Exterminate your desk: Tips on how to take away your mouse
Exterminate your desk: How to remove your mouse
A number of notes on how I lastly removed my mouse.
The why
Like many individuals, I spend the vast majority of my day engaged on a pc. I’ve taken a number of steps over time with the intention to reduce the chance of issues like carpal tunnel and RSI.
First I discovered DVORAK to make typing extra pure, I’m an enormous fan of it, and being compelled to make use of QWERTY once more isn’t a enjoyable expertise. I can nonetheless sort in QWERTY fairly rapidly, however it’s no the place close to as nice.
Then, studying Vim effectively, and making use of Vim extensions to my IDE and browser, permits me to navigate content material with ease.
Subsequent, I received a split keyboard that permits unfavourable tilting. As I’m a fairly massive individual with extensive shoulders, this can be a sport changer in day by day consolation as effectively.
My closing, and maybe most impactful step was eradicating my mouse completely.
Shifting your hand from the keyboard to the mouse and again, is just not solely a big reason for RSI, however takes extra time than you suppose, and undoubtedly slows me down.
Taking the plunge
I haven’t had a mouse on my work desk for all of 2023, and don’t plan to ever add one again. How do I do that? A mixture of three issues.
High quality window administration software program, high quality shortcut software program, and mouse keys.
Window Administration
Certainly one of my primary causes to have to achieve for the mouse is to handle the place and dimension of the home windows in your display screen.
Utilizing any respectable window administration software program that provides keyboard shortcuts fixes this. I’m in macOS land, so a mix of skhd and yabai is a dream to make use of.
I’ve a customized keymap layer on my keyboard only for shifting home windows round, and deciding on which one is lively. I’ve U/D/L/R keys on the left half of the keyboard, these are used to pick out which window is presently in focus. Above the Left and Proper keys, I’ve Left and Proper monitor swap keys, to swap which monitor is presently targeted.
On the correct half of the keyboard, I’ve the very same setup, however as a substitute of choosing focus, it really strikes the window.
A hotkey to toggle if it’s a vertical or horizontal cut up, plus a hotkey to robotically steadiness all of the home windows on the display screen, is just about all I ever want.
Shortcut software program
I’ve a delegated key on my keyboard to invoke Shortcat. This let’s me “click on” on something on the display screen (or in any menus, seen or not). With my IDE open, I hit the button, and sort a couple of letters of the challenge I need to open, hit enter, and there it’s. With Slack open, hit the button, sort a couple of letters of the title of who I need to message, hit enter, there’s the chat window, begin typing my message. This removes the opposite massive chunk of what you would wish a mouse for.
Mouse keys
However you may’t do all the things with these two instruments (although you may get very shut) so what do I do once I really want a mouse?
Effectively, the identical U/D/L/R keys that I’ve mapped for window administration, I even have mapped on a separate layer for cursor motion. Add in a single button to hurry up the mouse for giant actions, and one to sluggish it down for granular management, and that’s all you want. Maintain down my mouse button, transfer the cursor to the place I want with these keys, and hit both the “click on” or “right-click” sizzling keys.
Be freed from the tyranny of the desk rodent
I actually can’t advocate this setup sufficient. My desk is cleaner, my arms are happier, and my work is quicker. Co-workers who watch me screenshare say they will’t imagine I don’t have a mouse, as even once I do have to truly transfer the cursor to do one thing, it’s as quick as a mouse person would do it, possibly quicker as a result of I don’t have to maneuver my fingers first to take action.
And in the event you’re actually scared about giving it up, the keyboard I linked above gives a touchpad module. I bought one once I bought the keyboard “simply in case”, however truthfully, it simply finally ends up simply accumulating mud nowadays, as my different choices of mousing are quicker and simpler.