These 3 Windows shortcuts stopped me from wasting time on unnecessary clicks

Published Sep 27, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT Rich Hein is a veteran technology journalist with more than two decades covering developer, consumer and enterprise topics. Rich's career has been dedicated to service journalism, connecting readers to content that informs and delights. Previously, Rich was vice president and editor-in-chief for Simpler Media Group, director of audience development for IDG and editor/writer for sites like CIO.com, ComputerWorld, CodeGuru and other tech-centric publications. He's received numerous accolades, including the IDG Summit and Azbee awards and has been covered by Medium for his work in audience development. When not at his desk, Rich lives in Daytona Beach with his wife and three dogs. He enjoys playing guitar, surfing and staying abreast of the latest in tech. On an average workday I spend about 10 hours at my computer and that's before you count the many hours I spend on my PC doing things that I enjoy. When you sit behind a keyboard that much, you realize how many simple things you do require too many clicks. Sure, they might only take a couple of seconds in the moment, but at the end of the day all that time adds up. I once had a boss who told me that when he has a difficult task or workflow that needs to be worked out, he gives it to the laziest guy in the office. I thought he was joking, but he was actually serious. He told me that the laziest people will always find the easiest way to get that job done. I don’t like to think of myself as lazy, but I took that to heart. I’m always looking for the easiest way to get my job done with the best results. With all that said, I'm not interested in memorizing dozens of keyboard shortcuts just for the sake of knowing them, but there are several that are simply more productive. They cut down on the clicks it takes to dig through menus and settings. The three shortcuts I'm going to share here are ones that have worked their way into my daily workflow. Once they became muscle memory, I stopped thinking about them as shortcuts and started thinking of them as the quickest way to get the job done. Ctrl + Shift + N creates a folder without reaching for the mouse It keeps me moving when I'm organizing files I spend most of my day creating and editing content. Keeping all of that organized isn't easy or quick. Every article I work on typically requires a folder for images, drafts, research and whatever else I need to keep with it. When you perform this function as many times as I do throughout the day you can see that it's slower than it should be. Ctrl + Shift + N bypasses all that right clicking and menu hunting. If you're in File Explorer, it creates a new folder straight away and instantly puts the cursor in the text field so I can start typing the name of the folder. I simply hit the shortcut, name the folder press Enter, and that's it. It might seem like a small change but I'm telling you when you do it all day this shortcut saves time. What I like most is that I don't have to take my hand off the keyboard every time I need to create a new folder. When I'm setting up a new article or I'm going through a bunch of screenshots, I can create several folders in a row without breaking my rhythm. Win + Number jumps straight to the app I want It works with the apps I keep pinned to the taskbar Win + Number is one of the newest shortcuts that I've added to my arsenal, and I've quickly found it irreplaceable. If you're like me, you definitely have the apps you use every day pinned to your taskbar. What I didn't know was that Windows assigns a number to those apps based on their position from left to right. If I press Win + 1, the first app to the right of the Virtual Desktop link will open. Win + 2 opens the second app, and so on. Microsoft Word is the sixth item pinned to my taskbar, so when I press Win + 6, my PC switches directly to that window. If Word isn't open, the shortcut immediately launches the app. After a while the relationship between the apps and numbers becomes ingrained and you don’t think about it anymore. Win + V saves me from copying the same thing twice Clipboard History keeps everything I just copied within reach Whether I'm doing research for an article, writing content, or adding images and text to a CMS, I spend a surprising amount of time copying and pasting. CTRL + C and CTRL + V are very common shortcuts and they work well, but when I'm working with more than one thing at a time, I could use some extra help. A pretty common example of this is when I copy a URL and then some text, only to realize that I needed the URL again. That typically means that I have to go back to the browser window and copy the URL again. Win + V makes this scenario obsolete. Win + V opens Clipboard History, which gives access to all the things that I've recently added to the clipboard instead of just the last item. When this panel opens I can very easily scroll through all of the things I've recently added to the clipboard without having to jump back and forth through windows. Note: The very first time you press Win + V, Windows gives you the option to enable clipboard history if it isn't already turned on. The best shortcuts are the ones I stop thinking about The shortcuts that stick with me are the ones that eventually disappear into the background. It isn't about memorizing more keyboard shortcuts, it's about replacing a slower habit with something faster.