Get in the habit of using Ctrl-r (isearch-backward) and Ctrl-s (isearch-forward) for moving around in the document. Whenever you need to jump the cursor backward or forward more than about 5 lines, and you can see the target location, you should be using i-search.
To do it effectively, you don't necessarily need to search for the exact word where you want to put the cursor. Let your eye defocus slightly and take in the whole paragraph or region around the target point, and choose a word that looks reasonably unique or easy to type. Then i-search for it to navigate to it. You may need to hit Ctrl-r or Ctrl-s repeatedly if your anchor word turns out not to be unique. But Emacs will highlight all the matches, so if there are more than a couple of them, Ctrl-g out of the search and choose another anchor word.
It's difficult to overemphasize how powerful this technique is, once you've mastered it. Mastering it simply requires that you do it repeatedly until your fingers do it "automatically". Emacs eventually becomes like an extension of your body, and you'll be performing hundreds of different keystrokes and mini-techniques like this one without thinking about them. It's comparable to the hundreds of subtle techniques you acquire for driving a car well.
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs
Get in the habit of using Ctrl-r (isearch-backward) and Ctrl-s (isearch-forward) for moving around in the document. Whenever you need to jump the cursor backward or forward more than about 5 lines, and you can see the target location, you should be using i-search.
To do it effectively, you don't necessarily need to search for the exact word where you want to put the cursor. Let your eye defocus slightly and take in the whole paragraph or region around the target point, and choose a word that looks reasonably unique or easy to type. Then i-search for it to navigate to it. You may need to hit Ctrl-r or Ctrl-s repeatedly if your anchor word turns out not to be unique. But Emacs will highlight all the matches, so if there are more than a couple of them, Ctrl-g out of the search and choose another anchor word.
It's difficult to overemphasize how powerful this technique is, once you've mastered it. Mastering it simply requires that you do it repeatedly until your fingers do it "automatically". Emacs eventually becomes like an extension of your body, and you'll be performing hundreds of different keystrokes and mini-techniques like this one without thinking about them. It's comparable to the hundreds of subtle techniques you acquire for driving a car well.