Going lean in Visual Studio (even more than Jimmy!)

Jimmy Bogard appropriately points out that Visual Studio gets really cluttered with toolbars that rarely get used.   It’s more productive to keep your hands on the keyboard, so that leaves little mousing.  Even moving around the solution explorer doesn’t really require the mouse.  So these toolbars just take up space.

There is an option in Tools > Options where you can nuke the navigation drop-downs at the top of the window.  After all, how often do you use them.  If your classes are small the answer is probably never.  If you use Resharper (CTRL+F12) the answer is probably never

 

The bottom checkbox is “Navigation bar”.  Unchecking this option will make the pesky drop-downs at the top go away.  The below screenshot is how I roll.

To answer Javier’s question (comment below), yes, I also turn off animation.  When you need to work quickly, animation is annoying.  I just want things to happen as quickly as possible.  Visual Studio, Windows, anything.  Animation distracts.