11 best keyboard shortcuts for Windows PC

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As someone who spends a large
part of her day behind a screen for one reason or another, it’s
important to me that the experience be
as seamless as possible.

In part, this means testing
keyboards for
optimal wrist comfort and meticulously optimizing my screen’s
brightness for late-night scrolling, but it also means making the
most of shortcuts my computer has already created for me.

While most people know the
benefits of a desperate CTRL-Z stroke or the peace of mind that
comes from remembering to press CTRL-S after adding the finishing
touches to your latest masterpiece, there are many other keyboard
shortcuts out there that could be making your life even
better.

Here are 11 Windows
keyboard shortcuts I can’t believe I ever lived
without:

CTRL-F

From time to time I find myself
up against a deadline and buried under a mountain of paperwork
that still needs to be read. I need to have at least

some

understanding of what the documents cover,
but the idea of frantically scanning is painful.

Instead, I can try searching
directly in the document using CTRL-F. By searching for keywords,
I can whizz through my document and find the most relevant
portions.

CTRL-Shift-Click

The process of adding documents
one-by-one to my cloud storage or email attachment can be tedious
and time consuming. If I wanted to attach

all

the documents, a simple CTRL-A would suffice,
but for more selective uploads that solution isn’t always
helpful.

Instead, I can press CTRL-Shift
and simply select each document I’d like to add and have them all
added at the same time.

CTRL-M

In the age of multitasking, I
often have multiple programs running on my computer at any given
time. To cut through the noise I use CTRL-M to quickly minimize
any other windows I may have opened and return to my
desktop.

CTRL-W

Another live saver for chronic
multitaskers is the shortcut CTRL-W, which helps me close any
program, tab, or window I have open without having to mouse over
and manually exit. Without removing my hands from the keyboard, I
simply continue pressing W until my screen has returned to a
state of tranquility.

Windows-L

Caught watching cat videos at
work or during a lecture? With one click of Windows-L I can lock
my computer’s screen in a matter of seconds and escape an
inevitable reprimand for being off-task — and better yet, get
back to watching that cat when the coast is clear.

CTRL-D

I often find myself overwhelmed
by the number of tabs I’ve opened in my web browser and sometimes
have trouble bringing myself to monotonously bookmark and close
each one. But by using CTRL-D, I can automatically bookmark
interesting pages as I open them and relieve myself (and my RAM)
of the burden of 15-plus open tabs. But be careful not to select
anything before you press it, or you might accidentally delete
it.

CTRL-PrtScr

A shortcut that embarrassingly
eluded my knowledge for years, CTRL-PrtScr is the one-stop shop
for all my screenshotting needs. If I want to capture an
important message, funny photo, or video still, this shortcut
will take a shot of my current screen and save it to my clipboard
to be pasted wherever I choose.

CTRL-Shift-V

You’ve probably heard about
CTRL-V – the keyboard shortcut that allows you to paste items
from your computer’s clipboard. But its cousin, CTRL-Shift-V, is
equally if not more useful. This shortcut also allows me to paste
from my clipboard, but it pastes everything as plain text,
meaning that any strange formatting I might have brought over
when I copied the item won’t disrupt the formatting I already
have.

Alt-Arrow

If you’ve ever fallen down a
Google rabbit hole, you’ll know how important it is to be able to
claw your way back out. By pressing Alt and either the right or
left arrow key in a browser I can easily move backwards or
forwards in my own search history and find my way back to where I
started searching.

Read more:

60 time-saving keyboard shortcuts every office worker should
know

Shift-Arrow

Ctrl-C is probably one of the
most popular keyboard shortcuts, but actually selecting the text
I want to copy can be frustrating with glitchy trackpads and
mice. This shortcut allows me to more delicately select the exact
text I want by using the arrow keys.

CTRL-Shift-T

I have a nasty habit of
overwhelming my browser (and myself) with many, many open tabs.
Often the tabs are left open as a reminder to myself of something
I need to do, so you can imagine my panic when those tabs are
accidentally closed. But with CTRL-Shift-T,

on a Google Chrome
browser

, I can easily
rescue them from the grave. The shortcut lets me reopen any
recently closed tabs and saves me the trouble of starting my
searching again from scratch.