The Quick Access Toolbar which is a staple of the majority of Microsoft programs is often forgotten about, or used with the default configuration. This one little tool has the potential to unlock so many short-cuts and save you time.
If you're not even sure what I'm speaking about, here's a screenshot to orient yourself to where you will usually find this handy tool, take a look at the top left of the application you are in.
By default you usually find the following functions here: save, undo, redo, and print. Which are pretty good quick functions, but you can do all of those with a few keyboard short-cuts and we keep an ongoing list of keyboard short-cuts for different applications in our, 'Become a Keyboard Jedi' article.
One thing to note about the Quick Access Toolbar, it is essentially contextual when you are setting it up. If you think about Outlook you have different kinds of windows such as: new email, new task, calendar event, etc. Each of those windows can have a unique combination of shortcuts and the easiest way to set these up is to open the window you want to add the shortcut to.
Here is a quick example of adding the Delay Delivery feature we spoke about in our, 'One way to to get more done and still maintain work boundaries' article. Follow these steps:
Open a blank "New Email"
Click on the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button
Click More Commands from the list that opens
Click on the Popular Commands drop down and change your selection to "All Commands"
Scroll Down until you find the command you want, in this case Delay Delivery select it
Click on Add >>>, and then click OK
PRO TIP
Microsoft does not always name everything intuitively, or you may find that there are multiple options for the command you want to add. A little bit of trial and error is all it takes, add a command and test it out. If it works you're all set, and if not go back in and try one of the other similarly named commands.
HOW TO DO IT
