Chapter 20. Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience

This chapter is for speed demons only. At some time in their Mac lives, most users have wished that their machines would work faster — even those with new Macs with multiple processors. I can't help you make your processors any faster, but here, I cover some ways to make your Mac at least seem faster. Better still, most of these tips won't cost you one red cent.

Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts (see Table 20-1 for a way‐groovy list of the most useful ones) can make navigating your Mac a much faster experience compared with constantly using the mouse, offering these benefits:

  • If you use keyboard shortcuts, your hands stay focused on the keyboard, reducing the amount of time that you remove your hand from the keyboard to fiddle with the mouse.

  • If you memorize keyboard shortcuts with your head, your fingers will memorize them, too.

  • The more keyboard shortcuts you use, the faster you can do what you're doing.

Trust me when I say that using the keyboard shortcuts for commands that you use often will save you a ton of effort and hours upon hours of time.

Make a list of keyboard shortcuts you want to memorize and tape it to your monitor or somewhere where you'll see it all the time when using your Mac. (Heck, make a photocopy of Table 20-1 !)

Improve Your Typing Skills

One way to make your Mac seem faster is to make your fingers move faster. The quicker you finish a task, the quicker you're on to something else. Keyboard shortcuts ...

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