Midwifery is a profession that keeps up with the times, and that means we now use computers constantly. Some midwifery units are even paper free, with laptops and ipads for notetaking.

I want to save you lots of your precious time by showing you these midwifery focused computer tricks.

1. Find words fast in whatever you're reading: Ctrl+f 

The control key is on the bottom left hand side of your keyboard. It has 'Ctrl' on it. You can hit ctrl + f (meaning hold 'ctrl' down along with the 'f' key) and a search bar will appear, usually on the top right hand side of your monitor. You can type whatever word you're looking for into this bar.

So say you have the NICE guidelines for antenatal care open in front of you, and you want to find out how much Vitamin D to prescribe for a woman antenatally. You hit ctrl + f and type 'Vitamin D' into the search bar. You are then able to see Vitamin D is mentioned 25 times, and using the arrows, you can jump between every mention of Vitamin D until you can see how many mg to prescribe (it turns out 10mg).

Without using ctrl +f you'd have spent a long time scrolling through hundreds of pages of irrelevant info.

This works for everything: web pages, facebook, twitter, articles, guidelines, word documents and so on...

2. Jump between entries on forms without having to move your mouse and click: use Tab

 The Tab key is usually a few spaces down on your keyboard from 'Esc'. It jumps between entry fields in forms.

Using it means you spend much less time filling in details - handy for admissions, birth details, and all the other endless forms will fill out electronically.

3. Highlight everything, copy, cut and paste: 

These are really good. Say you have a hospital protocol you want to put into a word document so you can rewrite or edit it.

Open your guidelines, press Ctrl + a  and all the text will be highlighted, so you don't have to click and drag and scroll down through pages and pages to select every last word...

Then you'll want to copy it. You might well know this one: it's Ctrl + c.

Then you'll need to paste it into your document, using: Ctrl + v.

This is so much quicker, more accurate, and much more enjoyable than clicking and dragging, missing something, losing it by clicking too soon, right clicking, left clicking, and so on.

It works in any situation where you'd want to cut, copy and/or paste.

4.  Un-do and re-do: 

You know when you're working on an essay, and you write a sentence, then decide you don't like it so you delete it? And then you decide actually you want it back again so you hit the re-do button? Instead of clicking you can use ctrl + z. To redo because you want the sentence back again use ctrl + y.

This works everywhere too: in word documents, on facebook if you've accidentally got rid of your carefully crafted and hilarious post, in forms, computer records, and entry boxes.

4.  Ctrl + s will save what you're working on in a word document. Hit it every so often to avoid the lost document tragedy.

5. Ctrl + Tab will move between programmes, windows and tabs that are open. So if you've managed to get onto ebay and your manager walks past you can swap straight back to that fascinating Care of CTGs protocol you're reading.

** These shortcuts also work on Mac computers, just use the ‘Command’ key instead of ‘ctrl’.

Anything else you find useful? I'd love to hear from you.