The Only Keyboard Shortcuts You Actually Need to Know
Photo by Florenz Mendoza
TL/DR:
Keyboard shortcuts are not just for nerds! They save you real time, and frustration, every day.
The essentials are covered below: copy, paste, undo, cut, select all, hyperlink, underline, bold, italicize and how to make “pretty” links.
Two "mouse-cuts" speed up formatting and text selection.
Small efficiency gains add up to more time for the things you care about.
The Whole Shebang:
Today we’re getting uber-tactical. And hyper-nerdy.
(If you’re already a nerdy keyboard shortcut person, feel free to skip, but if not, or if you’re not sure, well, this is a quick one, so keep reading.)
I don’t think of myself as an extreme keyboard shortcut person; I use the mouse a lot.
But I also notice things.
Because I’m so often screensharing (or rather, my clients are screensharing with me), I notice when people aren’t using short cuts that could be saving them a ton of time and making them more efficient.
And why is efficiency important?
Well, because I want the same thing for my clients (and for YOU!) that I want for me:
To have more time to spend on the things you care about.
And if keyboard short cuts can help a little with that, well, then I don’t want to gatekeep.
So, without further ado, here are the keyboard shortcuts that I use every single day:
Cmd + C (Mac) / Ctrl + C (Windows)
The OG of keyboard shortcuts, this one copies whatever you’ve selected. Yeah, you probably know this one. But if you didn’t, now you do!
Cmd + V (Mac) / Ctrl + V (Windows)
The best friend of ctrl c. This one pastes whatever you just copied. Again, you likely know it, but I’ve seen enough people navigate via mouse to select “paste”, it’s worth adding here!
Cmd + Z (Mac) / Ctrl + Z (Windows)
Oh no! You deleted something. You messed something up. This one’s got you covered. It’s “undo”
Cmd + X (Mac) / Ctrl + X (Windows)
Use with caution; this one deletes.
Cmd + A (Mac) / Ctrl + A (Windows)
If you always find it a huge pain to select everything, scrolling from top to bottom, this one selects all.
Cmd + K (Mac) / Ctrl + K (Windows)
This one might be my favorite. Ever wondered how people get “pretty links” into their emails. Select a word, phrase, etc. Use this shortcut, then paste in the link. Now, the word links to whatever you want without the ugly URL. Just like this.
OR, if you want to make an URL clickable, just select, use this shortcut and, voilà, your link is clickable!Cmd + U (Mac) / Ctrl + U (Windows)
This one underlines whatever you’ve selected.
Cmd + B (Mac) / Ctrl + B (Windows)
This one bolds whatever you’ve selected.
Cmd + I (Mac) / Ctrl + I (Windows)
This one italicizes whatever you’ve selected.
And, for good measure, I’m sharing 2 “mouse-cuts” for lack of a better word:
Paint Roller/Paintbrush
If you’ve ever found it annoying to try to match formatting from one section of a doc to another, this little icon is your new best friend.
Select the formatting you want to copy, click the little paintbrush/roller and then select whatever you wanted to wanted to reformat.
So, if you want a section to be bold, italic, and Arial 17, or whatever, now it’s one step instead of 3.
Double click/triple click to select
Instead of selecting by holding down the mouse button at the beginning of the thing you want to highlight, then dragging it to the end and letting go:
If you want to select a word, just double click it.
If you want to select the whole sentence, triple click.
No fumbling needed.
Now, I know I didn’t cover the standard keyboard shortcuts for email processing, but if you want me to, just let me know.
(And don’t even get me started talking about custom shortcuts with TextExpander!)
Your turn:
Let me know YOUR favorite shortcut.
What’d I miss?
And when you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can work together:
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