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Workflow efficiency.md

Keyboard Shortcuts and Workflow Efficiencies

This is incomplete. It was inspired by a mutual exchange of eye-opening keyboard shortcuts.

Introduction

If you want to work creatively, it helps to remove interruptions and wait times. Using a computer is meant to be faster than doing things by hand, and creative work is one reason we use them. We know from experience what it's like to use an app that you have to wait for, versus an app that keeps up with you. The app that keeps up with you lets you do better work because you remain more focused, and it's more fun to use. But you, too, can either be fast or slow as a user. Computers spend most of their time waiting on us. So if you want to do your very best creative work with a computer, it will help if you and the computer get faster together.

Mac apps

Use the Menu Bar as much as you can. I mean the boring one at the top of the screen.

  • The Mac Human Interface Guidelines ask developers to put everything the user can do in the Menu Bar, even if a function is also available someplace else, like as a toolbar button or a context menu (a right-click menu). Therefore, when you use an unfamiliar app, you can find out everything it can do by browsing its menus.
  • Menu items also display their keyboard shortcuts. So if you want to learn an app's shortcuts, start using the Menu Bar to do things instead of clicking the buttons in the app's windows. You'll see the shortcuts and you can learn as you go.
  • You can search the menu bar for a capability you think the app might have by opening the Help menu and typing. When you mouse-over a search result, or arrow-down to it, it will show you where the item lives in the menu, and the keyboard shortcut too.
  • You can even bring up the Help menu in order to search by using a systemwide keyboard shortcut, ⌃⌥⌘Space. I'm not sure if you have to turn on this shortcut before using it, but it's available at System Preferences / Keyboard / Shortcuts / App Shortcuts / All Applications / Show Help Menu. A better name for the shortcut might be "Search Menu Bar".
  • Not every app follows the Mac Human Interface Guidelines. Some of them, like Slack, are what we call "bad citizens" of the operating system. These apps have functions you can't find in the Menu Bar, and you'll just have to explore. A relevant Slack tip: Type "/feedback Many user actions aren't in the menu bar" to report a bug.
  • Don't tolerate an app you have to wait for. If you can replace it with one that reduces delays and interruptions, do it.
  • Be aware that using a keyboard is not always faster than using a mouse. Consider the case of arrow keys for text selection.

Web apps

  • Complex web applications, like Gmail, Jira, and GitHub, often have keyboard shortcuts, and invariably you get to see those if you type ?.
  • In a lot of these applications, you can navigate through lists. That usually means typing J and K to go up and down, just like in vim or less. You can usually open the highlighted item with the Return key.
  • Keyboard-enabled web apps also often have page shortcuts that require you to type the g key and then another letter. For instance, g, p will go to the list of pull requests in a GitHub project. This is, of course, also like a family of vim commands.

Typing

Looking at your keyboard when typing is a bad habit, but training yourself out of it is very doable. You can use this method whether you look at every key, just the numeral keys, etc.

  • The goal is to free your eyes from having to ever participate in the task of typing, so typing does not interrupt whatever else your eyes are doing. If your eyes get involved in hitting the right key, in project management terms, that's a blocker.
  • Hand-eye coordination is when your hands can do things without your eyes getting involved. (That sounds backwards, but let's pretend it doesn't.) When you start typing, always get your index fingers centered on the F and J keys. Don't look, just feel for the bumps. That's what they're for. You want to build the habit of feeling, not looking, for the home row bumps, the arrow keys, and your mouse.
  • While you shake the habit of looking down, use the Keyboard Viewer to give your eyes the information they crave: First, enable System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > ✅ Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar. Then, on the right side of the menu bar, find the icon with ⌘ in it and select Show Keyboard Viewer. You can resize this window by dragging the corner, and change the appearance with gear button's menu. When you no longer look down, you can just switch it off again.
  • If you still can't break the habit, your keyboard must deny you visual information about which key is which. You can put opaque stickers over the keys to cover the letters, turn your keyboard's backlight brightness down to zero, or type under a blanket. I type using the Dvorak keyboard layout, so the QWERTY labels on my keys are simply incorrect. If I look down, it's meaningless, and I like it that way.

Slack

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