The Easiest Way to Become More Productive Online: Tab + Enter

Posted on February 18th, 2010. Written by Rico.

Believe it or not, those two keys will save you a lot of time, if you do a lot of work online. They’re easy to remember and use, and apply to popular websites.

If you’re already proficient with Gmail keyboard shortcuts (and you should be, if you use Gmail), then you’re probably familiar with the Tab + Enter combination. After typing in your message, you press Tab, then hit Enter to send it immediately—no need to scroll down, no need to move your mouse.

The combo also applies to other websites, specifically to those where you have to type in something and click on the Submit button or something similar. In fact, Tab + Enter also works for those leaving their opinions on Technograph; after typing in what they think, all they have to do is press Tab then Enter, to submit their opinion.

In short, Tab + Enter is most useful on blog comment forms, forums, and anywhere else where a Submit button follows a text box. Granted, leaving comments on blogs or posting on forums isn’t exactly work for most people (the latter is for me actually). Yet even casual surfing benefits from productivity boosts, no matter how small.

Hopefully this will inspire you to seek out keyboard shortcuts for everything you do. The mouse revolutionized computer interfaces, but it’s still slower than the keyboard. If you know how to do everything through the keyboard, in any application, you’ll get things done a lot faster. Gmail is a great example: press k or j to select the next or previous email (then pressing o to open it) is a lot faster than pointing the mouse and clicking. Try it!