Constantly moving between your keyboard and mouse breaks your rhythm. You can reduce the number of mouse reaches by using simple keyboard shortcuts. Sorry Mac users, these are for Windows only.

Some favorites for the most common Outlook actions:

ENTER, or, CTRL+O to Open an email

CTRL+N to start a New email

ALT+R to Reply

ALT+L to Reply All

ALT+W to Forward the email

CTRL+D to Delete the email

The beauty of these is that you don’t even have to open the email. Simply click the message in your Inbox and use the shortcut.

ALT+S to Send

Now when the iManage filing dialog pops up …

ALT+O to Send Only

ALT+S to Send and File

Here’s your challenge:

Can you Open, Reply All, and Send an email without touching your mouse??

Now Delete the message that you just replied to without touching your mouse.

Practice makes perfect. Before long, these shortcuts become second nature!