As I’ve often suggested—most recently here and here—I try to minimize my use of the mouse as much as I can. Mostly that’s been in the context of Emacs where it’s easy. My desire to avoid the mouse is not ideological. It’s a matter of ergonomics. I find it faster and easier to to do my navigating from the keyboard.
Recently, I was reading an excellent article by Gwern on Internet Search Tips. It’s about how to optimize your Google-fu and search for hard to find papers, books, and other pieces of information.
One of the things that struck me was his insistence that your search has to be very easy to make or you won’t bother. The first part of his article is about keyboard shortcuts that he uses to initiate a search. He almost never needs to use a mouse for this. He’s a Linux user so much of his specific workflow doesn’t apply to me but I did take the general principle to heart.
I’ve had Alfred installed for a long time but hardly ever used it. I used it mostly to launch an application without having to click on its icon. After reading Gwern’s article, I tried to internalize this as a way of minimizing my mouse use. It turns out that the real power of Alfred resides in a subscription based plugin. I signed up for that and was amazed at how easy it made avoiding mouse use. For example, instead of clicking on 1password, scrolling down to the site I needed the password for, clicking on menu, and then clicking on the link to login page for the site, I merely brought up the Alfred prompt, typed 1p <site name> and I was taken right to the login page with all the password data filled in.
I’m still learning Alfred but already it’s essentially eliminated mouse use for everything except my browser. Browsers are the ultimate mouse-centric application for most of us and I’ve yet to find a reasonable way of avoiding the mouse when I’m in Safari. I’ve tried Keys for Safari, which tries to provide mouse free usage but it didn’t work for me.
The main point of this post is that whatever platform you’re on there’s something like Alfred that helps you avoid the mouse. If, like me, you like to avoid using the mouse, it’s worthwhile taking a look at one of the applications like Alfred that are appropriate for your platform.