There are many more shortcuts than these, but if you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know these, you are not being as productive as you could be. I very, very much wish someone had forced me to learn the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìJKL?¢‚Ǩ¬ù+ ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIO?¢‚Ǩ¬ù + ?¢‚Ǩ?ìF9?¢‚Ǩ¬ù workflow when I was editing back in college.

Cueing/logging footage
I: Mark in
O: Mark out
J: Reverse (press repeatedly to increase speed)
K: Pause
L: Forward (press repeatedly to increase speed)
F9: Insert from Canvas to Timeline

Tools on Timeline
A: Arrow
H: Hand
B: Blade
N: Snapping
S: Slip
SS: Slide
R: Roll (single tracks)
RR: Roll (both tracks)
T: Select this track, from this point forward
TT: Select this track, from this point backward
TTT: Select all tracks from this point forward
Cmd+A: Select all tracks
P: Pen (Adjust sound and opacity on the Timeline Overlays (Opt+W))
M: Marker (I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t mark often though)

I used to log footage on paper and log clips via FCP?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Log and Capture window, but with the price and size of hard drives these days. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s easier to capture all your footage–yes, just let it sit there and eat up your disk space. If you are short on space, then–at the end–use the File>>Media Manager.

So once you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve captured all your footage, add all the usable footage to a Sequence via the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìCueing/logging footage?¢‚Ǩ¬ù keyboard shortcuts listed above. You won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t even need to use the mouse–which is always a great benefit. To start your actual timeline, duplicate the rough timeline and start moving your items around, if you need a certain cut, go back to your initial rough timeline and Copy (Cmd+C) and Paste (Cmd+V) it. If you have any additional tips to make an editor?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s life easier, please post them.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com