It is not an intuitive conclusion to reach: intuitively, you might think pointing devices would give a boost in speed. The more you learn to navigate around in your OS with the keyboard, though, the more you find that they slow you down. Once you learn and begin to use even a handful of the shortcuts, you'll notice how much more quickly you're getting through your inbox.
If you are a Gmail user and using your mouse very much, you are wasting time. Luckily, it is very easy to learn the shortcuts. To get started, all you need to do is type '?' when you sign in to Gmail. A help menu that lists the shortcuts pops up, telling you how to do more or less everything from the keyboard. It looks like this:
A handful of these are extremely useful. In any list of emails, use the 'J' and 'K' keys to move the pointer up and down the list. To select the message next to the pointer, type 'X'. Type 'O' or 'enter' to read it. To delete the selected message(s), type '#'. If you use labels (you should!), type 'V' and the first few letters of the desired label, then 'enter', to tag selected messages with it.
After I learned shortcuts like these, life in Gmail got much, much better. Now this lovely message regularly appears in my inbox, which for a long time (if ever) I had not seen:
Learn the keyboard shortcuts and your Gmail efficiency will skyrocket.
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