First I “live” in command mode and only visit insert mode to …insert stuff afterwards which I always leave with escape. So using vim becomes a series of small

First I “live” in command mode and only visit insert mode to …insert stuff afterwards which I always leave with escape. So using vim becomes a series of small edits. I map caps to Ctrl and use Ctrl-[ for escape. That means I can still use Ctrl for insert mode shortcuts such as Ctrl-w (delete last word) Ctrl-r to insert a register (eg Ctrl-r% for filename) Ctrl-h instead of reaching for backspace. There’s loads of them. It just takes a bit of muscle memory but if you’re a touch typist it’s well worth it IMHO. Doing it this way, rather than say ‘jk’ in insert mode, also has the advantage of working in other vim-like programs where you’d have to repeat the mapping. If that’s even possible.