Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to save few precious seconds. In this blog-post – I’ll show you how to assign a keyboard shortcut to open a program.

Keyboard Shortcut to open a program is efficient way when you compare it to:

1) Searching for icons on the desktop:

Image Source: http://www.redplanner.co.uk/2011/10/23/how-content-digitisation-is-changing-consumer-self-expression/

2) Or opening the program via start menu:

Am I Right, here?

Alternatively, you can also consider “pinning” program shortcuts to taskbar. you can see that I have pinned few program shortcuts.

Now, let’s assign a keyboard shortcut to a program. And what program(s) to choose and not to choose is entirely up-to your need. for me, 4-5 shortcuts works best.

Here’s a step by step:

For the purpose of step by step, I am going to assign shortcut key to “snipping tool”

1) Choose the program

2) Go to program properties (you can do this by right clicking on program icon and selecting properties)

3) Switch to Shortcut Tab

4) Assign Keyboard shortcut in the Shortcut key

I chose ctrl + alt + s for snipping tool because “snipping tool” starts with S and that way it’s easier for me to remember the shortcut.

Note: you cannot assign something like ctrl + alt +del because those are default keyboard shortcuts for windows. For a complete list search “keyboard shortcut for windows”

5) click OK

And Test your shortcut.

And that’s about it!

Everyone time you save a second or two – you know who to Thank, don’t you ;)