I use Emacs and opening a new file is just pressing “C-x C-f” (find-file), typing the path (completion is available), and pressing enter. As for vim, I would spawn a new terminal (WM keybind, new tab, new pane with tmux), cd to the directory and open it with vim.

The nice thing is that I rely only on the keyboard, no need to point with the mouse. It may not be faster, but typing is sequential and there’s no context switching. So muscle memory helps a lot. Just like you don’t think about each character when you write, I don’t really think about the shortcuts and commands I use.