Programmer Humor

Just get used to

• using movement (hjkl),
• going between insert and normal modes (i and esc),
• undoing (u from normal mode),
• and saving (:w and :wq).

Don't try to do it all at first, just get comfortable with the essentials. You can even just stay in insert mode (the only mode in most editors) at first.

Keep a vim basics cheat sheet handy for a couple weeks as you're building in muscle memory, then slowly work in more advanced techniques and combinations.

It doesn't take long before you start having a lot of fun just manipulating text.

PS here's a decently basic cheat sheet I found:

Pro Tip: to learn to do something, practice doing it

Go through the tutorial. It is quite good and teaches things incrementally with real world examples. Just run vimtutor to start.

I became a fan after I got used to nice color schemes, buffers/tabs, horizontal/vertical splitting, file browsing with NERDTree and highlighting changes with GITGutter.

You ask for tips? Add VIM commands you use regularly (like paste mode toggle for example) to a keyboard shortcut (like leader key + p) in your .vimrc settings file. It increases working speed.
Also add some plugins, they are fun and add useful functions from other editors like Sublime (ctrl-p, vim-multiple-cursors).

There are plenty of cheat sheets online. The main thing is understanding that there are different modes, knowing what they do, and how to switch between them and issue commands.