Finger Macros

Macros are a great way to automate repetitive tasks when correcting errors in text or documents.


If you frequently do the same repetitive task, making a macro or hotkey that repeats the same sequence of keystrokes can save time and improve accuracy. There are only two problems: you need to have some sort of software or hardware to implement the macros with, and you need to actually set up and configure the specific macro you need.


If you frequently do the same task day after day, this is worthwhile, but if you don't do it often enough, it may not be worth the trouble, so sometimes it just makes more sense to manually type in your changes. But manually correcting specific bits of text in a document is tedious, and error prone.


Judicious use of search and replace functionality can be a big help, but sometimes the change you need to make is positional rather than content-based. Built-in keystrokes which position the cursor, select, copy, or paste text, and taking advantage of mouse multi-click selection can make repetitive edits faster, more accurate, and even somewhat fun.

The concept is that you use keystrokes which move the cursor to known reference points, and then type or edit as appropriate. By reducing the edit to a short sequence of the same keys, it's possible to rapidly type that sequence over and over, causing the desired edit to occur in multiple places without having to hunt for the desired locations.



Since I do not in fact have fingers, this technique was merely theoretical until I found a test subject willing to perform the procedure. He confirmed that it was very helpful in specific cases where you are performing repetitive edits in a text-editing environment.


Very Simple Example:
You are editing some source code in Notepad, and you want to indent a bunch of lines by typing in spaces. You have a series of lines all aligned to the far left, and you want to insert several spaces in front of each line.

1. On the first line, type a space
2. Your cursor is now on the first line. You want to get it to the very beginning of the next line. Two keystrokes accomplish this: [HOME]-[DOWN]. Regardless of where you are on the line, pressing those two keys in sequence will always put you at the beginning of the next line. 
3. Press [SPACE] to insert one space. That's it. 
4. Now just repeatedly press [HOME]-[DOWN]-[SPACE] until you reach the last line. Keep hitting those same three keystrokes repeatedly, and you will find you build up a rhythm that allows you to go very fast
5. Go back to the top, and do the same thing again, inserting more spaces
6. Repeat until you have the desired number of spaces

The reason this is helpful is that you don't need to think about what you're doing; your existing fine motor skills for typing ("muscle memory") take over and allow you to execute the sequence much more quickly than you could if you had to think about each step.

The only cognitive effort is pay attention to the output and recognize when to stop. And even if you go too far and have to undo one or two, you've still saved some time, and had more fun than if you used reading and mouse movements to achieve the same goal.