OS X Mountain Lion For Dummies

Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts (see Table 21-1 for a nice little 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 or trackpad.

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 you use often can 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 21-1!)

Table 21-1 Great Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcut	What It’s Called	What It Does
+O	Open	Opens the selected item.
+. (period)	Cancel	Cancels the current operation ...