If you ever get the privilege to watch software developers at work, you’ll notice they rarely move their their hands off of the keyboard because they know that keystrokes are faster than hovering a mouse, which is faster than than a swiping on a trackpad. 

On the flip slide, if software developers ever get the privilege to watch market access folks at work, they’ll laugh. Unlike the techies, us market access folks reach for the mouse (or worse yet, trackpad) with every other breath that we take, thereby sluggishly accomplishing tasks which should ideally take a mere few seconds.

I read a study suggesting that an individual can save 8 DAYS per year by learning keyboard shortcuts. I believe this is still an understatement, especially if a job requires an individual to be on the computer all day, everyday. 

In the spirit of lifelong learning, let’s make it a priority to learn and implement some simple keyboard shortcuts. There are many, many useful shortcuts out there–just Google “keyboard hotkeys” or “keyboard shortcuts,” and go to town. Let’s dedicate an hour everyday this week to learning and practicing shortcuts for the applications that we use the most. There are even apps out there that can help us practice until it becomes muscle memory.

Here are a few useful shortcuts from The Miller Group for a jump start on the journey to becoming a shortcut Ninja and to spare the humiliation from a software developer.

It’s to make big strides and turn heads–let’s go.