I’ve been using Alfred on my Mac since 2013. Over time, I’ve found myself increasingly relying on it to initiate various tasks—searching the file system or the web, opening files, adding reminders, or interacting with AI—to the point where it’s no longer just an app launcher or a Spotlight-like tool. These days, I typically use Alfred 40-50 times a day, which has led to an unintended side effect: I now use the keyboard more than ever on my Mac. As a result, I’ve grown to prefer using the keyboard over the mouse and the trackpad.
At first, I appreciated this shift—until it started to feel like a burden.
Using the keyboard means that I don’t need to move my hand to reach the pointing devices. However, I found that the more I use the keyboard instead of the mouse or trackpad, the more commands and keyboard shortcuts I have to remember. I thought that eventually I would get used to it and remember all the commands and their key combinations I needed if I used them often enough. But in recent years, I’ve realized that I just can’t keep up, because:
- The most often used keyboard shortcuts do become my muscle memory, but those I use less frequently don’t. And they might still be essential.
- As I continue to integrate new software into my workflow, I’m always forced to remember new keyboard shortcuts.
I can’t help but wonder if the advantages of almost exclusively using the keyboard are really that compelling.
Using a mouse may not be the fastest or most efficient way to interact with a computer, but it’s certainly the easiest. We all know the benefits of GUI. When most of us need to click a button or an option, we simply glance at it or roughly recall its location, move the cursor, click it, and it’s done. We don’t have to put the cursor on the center of the button precisely. Any part—even just a few pixels—of the button is good to go. In contrast, if we want to use a keyboard shortcut to do the same task, we have to remember it and the keystrokes must be 100 percent right, sometimes even the order of the keystrokes matters.
Back to my case. When I try to memorize some new keyboard shortcuts, I feel like I’m learning a bunch of new vocabulary. Just like how the verb “paste” changes with tenses, the command “Paste” has several slightly different options: Paste, Paste and Match Style, Paste in Plain Text, etc. Each one of them has its own unique shortcut, which means I have to remember all of them if I want to paste something properly. But using a mouse or a trackpad is different. There is almost no memory involved, and it’s easier.
In my experience, clicking Edit on the menu bar to find the Paste and Match Style option is much easier than remembering the key combinations. It’s like looking up a word in a dictionary vs. trying to memorize a word and all its variations. (If you’re like me and find vocabulary learning challenging, this can feel like a mental overload.)
After I realized it, I’m not as obsessed with using keyboard shortcuts as I used to be. I think perhaps there is a balance between using keyboards and pointing devices.
But what if I still want to shift the balance slightly in favor of the keyboard? What can I do about it? Let’s save this topic for a future article.
YPWU 