well Pierce, I'm glad you asked. this is one of those mundane things we learn one method for & then become complacent with despite the potential there are better & faster options we've ignored. let's explore all the most efficient selecting methods we have to ensure we use the best ones whenever appropriate.

making the most of shift

one cool feature of the shift key is that it will taper off the side of the selection closest to where you click. that is, if you are left of the center of the selection & click while holding shift, the selection will shorten from the left side. this becomes even more useful when you add in a held cmd key which will allow you to finely tune your selection without regard of the grid. this all makes more sense visually: