Kensington Trackball Mouse

A friend, and co-worker, of mine wrote about how people think he’s left handed because he uses his mouse “left handed.” However, he is not left handed but rather uses the mouse as a lefty to increase productivity.

As a programmer, it’s faster for him to move his left hand from mouse to keyboard than his right.

Intrigued by this different approach, and desiring increased productivity (aside from using the keyboard for almost everything, including mouse-less browsing) I gave this a shot. While it took a while to get used to, and I’m not as proficient left handed as right, the productivity is noticeable.

As a web designer I am required to do a lot of both coding and Photoshop work. Every gain in speed from left handed mousing was nullified the moment I entered Photoshop. The detailed edits and keyboard shortcut intense environment forced me to move the mouse back and forth from left to right. What to do?!

The answer came to me in a New Egg sale: the beautiful Kensington, Four Button, Trackball mouse.

Instead of being traditional and using only one standard mouse for all computer related tasks, I would purchase this gorgeous mouse for Photoshop tasks, and utilize my standard mouse for all else (when I can’t use the keyboard). Gaining the productivity gains of left handed browsing while also having a wicked mouse for my dominant hand on the right. 100% perfect scenario.

Unfortunately, I have yet to purchase the $100 mouse but am planning to in the near future.

If this is something else you struggle with, or are currently using two pointing devices (mice) please let us all know of your success/failure in the comments.