Working at Speed

Chapter 14

Keyboard Shortcuts

6 min read

Every time you reach for your mouse to do something your keyboard already knows how to do, you break rhythm.

That is the whole point of shortcuts. They are not about looking clever. They are about keeping your hands in one place long enough that your brain stays with the work.

Your mouse is slowing you down

Watch someone who does not use shortcuts. They want to close a tab. Hand to mouse. Mouse to the tiny X. Click. Hand back to keyboard.

That feels small once. It is wildly expensive when it happens two hundred times a day.

The goal is not “know lots of shortcuts.” The goal is “stop paying the mouse tax on actions you do constantly.”

This is the good news: many useful shortcuts follow standard Mac menu conventions. Learn them once and they often work across apps, but check the app’s menu when something matters.

Shortcut	Action
`Command`+`C`	Copy
`Command`+`V`	Paste
`Command`+`X`	Cut
`Command`+`Z`	Undo
`Command`+`Shift`+`Z`	Redo
`Command`+`S`	Save
`Command`+`A`	Select all
`Command`+`F`	Find / Search
`Command`+`W`	Close current tab or window
`Command`+`Q`	Quit the app
`Command`+`N`	New (window, document, etc.)
`Command`+`T`	New tab (in browsers and apps that support tabs)
`Command`+`P`	Print (or Print to PDF)

These are standard in Chrome, Finder, Notes, Notion, Slack, Figma, Preview, and many well-behaved Mac apps. Individual apps can override or omit them, so use the app menu as the source of truth.

If you only memorize one table from this chapter, make it this one.

What does the close-window shortcut do?

Learn the modifier patterns once

Text editing is where shortcuts stop feeling like trivia and start feeling addictive.

Three modifiers do most of the work:

Option = move by word
Command = move by line or document
Shift = select instead of just move

They stack.

Option+Right jumps one word
Option+Shift+Right selects one word
Option+Backspace deletes one word
Command+Left jumps to the start of the line
Command+Shift+Down selects to the bottom of the document

Shortcut	Action
`Shift`+`←/→`	Extend selection by one character
`Option`+`←/→`	Jump one word
`Option`+`Shift`+`←/→`	Select one word
`Command`+`←/→`	Jump to start / end of line
`Command`+`↑/↓`	Jump to top / bottom of document
`Command`+`Shift`+`←/→`	Select to start / end of line
`Command`+`Shift`+`↑/↓`	Select to top / bottom of document
`Backspace`	Delete one character back
`Option`+`Backspace`	Delete one word back
`Command`+`Backspace`	Delete from cursor to beginning of current line
`fn`+`Delete`	Forward delete

Retyping is often faster than correcting

Most people correct text character by character. That is slower than selecting the broken chunk and rewriting it cleanly.

Bad word? Option+Backspace, then retype it.

Bad sentence opening? Command+Backspace, then write the sentence again properly.

Copy once, paste forever

Names, addresses, long technical terms, and phrases you keep retyping should be copied once and reused. That is the gateway drug to snippets, clipboard history, and text expansion later in the Setup Kit.

Try it

Text Selection Playground1 / 8

Select one character

Highlight the first letter "T".

Physical Mac keyboard only. Click the field, then use the shortcuts.

💡 Tip: If a shortcut behaves strangely, check where your cursor is. Selection shortcuts are always relative to the current cursor position.

Switch apps and windows without touching the Dock

There are two separate jobs here:

Command+Tab switches between apps
Command+Backtick switches between windows of the same app. The key is the grave-accent key; its position and label vary by keyboard layout.

That distinction matters. Most people know the first one and never learn the second, which is why they still end up reaching for the mouse once they land in the app they wanted.

Shortcut	Action
`Command`+`Tab`	Switch to the next app
`Command`+`Shift`+`Tab`	Switch to the previous app
`Command`+`Backtick`	Switch windows within the same app
`Command`+`Tab`, keep holding `Command`, then `Q`	Quit the selected app from the app switcher
`Command`+`H`	Hide the current app
`Command`+`Option`+`H`	Hide all other apps
`Command`+`Q`	Quit the app
`Command`+`Option`+`esc`	Force Quit dialog

Two habits matter here:

Hide more, minimize less. Hidden windows stay out of your way without creating a pile in the Dock.
Quit apps you are done with. Command+Q closes the app. The red window button usually does not.

Demo shortcut only

Option+TabhereCommand+Tabon your Mac

The browser cannot catch Cmd+Tab because macOS switches apps first. Chrome also owns Ctrl+Tab for switching tabs. Hold Option for this drill, or Fn if your keyboard reports it.

App switcher cleanup drill

Front app: Finder

Option practice switcherOption released

Command+Tabreal shortcutOption+Tabdemo shortcutCommand+Qreal quit

Click to try, then hold Option and tap Tab.

If you want the launcher version of app switching, that is where Raycast comes in.

Give the active app the whole screen

Do not work out of a stack of partially overlapping windows.

When you are using an app, make it fill the display cleanly. Assign Raycast’s Maximize action to Control+Option+Enter (we set this up in Chapter 20). The point is not macOS full screen. The point is giving the app the whole working surface without throwing it into a separate Space.

Overlapping windows create clutter. They distract. And the blunt truth is that you can only work on one thing at a time.

Giving the active app more real estate is doing yourself a favor. You see more of the document, more of the browser, more of the spreadsheet, more of the thing you are actually trying to think about. The computer stops asking you to manage edges and layers, and your attention gets one clear surface to land on.

The exception is deliberate side-by-side work: comparing two pages, dragging a file, copying data from one place to another. Do that on purpose, then clean it up again. Your default should be one active workspace, not five half-visible ones.

Stick to one desktop

macOS lets you create multiple desktops, also called Spaces. That sounds organized. Most of the time, it is just another place for distraction to hide.

Do not build your workflow around swiping left and right between desktops.

The swipe itself costs attention. The animation takes a beat. Your eyes have to reorient. And when you split your life into “work desktop” and “personal desktop,” both worlds keep existing in the background. More apps stay open. More processes keep running. More half-finished things wait one gesture away.

One desktop forces a cleaner question: what am I working on now?

If an app belongs in your current work, bring it forward. If it does not, hide it or quit it. That is cleaner than maintaining separate little rooms full of unfinished context.

There are exceptions. A full-screen presentation, a video call, or a short-lived focused task can deserve its own Space. But the default should be one desktop, one active window, one thing in front of you.

Building muscle memory

Knowing a shortcut is not the same as using a shortcut.

The awkward middle stage is real. A shortcut feels slower for the first few tries because your hand has not learned it yet. Push through that phase.

The best way to make shortcuts stick:

Learn three at a time, not thirty.
Use them on purpose for a week.
Keep the shortcut appendix open as your cheat sheet.
Read app menus. The shortcuts are literally written there.

If you catch yourself reaching for the mouse, pause and ask: is this one of the actions my keyboard should own by now?

Try it in your apps

In Notes, type a practice sentence. Select it with Command+A, copy with Command+C, then paste with Command+V.
In Chrome, open a spare tab with Command+T, close it with Command+W, then reopen it with Command+Shift+T.
In Finder, select a file and press Space to preview it. Press Space again to close the preview.

Your keyboard is faster than your mouse. It has been the whole time.