available actions.

It takes time and practice to learn and memorize these shortcuts or any others. Think about the most frequently used functions you do and research the keyboard shortcut (Google and YouTube is your friend). The above shortcuts are only the start as nearly everything you can do with your moues can be performed on the keyboard. Commit yourself to trying them and even print a little cheat code to hang on your monitor to help get started. You’ll soon find that you will be faster at navigating your computer and processing data.

Whatever life brings you, you can rely on us.

We make banking easy.