Must Have Keyboard Shortcuts and Cheat Sheets for Meeting Planners

Keyboard shortcuts and cheat sheets for any computer application can make you a better meeting and event planner. They make you a better meeting planner by adding more time to your day and time is the one commodity that all meeting planners have in short supply.

That being said, here are 10 places for you to find great shortcuts and even some cheat sheets to speed up your day.

Gmail:

The Mack-Daddy of email services can fly when you apply some simple finger flips!


Google Gmail Short Cuts

Windows:

The operating system that we all love to hate has a host of shortcuts to make your life easier and really sunshine… where else ya gonna go? Mac, Linux? Let me stop laughing and pick myself up because until the rest of the world drops Windows, we are stuck with it.

Windows Key Board Short Cuts

Google+

Google+ is quickly becoming one of the best social marketing devices for meetings and events. These shortcuts will have you getting your social on lickity split and really, Google+ is that good.

Google Plus Shortcuts
Google + Cheat Sheet

Google Docs

Google Docs is the heavyweight alternative to Microsoft Office and a fan favorite around these parts. Here are some shortcuts that will make you a little more efficient in your workflow and will make a good application great.

Google Docs Shortcuts

Google Docs

Google Reader Shortcuts

Subscribe to RSS feeds… then you should be using Google Reader. Here are some awesome shortcuts that will take the hassle out of your browsing if you are like me and only check in once a week.. I wait till the reader tells me I have about 1000 unread posts before I dive in, these shortcuts allow me to take half the time out of getting back to zero unread.

Meeting Planners use RSS Feeds
Google Reader Shortcuts

FireFox:

My browser of choice (with Chrome a close second) has all kinds of shortcuts to make browsing much faster.

Meeting and Event Planners Browse Web
FireFox Browser Cheat Sheet

Internet Explorer

UGGGG. Here are some shortcuts for this browser if you must use it, but really, can’t you just switch to FireFox or Chrome? Just switching is probably faster than learning all of these shortcuts. Let’s be honest, the new IE9 or 10 or whatever version they are on may be fast but it is cumbersome looking, acting and feeling and Internet Explorer has no really cool do-hickies that do neat stuff.

Internet Explorer Shortcuts

Microsoft Outlook

I won’t pick on Outlook, it is still a great way to check and get emails. Although I have made the switch to Gmail, I still use outlook to monitor a few email accounts, primarily client stuff. Unlike Internet Explorer, Microsoft still has a winner here no matter what any geek wants to tell you. I will not laugh at you if you use Outlook.

Event Planners use Outlook

Outlook Shortcuts

Microsoft Word Shortcuts

Yep, word is the behemoth when it comes to word processing and there is a reason for that, Word is a really good program. Here are some shortcuts to make it even better. Geeks (and me) swear by GoogleDocs but there are times when nothing but the original Word will do.


Office Word Shortcuts (up to 2007)

Microsoft Excel

If you have complex spreadsheets, you probably use Excel because it is still the best. These shortcuts will make Excel work even faster and since I hate spreadsheets… I want to be out of there as quickly as possible.

Meeting Planners and Event Planners use Excel
Office Excel Shortcuts

PowerPoint

The bane of the meeting and event planners existence, PowerPoint is showing no signs of going away… EVER. So, if you can’t beatem, you might as well figure out a way to be more efficient when you use this little gem of a product. In all fairness to PowerPoint, it is a good program, it is the speakers that make it bad by thinking that you want to read along while they give a lecture on the Fleet Footed Wombat or the finer points of Organic Chemistry for Dummies.

Meetings use powerpoint
PowerPoint Shortcuts

So What?

Shortcuts are amazing. Shortcuts Rock. The problem is that most people do not take the time to learn them. Once you do, you can crank through operations without putting a hand on your mouse and that really does save a lot of time.

Do me a favor and do not try and learn all of the shortcuts for everything all at once. You will end up getting frustrated. Learn one at a time and then move on to the next. Start with a Microsoft Application like Word because the rest of the world have fashioned their shortcuts off of these programs and the old adage goes “Learn One, Learn Them All”.

Get to work… you have meetings to plan.

Image by Abulic Monkey

LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Keith Johnston

Keith Johnston

Keith is the Managing Partner of i3 Events but is most widely known as the outspoken publisher of the event industry blog PlannerWire. In addition to co-hosting the Bullet List and Event Tech Pull Up Podcasts, he has been featured in Plan Your Meetings, Associations Now, Convene, Event Solutions, and has appeared on the cover of Midwest Meetings Magazine.

Yep. We use cookies. Just like everybody else. Cool? Click OK.