i3 window manager is great. I have been using it for a few years. I press Windows Key D (with my config*) and two keys to launch the web browser and alt-enter to launch terminals. Launching stuff/organising the screen is massively streamlined:
* Very easy to change the mod key to whater is free/easiest:
https://i3wm.org/docs/refcard.html
Trackpads are suboptimal control devices, IMHO, maybe I've got biggish hands, or I'm clumsy, but with i3 (there are other window managers, or OSes, I'm not religious about technology - what you're doing with it matters at least as much) I can do pretty much most window admin/organisation with the keyboard. I still use the trackpad but only in situations that require it. Plus it's about as fast as it's possible to get on a heavily crippled, through bug mitigation, 2012 vintage 2570p (i7-3520m). So on anything newer should be extremely fast. Doesn't look awful either (I have the Manjaro niceities on the bottom bar - so I'm not hand editing WiFi/network scripts etc, I'm being warned I need to update, plus time/memory/disk use/CPU/clipboard/sound - so it's by no means antediluvian).