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With the rise of smartphones comes the luxury of accessing our e-mail wherever we roam. These days, it seems that no matter where you go, you’re likely to hear the tap-tap-tapping of fingers across mini QWERTY keyboards and virtual keypads as people all around you type out those all-important e-mail messages.
Personally, the rhythmic tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard is like music to my ears. If there was a room with a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand computers…well, I don’t know if they’d eventually churn out a best-selling novel, but I’ll bet it would sound like a symphony in there.
This is one of the reasons I love using keyboard shortcuts while I’m working at my computer. When I’ve got a good typing rhythm going on my keyboard, I don’t want to have to disrupt the flow by reaching for the mouse to perform some commands (even though mouse-clicking can also be quite a pleasant sound).
Many e-mail clients support keyboard shortcuts, so when I’m catching up on e-mail correspondence, I try to make the most of those time-saving keystrokes. Everything from cutting, copying, and pasting text, to flagging a message for follow-up, and even sending the message, can all be performed right from the keyboard. If you’re doing something as simple as scrolling from the beginning of an e-mail to the end, you can avoid using the mouse altogether.
Even when you’re not composing a message, you can take advantage of many of the keyboard shortcuts that are available for organizing your messages and navigating through your mailbox. There are shortcuts for moving through messages in your folders, jumping directly to certain folders, moving or copying items between folders, and creating items such as messages and appointments.
Learning the keyboard shortcuts and teaching yourself to use them can take some time. I started off learning one or two, and found that I felt like I was working more efficiently when I could keep both hands on the keyboard. So I took the time to learn a few more, and eventually abandoned my mouse completely when I was working in Outlook or Gmail.
The tips for this podcast will focus on teaching you the keyboard shortcuts that are available for working with your e-mail, whether you’re in Outlook, Lotus Notes, or working on the go with a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. The links for these tips can be found on the blog entry for this podcast, at www.productiveupodcast.com.
- A Hands-On Approach to E-mail: Keyboard shortcuts you can use while composing a message in Outlook
- No Mouse Required: Keyboard shortcuts you can use while composing a message in Lotus Notes
- Control and Shift Your Mail: Keyboard shortcuts you can use in Outlook’s main window
- Moving Multiples: Using the Ctrl and Shift keys to perform keyboard shortcuts on multiple messages at once
- Get the Most Out of Your Keyboard: Shortcut keys for the BlackBerry e-mail application
- Touch and Go: Keyboard shortcuts for Outlook on a Windows Mobile device
We’ll also throw in a few bonus links to sites that list keyboard shortcuts for some of the other popular e-mail clients:
Once you get into the habit of using keyboard shortcuts, you’ll find that they really can save a lot of time compared to using the mouse for certain actions. The best way to start using them is to learn one or two at first. After that, you may find yourself hooked and wanting to learn more. Then, when someone walks by your desk and mentions that you sound like a thousand monkeys, you can smile gratefully and accept it as a compliment, knowing that you are composing your own symphony of tapping keys.
That’s all for this week, but if you’re enjoying the podcast and the tips, be sure to write a review for us over at iTunes. Also, don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter @productiveUcast.
See you next time!
Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum
