Keyboard Shortcuts to Reduce Time Wasted on Mundane Tasks

Even the most mundane tasks in the office can take up a bit of time. For example: did you know that switching from your keyboard to your mouse can consume up to eight full work days every year? If you take advantage of keyboard shortcuts, you can significantly reduce the amount of time wasted on these simple tasks.

Hard to believe? How can such a necessary task be harmful to your bottom line? Time to crunch the numbers.

• Eight days of productivity are lost every year due to moving back and forth with a mouse.
• That’s eight full, 8-hour workdays.
• Let’s assume that the average worker switches between their mouse and keyboard once a minute, and this switch takes up two seconds of time (or about 0.03 minutes).
• If the worker is typing for six hours a day (480 minutes) and they work about 240 days a year, we can build the following equation.

[2 wasted seconds / min] * [480 min / workday] * [240 workdays / year] = 58 wasted hours / year!

This produces a situation where the average worker spends almost 58 hours just switching between the mouse and keyboard. Fortunately, keyboard shortcuts exist, so let’s dig into detail about how these can help you reduce the time spent moving your hand back and forth, as well as the time wasted moving your cursor around.

Here are some of the lesser-known keyboard shortcuts that can help you navigate your toolbar, hopefully saving you time that could be put to better use on another task.

• Pressing CTRL+B will select an item in your System Tray, while the arrow keys can be used to select the one you need.
• To select an item in the Windows Taskbar, you can press the Windows Key plus the corresponding number to bring it up.
• When you hold Shift and press an arrow key, you’ll be able to select items without clicking and dragging the mouse.
• If you have your items selected, press the Menu Key (the one between the Windows key and the Ctrl key). This will work the same way as right-clicking the items.
• Once you’re done, close the program by pressing Alt + F4.

Almost anything you do on a regular basis probably has a keyboard shortcut that you can use to save time. You can also construct your own keyboard shortcut by right-clicking on a program’s icon on your desktop and accessing its properties. Under the Shortcut tab, you can provide your preferred shortcut combo. Once you’ve finished, click Apply.

What are some ways your company improves productivity?