In Part One of my No Mouse series I talked about using launcher programs to open programs on your computer, thus eliminating a lot of your clicking. In this part I will explore using keyboard shortcuts once you are in a program.

Much like how you can increase computer speed by using launchers, you can increase your workflow speed by using keyboard shortcuts. These are built into the computer, and most applications have some built in as well, and a few applications even allow you to customize them.

You Already Know Some Keyboard Shortcuts

Most computer users already know some shortcuts, things like copy and paste, saving and printing: (ctrl[or cmd]+c is copy for instance). These are basic commands that if you grew up with computers, or have been using them for a while, you know them. They become things that you do not think about, but that you just do.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; there are a lot more like those. In fact, computers were designed originally to not use a mouse. Even so, there are limitations to what you can (and want) to do with the keyboard.

Discovering New Shortcuts

Let us dive in and learn a few new shortcuts, starting with a program that I am sure at one point or another we all use: Microsoft Word. Let’s take a look at what you can do with the keyboard in Word:

Screen Shot of File Menu showing Shortcuts on Word for Mac 2008.

Word for Windows 2007 is very different beast because the best bet is to just let you mouse hover over the command and the shortcut will appear, unfortunately this is not one that I could figure out how to take a screenshot of.

As you can see, this is just one menu in Word, showing both a PC version and Mac version, there are a ton of commands that you can do. You can even go into the below menu and customize those commands.

On Windows:

On Mac:

All of these commands lead us to:

Saving Time How?

Word is one program where we are forced to use the keyboard: you use the keyboard to generate words on a page, so why should you take your fingers off the keyboard to save the document? You shouldn’t. Lifting your hands off the keyboard to save has just taken time and more importantly, it has broken your focus! Now you have to take a mental break and try to remember where you were and what you wanted to type next.

Saving time here does not just mean the few seconds you shaved by not having to physically move the mouse, but also the time you saved in not having your workflow interrupted. Or to put it another way, using the mouse is the equivalent to having someone come and talk to you, or the phone ring while you are in the middle of trying to recall something important.

Learning the New Shortcuts

Learning and training yourself to remember new shortcuts is perhaps the most cumbersome part of the process, and probably the reason that you have never done it before. I would not recommend that you download a list of shortcuts and set about studying and memorizing them all. Instead, the best method for going about remembering new shortcuts is not to seek them out, but just to follow these steps:

• The next time you use the mouse to do a common task look at that menu item and see if there is a shortcut (this is usually next to the name in Mac, and will show via hover tool tips in Windows).
• If there is a shortcut, don’t click on the menu item.
• Instead use the keyboard shortcut.
• Rinse and Repeat

It is very simple, and initially, yes, this will add a little bit of time and you may not always remember to do so. However, what you will find is that you only end up internalizing the commands that you use and not useless ones. You will also learn them faster and begin to use them more. After a few times of this process, I think you will find that you stop yourself before you click on the menu, and instead just hit the command, thus completing the memorization process.

Related posts:

• No Mouse Part I: Program Launchers
• The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts
• ∞ Charles Best on Keyboard Shortcuts
• 3 Shortcuts to Faster, Easier Change