Shortcuts

While GUI displays in applications make using them more user friendly, they aren't the most efficient ways to use your computer. Using keyboard shortcuts is much faster than say mousing to a menu, clicking to unfurl it, moving down to your given command and clicking it. Maybe not much faster on a per use basis, but over time the savings add up. Learning all the keyboard shortcuts you can for any given application will greatly speed up your use of the program and allow you to get a lot more done.

I use eight different applications on a daily basis at work, and a few more less frequently. Thankfully many shortcuts are shared across all of them, but each has many of its own unique shortcuts, which makes memorization difficult. But it's worth the time. Especially in applications where you tend to perform a lot of the same functions repeatedly, learning the shortcuts is a boon to your productivity. I'd be willing to say that if you just learned the shortcuts for the ten most common functions you use in each application you work with you'll realize huge dividends.

Now if only there were a keyboard shortcut to make this entry less boring.