Shortcuts to Higher Productivity with Windows 10
One of the greatest keys to becoming a superhero in your organization is to have a deep understanding of the tools of your trade. In this episode, we concentrate on shortcuts for Windows 10. Taking time to learn these simple shortcuts can add up to hours worth of added productivity.
Windows 10 Shortcuts:
- Alt + Tab: Switch between open apps or windows
- Windows key + Tab: Task View with history
- Windows key + D: Show or hide desktop,
- Windows key + M: Minimize all open windows
- Alt + F4: Close the current app or window
- Windows key + Left arrow or Right arrow: Snap selected window to the left or right half of the screen
- Windows key + L: Lock your computer
For those of us spending eight + hours a day in front of a computer, shortcuts, not to be confused for cutting corners, are one of the many tools we can use to increase our efficiency. When was the last time you took a hard look at your routines to see if you could increase your productivity?
As we’ve talked with and watched many clients work, we’ve noticed that many of them aren’t taking advantage of the awesome time-saving shortcuts built right into Windows 10. Some may only save you a few seconds each, but each time you use them that stuff adds up. Let’s look at some stuff that can really help you with your multitasking.
Switch Between Apps
The first one I want to look at is Alt+Tab, and what Alt+Tab does is it brings up this view that helps you swap really quickly back and forth between some of the stuff that you might be working on. Super helpful if you have a lot of stuff going on or if you’re only using one monitor or something like that and you’re flipping back and forth really quick. That’s when I really like to use it. Another view is Windows key+Tab and that’s going to bring up this new view in Windows 10, and again it snaps everything back so you can take a look. The thing I also like about this one is if you were working on something earlier in the day or in the week, you scroll down just a little bit, you can see all the documents that you used to have open and open them up super, super quick.
Manage Your Open Windows
If you have to get back to your desktop to select something is if you hit Windows key+D, it’s going to snap everything down and it’s going to bring your desktop up. You can hit it again. It’s going to pop everything up, right like how it was before. Windows key+M which is actually going to minimize everything. It’s a little bit different. It’s still going to, at the end of the day, show you your desktop, but it actually goes to the trouble of hitting the little minus button up in the right-hand corner of everything.
And finally when you are done working for the day and you have to close stuff down really, really quickly, what you can do is hit Alt+F4 and it’s going to start closing everything down for you. And if you get all the way to the desktop, you click on your desktop out here, Alt+F4 will actually shut the computer down.
Windows Snap
One my favorite things is called Windows snap. And so this can be really useful if you’re going back and forth between two documents or a document and a web browser that you’re trying to reference or something like that. The way that you do this one is you hit the Windows key, you hit the right or the left arrow key, and then it’s going to snap that over to one side, and then you get to pick what window is on the other side. So you can come up and potentially arrows through these, and then hit that. And as you can see, I have my budget on the right and I’ve got my plan for world domination on the left.
Lock it Down
This one is very important to do every time you walk away from your computer for security, which we’ve got all sorts of Tech Riffs on security, make sure you check those out. Windows key+L, it’s going to make sure that you lock your computer and in order to use it, you got to put your password back in.
It can be hard to remember all these when you get started, so we recommend writing them down on a sticky note and putting them on your monitor or your screen until they become second nature. Let us know in the comments if we missed any of your favorite shortcuts on Windows 10. As always, we’re here to help you increase your productivity and decrease frustrations as it relates to IT. Until next time, have fun practicing those shortcuts. I’m Killian Smith, take it easy.
Worksighted Team
We are a team of over-enthusiastic people, ready to help our clients utilize technology to spur growth! We love technology and come to work every day eager to solve problems and find ways to impact our clients.
