Had to hit Youtube University early on this morn. I spilled coffee in my keyboard. It’s sticky. Learning how to use a keyboard can feel sticky, too. Even when they’re not actual coffee in there. Might want to grab one., by the way. We’re going to be learning how to use a keyboard. Try learning keyboard shortcuts. It will help speed things up.

Discovered shortly after waking up that the pesky problem I had last night did not magically go away, and so I’m left with it.

It being a keyboard that types “z” when I write “y” and a few other things.

Searched the internet a few times for “how to fix my Mac Keyboard” and I came up with this super useful video called “7 Ways to Fix a Mac Keyboard” and I totally got my problem fixed! Turned out to be a setting in my system preferences to a different type of keyboard, not the coffee I spilled into it last fall finally coming to bite me in the ass.

Don’t worry, though. We have a brand new Puppy around for that.

Since I didn’t have to spend $100 on a new keyboard this morning and exacerbate the disposable culture we exist in, I’m going to give some love to the keyboard by talking about 3 little keyboard shortcuts I love.

Text Expander is one of my favorite programs to spend time setting up and remembering to use.

But it can be a little advanced.

A nice way to start going down the long & windy path of getting more done digitally is to start with shortcuts.

If you didn’t spend multiple semesters in school learning the correct keystrokes necessary to be fast typer, then learning keyboard shortcuts is one way you can free up some time you lose by typing like a slow poke. Or maybe a medium fast poke if you’ve had some practice now.

You’re going to be so fast with this one simple keyboard shortcut.

command + L

Bloops me to the search bar.

Do you go to the address bar often? Perhaps to type in a website?

Try it now. Cmnd L goes directly to search bar.

try it again.

And again.

Just a fewtimes because the more times you do it in a row the more your brain realizes that you’re learning something and even if you mess up a few times it’s okay because your brain is going to group all these many times you practice together as one learning session and when you go to sleep tonight your brain will throw out the bad practices and keep the muscle memory from the times you completed the task correctly and then in the morning you’ll jhus the this many good repetitions better. Liek if you try to do

50 times right now and you get it wrong 20 times, after you sleep tonight, you’l only be left with the 30 correct muscle firings in your “muscle memory.”

What do you think of that?

It’s a hubermanlab idea, I didn’t make it up. It’s in the how to practice episode.

When this is the keyboard shortcut I was learning, I didn’t try to learn anything else.

I was so used to leaving the keyboard to go to the mouse so many times per day that I didn’t even think about it. Being able to scooch to the search bar whenever I want without leaving the keyboard helps save me time and more time by reducing friction between tasks.

I’m not going to tell you about copy/paste.

The fewer times you can move off the keyboard when you’re writing blogs, the better it is. There are tons of keyboard shortcuts built into WordPress. Pretty nice. Like headings and images is a slash command and you get right to what you need.

My friend Paul swears by keyboard shortcuts. He’s been chatting about keyboard shortcuts on the socials a bit. Feel free to comment your video link below, Paul! He’s over at Be Pro and makes most of his magic using automation these days. But we actually know each other from the knife thing. Do you know someone who did that in college, or perhaps still loves and cherishes their Cutco? **slices a tomato** Vector Marketing was cool, even though it gets a lot of flack. I really enjoyed all the people I met. They still keep my life colorful today.

And the story about Carol, my knife client, was classic. A good one to retell someday.

So I’ve got to really spend some time without my fingers on the keyboard today so I can do a little cleanup. I swear I spilled like an entire cup of coffee into my keyboard so I’m really surprised it took so many months to develop stickiness. Very intriguing. Something about the crystallization of sugar, I think.

You’re going to be great at keyboard shortcuts.

Especially if you focus on learning one or two at a time.

Bloops you straight up to the search bar.

What’s the next thing you’re learning about keyboard shortcuts.

Already love them and want to save all the time in the world with more and more and more keyboard shortcuts?

Check out Text Expander. It makes my days so much smoother. And there’s this satisfying bloop when you use one of your snippets. It’s like text corrector for your phone but on the perfect combination of vitamins.

You have copy/paste down, though, right?

Shift + Up Arrow to highlight an entire line?

Ready to try something new every month? We have a little program. Join to stay fancy and inspired to learn new things. Let’s just try it.

Do do! be dobedo!

See ya!