Top 10 Keyboard Shortcuts to Boost Productivity

Using keyboard shortcuts can greatly increase your productivity, reduce repetitive strain, and help keep you focused. For example, highlighting text with the keyboard and pressing Ctrl + C is much faster than taking your hand from the keyboard, highlighting the text using the mouse, clicking copy from the file menu, and then putting your hand back in place on the keyboard.

Below are our top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend everyone memorize and use:

1. Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert

Copy the highlighted text or selected item.

2. Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert

Paste the text or object that's in the clipboard.

3. Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y

Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo it.
This can also often be pressed multiple times to undo multiple changes.
Pressing Ctrl + Y would redo the undo.

4. Ctrl + F

Open the Find feature in any program.
This includes your Internet browser to find text on the current page.

5. Alt + Tab or Alt + Esc

Quickly switch between open programs moving forward.

6. Ctrl + Tab

Switch between tabs in a program.
Adding the Shift key to Alt + Tab or Ctrl + Tab will move backwards.
For example, if you pass the program you want to switch to, press Alt + Shift + Tab to go back.

7. Windows Key + Tab (Vista and 7 users)

Switch through open programs in a full screenshot view.

8. Ctrl + Backspace

Delete a full word at a time instead of a single character.

9. Ctrl + Left arrow / Right arrow

Move the cursor one word at a time instead of one character at a time.
To highlight one word at a time, hold down Ctrl + Shift and press the left or right arrow key.

10. Ctrl + Home / End

Move the cursor to the beginning or end of a document.

11. Ctrl + P

Print the page being viewed.
For example, the document in Microsoft Word or the web page in your Internet browser.

12. Page Up / Space bar and Page Down

Move the page one page at a time in that direction.
When browsing the Internet, pressing the space bar will move the page down.
Pressing Shift + Space bar will move the page up.