For some, keyboard shortcuts are the way to go. In GMail, they can be very helpful. By default they are turned off. To turn on the keyboard shortcuts, go to settings (click the gear icon, top right, then select Settings) and scroll down to the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ and click the radio button.
Three very useful shortcuts are:
c = compose
r = reply
f = forward
And to see a list of other keyboard shortcuts, click ‘?’