We spend an inordinate amount of time moving the mouse cursor around the screen.
Clicking on one thing or another, going from one corner of the screen to the other, dragging or resizing, sliding and scrolling.
If the mouse had an odometer built in, we’d be mousing across Canada and back. Regularly.
Between each mouse click there’s a certain distance that is traveled repeatedly.
That takes time. Also, near the destination, we slow down to avoid missing the mark. That time adds up fast, and the muscle strain can shorten the life of your mouse hand.
Keyboard shortcuts literally add time in your day.
Almost everything we do with the mouse can be replaced by a handy keyboard command or a more efficient mousing workflow.
Example 1: Instead of moving the mouse cursor to the red “x” in the top left of a Finder window to close it, press Command-W. Test that a few times from various areas of the screen to see how long it takes by mouse or by keyboard.
Example 2: Instead of using the mouse to open a Finder window, then click Documents, then click “Work Stuff”, then open the necessary info from within your folder, add a Stack on your Dock. Just drag the “Work Stuff” folder carefully onto the Dock (right of the divider) making sure the other icons move to make room. From then on, you can access the “Work Stuff” folder directly with one click. You can do the same thing to add “Work Stuff” to the left sidebar in Finder windows. See also my “where am I” blog post.
It’s easy to get into the habit of doing everything with the mouse. It’s also easy to say “keyboard shortcuts are too complicated” or “I don’t have time to learn about that.”
It starts with just one, used persistently, at every possible opportunity. Then you can add more later when you get used to it.
Just pick one of these to start playing:
- Command-w to close windows.
- Command-q to quit.
- Command-s to save.
- Hold command and press Tab repeatedly to cycle between open applications.
Just think of all the extra golfing and fishing you can do when you’ve retired several months early.
