In 1868, a man by the name of Christopher Sholes was sitting at his desk with this sequence of letters and numbers in front of him:
3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M
It was keyboard of the first ever typewriter.
The letters were staggered resembling a piano, had black keys and white keys, and was laid out in two long rows. There were no keys for 0 or 1 as the letters O and I were deemed sufficient.
Just five years later, the same man put together a layout for his typewriter keys that made the keys jam less.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] \
A S D F G H J K L ; '
Z X C V B N M , . /
As a newspaper publisher and politician, Sholes was simply interested in removing bottlenecks from his busy life. Typing up new documents was not only taking hours, but jamming a typewriter usually meant smudges or restarting altogether. All Sholes had to do was rearrange the keys and spend some time getting used to the layout for the problem to be resolved.
Keeping the same mindset, let's apply this to our work today. Many of us rely on a keyboard to do our jobs, most look exactly like Sholes', and the more we practice, the faster and more accurate we get. That alone is incredibly useful, but why not lean into those impressive keyboard skills a little more.
Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are great because they allow you to perform tasks quickly and efficiently, without having to use a mouse or trackpad to navigate through menus and buttons. With keyboard shortcuts, you can access commands and perform tasks much faster than you would be able to with a mouse or other input device.
In addition to speeding up your workflow, keyboard shortcuts can also help reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. By reducing the amount of time you spend using a mouse or trackpad, you can help prevent the strain that can lead to these types of injuries.
Furthermore, keyboard shortcuts can also help you to stay focused on your work by reducing the amount of time you spend looking away from your screen. Since you can perform tasks quickly and easily with keyboard shortcuts, you can stay in the flow of your work and avoid distractions.
Go into the settings of many modern apps and you'll likely find a section on keyboard shortcuts. If there are shortcuts for the apps you use, it just makes sense to use them, but trying to learn them all at once isn't usually the way to go. Instead just take a few at a time, get good at using those, and then go back and learn a few more. Apps with great accessibility will allow you to navigate around the whole app and all of its functionality with your keyboard. Sholes would surely be proud.
Overall, getting comfortable with the keyboard and seeing it as a wieldy tool makes for a quick and generally enjoyable computer experience.
Some shortcuts that I find particularly useful in my work of writing software: