If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively. This paper will present guidelines and hints for doing your work more quickly and with fewer mistakes.

Bram Moolenaar, the main author of Vim, has put together a excellent writeup for how you can begin to work faster in your favorite text editor. Obviously the article uses Vim as the example editor, but his tips can be applied to any editor. Really it comes down to 2 simple steps:

1. Skim through the documentation
2. Practice

At least that is how I get it done.