Minimizing my use of the mouse

[jbischke]

I'm moving slowly into a world where I'm not using my mouse much anymore. I'm on a Mac and between Quicksilver and a lot of the other keyboard shortcuts it seems I can fly around a lot quicker without it. What I'm wondering if whether there is anything (Mac-compatible) that can help accelerate this even more. I was thinking maybe some software that would disable the mouse but total disabling it might not be a good idea. Maybe something that forces you to hit a certain key sequence before using the mouse so that you stop to think "Do I really need to use the mouse here or would a keystroke get me the same results?

If anyone knows of such a thing I'd be much obliged!

[freedomclub]

If you really want it bad enough it doesn't seem worth the time or effort to actually disable your mouse. Just don't use it. Or unplug it?

[jbischke]

I've found that some web and desktop apps are entirely unusable (e.g., I'm not sure how to post a message here with only keyboard inputs) without the mouse. So totally disabling it probably isn't ideal. What I'd like to find is something that temporarily disables and requires me to do some sort of action (e.g., keyboard input) to re-enable it. I think this would quickly break the habit of using the mouse rather than keyboard shortcuts when available.

Anyone else ever do this?

[Angela]

Don't you use the touchpad, Jon?

I was pretty addicted to my mouse until I got my first Mac in December. Now I never use it.

[jbischke]

Yeah, maybe I should specify...I'm trying to minimize my use of the touchpad.

There are a ton of keyboard shortcuts and I've watched people who know they FLY around their computers. For example, GMail has a ton of really helpful shortcuts.

Problem is when you're used to using the touchpad it's a very tough habit to break. So I'm looking for something that makes it easier!

[Mayo]

Enso Launcher is out. Try it.

Humanized

[Jamie]

re keyboard short-cuts.

For applications I use a lot, I create a quick keyboard short-cut reference card, print it out on nice photo card, and schedule a learning session with it. I'll go through each short-cut, and tick off on the card, if it's useful, or going to save me time, worth remembering etc.

Once I've done my learning session, I reshuedule for a later date (am using the 43 folders / tickler file idea from GTD).

[Bruce Achterberg]

I try to find a harmony between using my left hand on the left side of my (Microsoft ergonomic) keyboard and my right hand on my (Logitech G5) mouse.

It works pretty well, excluding when I'm typing.

I've found there are some things the keyboard—or rather, keyboard shortcuts—just sucks at, so you want to find the best of both worlds for maximum effectiveness.

I don't gun for Korean-Starcraft-player-like effectiveness (i.e. inhumanly high actions per minute), but I do like responsiveness and control.

My point isn't that you should use a mouse, but rather that a mouse is there to make up for what you're keyboard can't do, and trying to replace it "probably" won't yield great results. I wouldn't count your mouse out quite yet—you may even find you won't be able to in the first place. (Eg. I just used the mouse to scroll down the page, and back up again. A keyboard simply cannot do that as quickly and precisely as a mouse can. At least, Firefox won't let you, unless I'm unaware of something.)

[Mayo]

Sorry for stating Enso launcher now i see they don't have Mac version ready. They will publish it but they did not state the time frame.

[ragtag]

If you do a lot of text editing or programing, emacs or vi are both great editors that don't use the mouse. Just open the terminal (or get iTerm while you're at it), and type emacs filename or vi filename. Though, you need to learn a lot of shortcuts to use them.

OS X supports a number of the emacs shortcuts in other applications which is very nice once you know them, e.g. ctrl-a goes to the beginning of a line, ctrl-e to the end, ctrl-f forward one letter, alt-f forward a word and so on.

That said, if you really want to use your mouse less, Linux might be a better choice.

[ogrekilleat]

Why not just set your mouse somewhere it's inconvenient to reach it? If it's a laptop, you can plug in a mouse and disable the built-in keyboard mouse through the BIOS. Haha, with a wireless mouse, you could put it on the other side of the room.