How to Use Hotkeys to Save Time

I’m writing this post as a response to a couple emails from people who’ve read my Time Management ebook.

In the ebook, I recommend AutoHotKey to take care of some of the repetitive tasks on the computer..now I’ve been getting a couple replies saying “Autohotkeys is great but seems to have a huge learning curve, I really like the idea of hotkeys though is there something simpler“.

So, that’s when the hunt began and I can tell you, I’ve found something simple and incredible that anyone who uses a computer can easily use.

Here’s the video..Scroll down if you prefer the text

EDIT: I was being a bit dumb in the video examples. Try not to use SHIFT for your hotkeys, use something like ALT or Windows. Using Shift + a key would mean anytime you want to capitalize that key, the hotkey action will be triggered and that’s annoying.

TEXT

Hotkeys are a combination of keys that trigger a certain event like pasting some text (think your signature in certain forums, or places where they don’t have a WYSIWYG editor so you have to type in all the tedious html..you could use it to paste header codes for your programs, repetitive emails, email templates and so on…)

You can also use it to open applications. For example, I use my mind map application a lot so I have a special key combination that automatically opens the thing for me. It’s easy, cool and saves a ton of time.

Anyhow, the hotkey application highly recommend is autohotkey if you’ve got the technical background or the time and energy to play around with it.

Here’s a much simpler program you can set up and get running in minutes. It’s HotKeyMaster (free for 30 days and a one time $5 fee after that - worth the time + muscle strain it saves you if you ask me)

Download it from here and set it up.

Run the program

To Add a new hotkey

1. Click New — enter a name for the new hotkey

2. Under add Activator - select hotkey

3. Now select the keyword combination you want to use. Try ALT and WINDOWS keys first and once you exhaust that combination - try unimportant CTRL combinations that you normally don’t use.

For example - CTRL + V is an incredibly useful combination that will paste things try not to get your hotkey combination conflicting with this already useful combination.

And if you’re still using your mouse for copy and paste - you really need to switch to your keyboards. It takes sometime to change a habit but it will save you A LOT OF TIME.

4. Now, in the right menu - select the action you want the combination to trigger.

Some of the most useful ones for most people would be

a. Paste Text - for all those template emails, header files, html, signatures and so on

b. Launch Applications - Firefox is only a combination away

c. Send message - you can get your music player to play the next track, shuffle, pause or whatever without switching windows and pressing the pause, next or shuffle button yourself.

d. Kill a process - If you have a software that freezes a lot but you still need to use it for whatever reason. Kill a process comes in handy. Just configure it to kill that program and start over anew

e. Alarm Message - this works best with a Timer (In case you were wondering)

And for your amusement

f. You can also get the hotkey to do certain mouse event like position a mouse at a certain coordinate point on your screen. I haven’t really been able to find any useful thing to do with this one yet but I’m sure it will amuse you for a couple milliseconds (longer if you’re a geomatics person)

g. And Much more…

5. Once you’re done, don’t forget to hit Apply.

Your hotkeys won’t function until you hit apply.

To Use Hotkeys

It’s really simple, the program starts automatically when you turn on your computer. And, once the program is running you can use your hotkeys virtually anywhere - browser, office applications, text editors, web editors etc.

Installation Issues?

Ah the fun bit … Let me know if you’re having installation issues and I’ll try my best to help. But, I can’t be held accountable for anything that blows up during the process

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