My favorite keyboard shortcuts

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Ctrl+shift+left/right arrow key

Select the word to the left/right of your cursor. These are probably my most commonly used keyboard shortcuts both at work and on my personal computer. I highly recommend them to people who currently don’t use any keyboard shortcuts at all.

Shift+up/down arrow key

This one selects the line above or the line below your cursor. The tricky part about this is not getting it confused with the ctrl+shift+left/right because ctrl+shift+up/down can select the whole page above/below your cursor, which is almost never what you want.

Ctrl+a

Select all. This can be super useful in something like Seeq Organizer Topic or Microsoft Word, but sometimes it’s a little tricky on a website with a lot of advertisements because this shortcut will select the advertisements even if you don’t want them to be selected.

Windows key+left/right arrow key

Use this to snap your window to the right or left of your screen. This is a fantastic organization tool that I used about every 5-15 minutes at work. 

Windows key+down arrow key+down arrow key

Minimize your current window. For when you put a current task on hold, or need to see something else in your window.

Windows key+tab

Zoom out to see all virtual desktops. Zoom back in with esc or clicking on a desktop or window. This takes you to the highest overview you can get of your virtual workspace where you can add virtual desktops and move windows between virtual desktops. You can even name your virtual desktops from this view. Mine are Main, Dev, Documents, Review, and Everything Else.

Windows key+ctrl+left/right arrow key

Navigate to the virtual desktop to your left/right. I personally use virtual desktops to sort my work, so this particular shortcut is a huge time saver. I have the same shortcut on an extra button on my mouse that detects direction by moving the mouse to the left or right. I generally only use that one when I have a snack in my left hand. 

Alt+tab

Switch to most recent window. Holding down the alt key allows you to navigate more precisely, using shift to go to the next least recent tab, and using the arrow keys to go in any direction.

Mac Alternatives

    Alt+delete

Delete one word to the left of the cursor. This can be helpful when rewording sentences.

    Ctrl+e

Go to the end of the current line. This can probably be combined with shift, to select whole lines and apply styles or delete the line.

    Ctrl+a

Go to the beginning of the current line. Similar to going to the end of a line. This one is especially good for manual list formatting.

    Command+delete

Delete the current line. Like a big eraser for your computer.

Work

Slack

Ctrl+g

Opens search menu. I am a huge fan of this keyboard shortcut, I use it multiple times a day, and the menu even shows suggestions for further keyboard shortcuts. I hardly have to use my mouse to use Slack now.

Intellij

Ctrl+1

Add import statement. This can be very convenient when adding and removing the only instance of an imported function. 

Cmder

Ctrl+shift+|

Splits the current tab with a vertical line.

Ctrl+shift+_

Splits the current tab with a horizontal line.

New cmder tabs will be added as most recent, but can be reordered by dragging the tabs at the bottom left. You can also switch between Cmder tabs with ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab, similarly to windows.

I adore keyboard shortcuts, and will make more posts like this by popular demand. If you have any suggestions for me, please contact me at [email protected]