The Keyboard Shortcuts I'd Teach Everyone

Every time you reach for the mouse to do something you do fifty times a day, you lose a second or two. That's nothing once. Across a year, it adds up to a lot of reaching. You don't need to memorize hundreds of shortcuts to get most of the benefit, though. A couple dozen covers most of it, and here's my list.

Mac users: where it says Ctrl below, it's usually Cmd for you, unless I've noted something different.

Text editing (works almost everywhere)

• Ctrl+Backspace deletes a whole word instead of one letter. On a Mac it's Option+Delete. Once you get used to this you'll never go back.
• Ctrl+Left/Right arrow jumps a word at a time (Option+arrow on Mac). Add Shift to select as you go.
• Home/End jump to the start or end of a line. On a Mac, Cmd+Left/Right.
• Ctrl+Z undo, and Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y to redo, depending on the app.
• Ctrl+Shift+V pastes without formatting in many apps on Windows, including most browsers. On a Mac, Cmd+Option+Shift+V does it in a lot of apps. No more pasting text that drags in someone else's font and colors.

Browser

• Ctrl+L jumps to the address bar and selects it. Type, hit enter, done.
• Ctrl+T opens a new tab, Ctrl+W closes the current one.
• Ctrl+Shift+T reopens the tab you just closed. You can press it repeatedly to bring back several. This one saves people every single day.
• Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab move between tabs. Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8 jump to specific tabs, and Ctrl+9 goes to the last one.
• Ctrl+F finds text on the page. Underrated on long documentation pages.
• Space scrolls down a screen, Shift+Space scrolls back up.

Windows

• Win+V opens clipboard history (you'll need to turn it on the first time). Copy several things, then paste whichever one you want.
• Win+Shift+S takes a screenshot of a region.
• Win+Left/Right snaps a window to half the screen. Great for side-by-side work.
• Win+E opens File Explorer, Win+L locks the computer. Lock it every time you walk away.
• Win+. opens the emoji and symbol picker.
• Alt+Tab switches apps, as you probably know.

Mac

• Cmd+Space opens Spotlight. Type the first few letters of an app and hit enter. This is honestly the fastest way to launch anything.
• Cmd+Tab switches apps, and Cmd+` (the key above Tab) switches between windows of the same app.
• Cmd+Shift+4 screenshots a region, Cmd+Shift+5 opens the full screenshot and recording tool.
• Ctrl+Cmd+Q locks the screen.
• Ctrl+Cmd+Space opens the emoji picker.
• Cmd+Q quits an app entirely, which isn't the same as closing its window. Useful when something's hogging memory.

How to actually make them stick

Don't try to learn all of these at once. Pick two or three that cover things you do constantly, write them on a sticky note, and force yourself to use them for a week even when the mouse feels faster. It won't feel faster for a few days. Then it'll become automatic and you'll add a couple more.

Most apps also have a shortcut list somewhere. In a lot of web apps, pressing ? pops one up (Gmail, GitHub and plenty of others do this). Many apps also have a command palette, like Ctrl+Shift+P in VS Code or Ctrl+K in a lot of newer tools, which lets you type the name of any action. That's a great middle ground, because you don't have to remember the shortcut, just roughly what the thing is called.

If I had to pick just one from this whole list, it'd be Ctrl+Shift+T. The first time it brings back a tab you closed by accident, you'll be a convert.