Keyboard shortcuts are plentiful in any program, and most of us know only a few. If you are like me, you use a few so much they becomes second-nature. You would even have to think for a moment where to find the command on the menu, because you instinctively use the easier shortcut. “Copy,” “paste,” “save,” and “print” are a few popular candidates. As for most of them, it’s easy to use the mouse and the menu than to memorize a long list of shortcuts. Every now and then, a shortcut comes along that is too good not to use, and too good not to share with friends. The subject of this post centers around two of them.

Darn! I Didn’t Mean to Close That Tab!
Sometimes, you click a link and a new tab opens. To get rid of it, closing the tab is the correct action. You are then looking at the original page. Other times, clicking a link opens the new page in the same tab. Clicking the “back” arrow returns you to the previous site. One of the most common mistakes we make when we have multiple tabs open is that we close one by mistake. We should have clicked the back arrow. Instead, we closed the entire tab. Not only that, we have no idea what the URL was.

The post’s first tip is there is a keyboard shortcut which gets you out of the jam. Hold the “Shift” and “Control” keys. Now touch the letter “t.” You have just reopened the tab you had closed by mistake! This shortcut works on Chrome and Firefox.

The Evernote Date and Time Stamp
Any Evernote user knows a new note receives a date and time stamp upon creation. The phone rings, you create a new note in Evernote, and take notes from the phone call there. One of the beauties of the program is that it assigns a date and time to that note.

Think about how many times, however, you have a follow-up conversation with the same person on the same topic. During the conversation, you want to have the notes from the previous call in front of you. You really want the notes you are going to be taking now to be stored with the notes from the previous conversation.

One way to handle this type of situation would be scroll to the bottom of the note from the previous conversation, key in the current date and time, and take your notes for this follow-up conversation. Evernote has a shortcut for you. Hold the “Control” key and tap the semicolon key. Evernote inserts the current date and time.

Suppose you find yourself taking notes throughout an event. Maybe you are critiquing a speech, or a play. Perhaps, you are a principal conducting a classroom observation. You want your comments to have some sort of chronology. Just how far into the class did you key that comment that the teacher was beginning to bore the class? Just how long after the tardy bell sounded did the teacher begin instruction? Being able to insert time stamps along with your comments makes the commentary much more valuable.

The date-and-time-stamp shortcut works on the Windows desktop client, but to my knowledge has no counterpart on the web or Mac versions.

Some shortcuts are nice to know. Others are huge time-savers. For me, the two presented here fall into that second category.

What are your favorite keyboard shortcuts? Leave a comment below. Or, come over to my Facebook page and join the discussion. Finally, if you think others would benefit from tips, why not share it on Facebook or Twitter by clicking on one of the links below.