Knowing keyboard shortcuts makes things lot easier and faster, while working on your computer. But unless you are a keyboard junkie, it’s not an easy task learning oh-so- many keyboard shortcuts! There are Windows Vista Keyboard Shortcuts, Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts, Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts,  Microsoft Office Keyboard Shortcuts and more.

But wouldn’t it be great if there was a program that would tell you a keyboard shortcut for an action you had just performed, via a small notification? This would make it a lot easier for you to remember, as you would be able to associate a just concluded action with the tip. Moreover, I am sure you will agree that it is lot easier to learn such thing, one at a time, rather than just trying to go through the entire list and trying to remember them all.

KeyRocket is a program that does exactly that! It observes your actions and every time you use the mouse for an action, it checks if there is a corresponding keyboard shortcut for it – and if there is, it shows the keyboard shortcut in the notification area, by way of a balloon notification. In short, while you work, KeyRocket suggests useful shortcuts in a small notification window based on your mouse clicks and movements.

Let us say, you create a new folder using your mouse > right-click > New > Folder action. As soon as you create it, you will see a notification tell you that there is also a keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N that would perform the same action of creating a new folder.

If you Bold some text with the mouse, KeyRocket will notice and suggest Ctrl+B in a small notification window.

This way every such mouse action which has a corresponding keyboard shortcut will be displayed here – making it much easier for you to learn the shortcuts – one at a time. Once you learn a keyboard shortcuts, you can set it to NOT notify you.

And when you apply or use the newly-learnt keyboard shortcut, instead of the mouse, you will get to see a “Hooray – You just learned a shortcut” balloon!

The program offers tips for over 1600 keyboard shortcuts for  Windows Explorer, Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook keyboard shortcuts. It supports Windows 7, Vista & XP and Office 2003 to 2013. Although it worked just fine on my Windows 8, I am waiting for the publishers to release the next update, which will include Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts too.

With Windows 8 around the corner, it might make a lot of sense trying to learn the shortcuts as it would make navigating Windows 8 a lot faster and easier.

KeyRocket is free for personal use and you can download it here. If you are planning on learning keyboard shortcuts, I’d strongly urge you to try this freeware.