There are a few apps on macOS in the text manipulation category that I end up spending a lot of time on. For example: Obsidian (for notes), Zed (text editor + IDE lite), Android Studio & Intellij (IDE++), Cursor (IDE + AI), etc.

All these apps have two types of commands that I frequently use:

  1. Open a specific file or note
  2. Open the command palette (or find any action menu)

But by default, these apps use ever so slightly different shortcuts. One might use ⌘ P, another might use ⌘ ⇧ P, etc.

I’ve found it incredibly helpful to take a few minutes and make these specific keyboard shortcuts the same everywhere. So now I use:

This small change has reduced cognitive load significantly. I no longer have to think about which app I’m in, and what the shortcut is for that specific app. Muscle memory takes over, and I can just get things done faster. Highly recommended!