A lazy developer is a good developer, 10 windows shortcuts you should know
Tags: showdev, productivity, windows, shortcuts
Published: 2019-05-31 11:47:06

I saw a quote some day on Twitter:

> As a developer I don't feel bad about being lazy. If I can make a computer to repeat something for me, why should I do it myself?

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When I saw this, I thought about things that are on my day to day work, and are done in that way just because being lazy is not a bad thing in my opinion too.

That's why I want to share with you some of the short keys on Windows 10, which helps me do stuff way faster that normal. So here we go 😎:

## 1: Ctrl+Backspace

This trivial combination will help you delete a word at a time instead of a character compared to when you just hit backspace. I love this as it boost my speed in fixing my writings faster 😁.

## 2: Win+Number

If you keep icons on your taskbar like me and order them by their importance, this is for you. By pressing <kbd>Win</kbd> key and a number, it's like clicking that icon on the taskbar and opening the program behind it.

For example, I have [VS Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/) as first icon, so I just press <kbd>win</kbd>+<kbd>1</kbd>.

## 3: Ctrl+Shift+V

Often times, when you have some text with formatting somewhere and you need to send it in an email or use it a different application, you copy the text and paste it.

However, most of the times the text comes with its formatting. If you don't want the formatting and care about the text only instead of <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>V</kbd> use <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>V</kbd> and voila, you have the pure text without any formatting. This one works mostly in browsers, but there are some apps that support it too.

## 4: Ctrl+Shift+T

I've been bitten many times when cleaning my open tabs on a browser by closing the most important tab which I needed it the most.

Trying different approaches like typing in address bar in hope of finding it in the history or other ways has been unsuccessful many times, until I came across this combination.

This one opens up your last closed tab in most major browsers ([Chrome](https://www.google.com/chrome/), [Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/), [Edge](https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/microsoft-edge)).

## 5: Win+P

When you want to project to another screen instead of trying to find the related key specific to your laptop brand just use this combination. Fast and furiously project without hustle 🙃.

## 6: Win+X

This shortcut will bring up the quick link menu which for me are the most important list of windows tools. From power options to disk and computer management, event viewer, task manager and many more. Try it out, this one is awesome.

## 7: Win+,

If you want to quickly have a look at your desktop without minimising the applications then use this combo, if you really want to minimise everything, use <kbd>win</kbd>+<kbd>m</kbd>.

Also if you want to minimise everything at once, use <kbd>Win</kbd>+<kbd>D</kbd>.

## 8: Win+(+/-)

If you're presenting and want to zoom in on a specific area of the screen using magnifier, use <kbd>win</kbd>+<kbd>+</kbd>, for zooming out use <kbd>win</kbd>+<kbd>-</kbd>.

## 9: Win+.

This is by far the most important shortcut you need to know 😁🔥🔥🔥. I just used it to add these emojis. And yes you guessed it right, this will bring up the emoji list and you can continue typing to find the one you need.

## 10: Ctrl+C

You may now see this and think WTH, everyone knows this one. However, I am not talking about copying anything into clipboard here. How many times you faced an error and you couldn't copy the error text because it wasn't selectable?

Well use our favourite <kbd>Win</kbd>+<kbd>C</kbd> when you see an error message and the whole message will get copied to clipboard which you can then send to related party to investigate or just simply google it to see how it can be fixed.

## Summary

I truly believe if you can find a way to speed up your development process, you should do it. Learning shortcuts in your operating system or your editor, automating your repetitive tasks even at home, saving code snippets which you use most of the times and bind keys to them, these are all different ways of boosting your productivity. 

Hope these shortcuts help you work more efficiently like me 😉, and till next post, adiós.

## From comments

Many amazing people already have added more amazing shortcuts into comments. I thought bringing them here in one place so it would be more accessible for readers:

### Win+PrtScr 👉🏼 Win+Shift+S (windows 10 only)

This combination takes a screenshot of your screen. Beware that if you have multiple monitors, it will capture all of them. So you might want to use another tool like snipping tool to capture just part of an area.

### CTRL(CMD)+L

In most major browsers and not just windows, this combination jumps to your address bar in browser so you can start typing right away.

### Win+L

This is really handy if you want to step away from your computer. This will lock your screen immediately. You don't want everyone to receive an invitation for a team lunch on you after all 😉 (this was our hobby for many years, and still is).

### Win+(⬅➡⬆⬇)

This combination is useful for arranging windows and moving them around the screen.

### Ctrl+D

When typing in text editors, pressing this combinations selects the word ahead. [Jakob](https://dev.to/t4rzsan) mentioned it's for deleting, but I've tried in multiple editors and it just selects the entire word ahead of the cursor. Of course you can delete it from there by pressing delete or backspace.

Thanks to all who took time and commented on the post. I will update more here if   more awesome shortcuts were suggested 🙏🏼.