KeyRocket
I think this is the first time I have ever written a product review (aside from Yelp) -- but I have found some great productivity boosters lately.... When I am not using an IDE for development I spend a lot of time in Outlook or other MS Office applications like Word, Excel, and SharePoint.
Anyway, with young kids to keep me busy at home and plenty to keep me busy at work (always a great thing!) I have been looking to shave time off my day and reduce my typing (to save my arms and wrists a bit). First I turned to VIM keybindings, which are great but not so user-friendly in MS Office programs. Then after some Googling I came across a product called KeyRocket.
I decided to check out the free trial and I'm glad I did. KeyRocket has been watching the commands I click on most often in MS Office programs (I think it also works with Windows and Visual Studio too; I'm still learning)... and it is gradually teaching me the shortcut keys (which are not at all intuitive in Windows!!!). I have already learned how to quickly go to the search bar in Outlook and Windows file explorer. And I have learned how to rapidly switch between my email and calendar in Outlook. It's so much better than constantly switching between the keyboard and mouse.
It has not overwhelmed me by popping up a shortcut EVERY TIME I click something -- it just starts reminding me after I use a command a lot, so I am not overwhelmed all at once, which is making remembering the shortcuts much easier.
It's much better than keeping a separate Web browser open on another monitor (I have two monitors at work and three at home) and constantly having to go search web pages for shortcut keys, which I then forget and have to go look up and and again until I repeat them enough -- that's certainly not a time saver!
I think my favorite part is it actually congratulates me when I learn and use one of the commands it has taught me!!!! I love that my computer is actually cheering me on for a change. :)
Although I haven't tried it yet, it also offers to create custom mappings of commands it perceives I use a lot... like some commands in Office require the ALT key plus at least three other keys after... KeyRocket has been offering to simplify the key combination for me.
Anyway, it wasn't so easy to find tools in Google that could help boost my productivity so when I was lucky enough to stumble on KeyRocket after a length Google search I figured I might as well share this tip with others.
Here's a link if you are interested:
http://www.veodin.com/keyrocket/
- Adam