For me, it’s a tie between these two:
- Command-Option-M = Opens a new comment in Google Docs. I do a lot of writing and editing and this has changed the game
- ;pem = My TextExpander Snippet for my personal email which is rather long
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Command-Shift-V for pasting Values only
Command + Option + Shift + V to paste & match the format of the destination you’re pasting
Control + U to enter in a cell via keyboard in Excel. Still boggles the mind that Google Sheets lets you do this with the enter key and Excel does not!
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Too many to mention, but here are a couple of interesting Mac shortcuts for writers:
- Option-Shift-- (Option-Shift-Dash) creates an em-dash (—)
- Option-; creates a proper ellipsis … instead of just three periods (…)
Of course, I’ve also made a TextExpander shortcut so if I type three periods in a row it “expands” into an ellipsis, but the keyboard shortcut is burned into my brain.
My absolute go-to is in most chrome browsers, cmd-shift-A, which opens a tab search dialog, and you can start typing the name of the document, app, etc, and then hit enter to jump to that active tab, no matter what window it is in.
My second favorite: I have used Keyboard Maestro to map commands to “activate” or bring to front my most used apps. For example, cmd-shift-b brings my browser up, cmd-shift-r brings my note-taking app forward, cmd-shift-e brings up my favorite editor, etc.
J.D.
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Some standard ones (work everywhere on the Mac)
⌘+, to open preferences
⌘+A to select all
⌘+S Save
⌘+P Print
⌘+Q Quit
⌘+N New document
⌘+Tab to switch between open applications
Others that are application specific:
⌘+L for web browser to go in the search line
⌘+W close tab
TextExpander snippets (especially for email)
- Helmut
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Some more favorites:
- Search open tabs in Chrome (or any Chromium-based browser): Command-Shift-A. (Learned this from @jd-mullin by way of @Mike).
- Navigate between words: Option-arrow (left or right).
- Go to the beginning or end of a line: Command-arrow (left or right).
- Select text: Hold shift while pressing left or right arrow, or one of the two shortcuts above.
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I like to use ctrl-command-space on my mac to pull up the emoji picker in any application. I was today years old when I learned that I can type a word, in any app, then hit ctrl-command-space and it will replace with matching emoji if only one match, or provide a small quick picker if more than one match. 
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