Helping people (family, friends, coworkers…) recently has inspired the idea in me that a series on computing productivity would be very helpful to many. So for the next couple of weeks I will give you all a useful pointer to increase your efficiency while computing.

One of the most universal computing standards just behind save, save as, and open commands is the cut and paste set of commands. Hopefully you all are familiar with these functions. Quickly, cut removes the selected item/s form the source material and allows you to paste that same material in another piece or else where in the same piece. Copy works the same way only that it does not remove the selection form the original source. Hopefully you all know all about that and use these functions frequently.

I would love to believe that everyone will know the hotkeys for cut, copy and paste, but I know that isn’t true. This is a crying, crying shame. To execute a cut hold the ctrl (control) key and press “X”, for copy hold ctrl and press “C”, and to paste hold ctrl and press “V”. You’ll notice that these keys are right next to each other and close to the ctrl button on the left hand side of the keyboard. With time you will become so familiar with these buttons that you will be able to execute these commands with hotkeys instinctually.

Another copy and paste standard, which is slightly less universal but still incredibly widely supported is the mouse-only copy and paste. In this method, (which you can test easily in your text editor) you can select some text and then just click and drag that selection to another location in the piece. This is simply a cut and paste command with a nice graphical interface. What fewer people know is that you can hold ctrl while executing the above procedure which will execute a copy and paste instead, preserving the original element.

Finally, for those of you who are already doing a great job copy and pasting, maybe you have come to loathe the fact that your clipboard (which holds all of your copied material) can only hold one piece of information at a time. What if you want to copy and paste two distinct pieces of information repeatedly? You are left to paste what you have and go back and get the second and do it again. Fortunately, Clipboard Recorder has the answer. This nifty (tiny) program runs in the background and allows you to access information you had previously copied. It’s great, to use it is to love it.

So until next week, try some copy and pasting and watch your time spent on the computer become more and more efficient.