No Mouse Required: Mastering ‘Windows Key’ Shortcuts

Windows Key

One of the most under-utilized keyboard shortcut mechanisms is the Windows Key. This key (pictured) is located between Ctrl and Alt on most modern Windows keyboards and offers a veritable treasure trove of productivity goodness. And I’d be willing to bet you’ll find some nuggets in here you didn’t know existed :)

These types of shortcuts are best applied to “motor memory” (a concept I plan on delving into a little deeper in a future post). The basic idea is that after you’ve executed a keyboard shortcut a sufficient number of times, it will be come a reflexive action and you literally won’t think about doing it, you’ll just do it. So, give yourself some time to get very familiar with these and before you know it, you’ll be dancing along the keyboard like you were born knowing how!

Now, on to the shortcuts!

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February 5, 2007 | Filed Under No Mouse Required, Productivity | 3 Comments 

No Mouse Required: How To Use Firefox Like a Champion

Let’s face it - a good chunk of humanity is now using the Firefox web browser. Based on a quick look at the access logs for this site, that includes roughly 2/3 of the readers here (yay!). As with many open source projects, it was written with the power user in mind (which means a whole slew of keyboard shortcuts).

Today, we’ll be covering a small handful of keyboard commands that perform (what I consider to be) the most basic browsing functions, so everybody will benefit (and you can bet I’ll be covering the more esoteric commands in a later post). They’re going to come fast and furious, so get your keyboards ready! (Note: these are for non-Mac OSes - if you’re running OSX, you can substitute the Command key for most instances of Ctrl).

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February 1, 2007 | Filed Under No Mouse Required, Productivity | 7 Comments 

No Mouse Required: How to Create and Send an Email in Outlook Using Only Your Keyboard

Mouse

I spend a whole lot of time in front of a computer. It was (and still is) my hobby, and subsequently became my profession. And being a GTDer, I’m constantly looking for ways to streamline my computing processes. After about 7 years of full-time computer use, I’ve discovered one of the greatest productivity killers in computing history: the mouse. That’s why I’ve introduced a new snazzy post category called “No Mouse Required”. Constantly moving your hands on and off the keyboard wastes all sorts of time, so I’m determined to eradicate (to the extent it’s possible) my personal use of the mouse. So, anytime you see a post under that moniker, you’ll know there’s a nugget of mouse-less bliss awaiting you.

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January 30, 2007 | Filed Under No Mouse Required, Productivity, Technology, Work | 4 Comments