Offloading keyboard shortcuts to a programmable macro keypad is the most effective productiveness hack I’ve ever performed.
Down the keyboad shortcut rabbit gap
I first acquired into keyboard shortcuts with easy macOS triggers, comparable to @@ for my major e-mail handle, and comparable ones for my full identify, dwelling handle, cellphone quantity, zip code, and so forth.
Then, I made a decision to take issues up a notch with Keyboard Maestro and began setting keyboard shortcuts to open just a few of the folders and applications I used extra usually.
From the Desktop to Downloads to folders associated to work, it turned pure muscle reminiscence to press Fn+F1 all the way in which to Fn+F6, to immediately land the place it used to take me just a few clicks earlier than. The opposite operate buttons have been devoted to opening frequent applications and web sites, in addition to accessing Keyboard Maestro’s Clipboard Historical past Switcher.
That advanced into automating a few of my workflow, together with opening QuickTime and beginning a brand new audio recording, in addition to opening Shure PlusMOTIV at any time when I plugged in a particular USB-C microphone.
Quickly, I used to be additionally setting customized shortcuts for instruments, settings, and panels on Adobe Audition, a few of which I rapidly moved to my Logitech MX Grasp for even sooner enhancing.
Kicking issues up a notch
This setup served me effectively for fairly a very long time, till sooner or later, 9to5Mac’s personal Gui Rambo informed me a couple of small, 12-key and 3-knob macro keypad he had purchased. I used to be offered, and did simply the identical factor.
When it arrived, I rapidly realized that setting it as much as work appropriately on macOS required some extra work. Fortunately, this GitHub challenge did all of the heavy lifting, and ChatGPT did the remainder to assist me set it up correctly.
One wonderful thing about this setup is that having a customized keyboard to invoke Keyboard Maestro shortcuts means not having to memorize them or hold them ergonomically pleasant.
And due to the truth that this particular keyboard lets you’ve as much as 3 layers of 12 keypad shortcuts, plus the knobs, which may additionally act as buttons, implies that I can have it behave in a technique after I’m utilizing Adobe Audition, and a very completely different approach when interacting with the system.
When utilizing Adobe Audition, utilizing this macro keypad mixed with the MX Grasp makes switching between instruments, exporting recordsdata (or simply particular segments), making use of results comparable to normalization, compression, deReverb, deEsser, ripple delete, and rather more, orders of magnitude sooner and extra streamlined than with common keyboard shortcuts, or, God forbid, no shortcuts in any respect.
When utilizing the system, I can use the identical keyboard on a distinct layer to vary audio enter, modify the quantity, modify the show luminosity, mute/unmute the microphone, and entry generally used folders simply as simply.
Granted, it did take me a bit to memorize all of those instructions, however that turns into second nature extra rapidly than you’d assume. Greater than that, it actually feels just like the Mac is damaged when I’ve to work with out that.
What’s extra, there are numerous configurations and choices for macro keypads, with completely different shapes, sizes, keys, knobs, gentle colours, and rather more. It is a rabbit gap that really feels limitless, and in case your work includes any form of repetitive actions (and whose doesn’t?), I sincerely counsel you are taking a peek inside.
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