Make a Speedy Transition

Sure, you can drag transitions down from the Effects Panel in the Browser or, if you’re really looking to kill some serious time, you can wrangle them from the Effects>Video Transitions>yada yada menu, but nothing beats using CMD T and OPT CMD T for adding quick default transitions to video and audio respectively.

Start by selecting an edit point on your timeline (which you might wisely do by simply hitting V to select the nearest edit point and then hitting the Up and Down Arrows to navigate to other edit points with your selection intact–try it) and then hit CMD T to add the default transition (usually a cross dissolve) at the default duration (if you are using some other kind of transition a lot or prefer a faster paced cross dissolve or a maybe a stylish slide, set that up as a favorite and make it the default).

OPT CMD T does the same thing to add a “cross fade” for an audio edit point.  And remember, “cross fades” are for audio and “cross dissolves” are for video–a lot of people have the bad habit (derived from the term “fade to black”) that you add “cross fades” to video.  You don’t.