For various reasons I still use LTspice IV which has a less rich U.I than the current LTspice XVII.
LTspice is a lot easier to 'drive' if you use a five button mouse + a utility like
X-Mouse Button Control that lets you map macros to mouse buttons on a per application basis. You could also use a gaming mouse with its OEM button utility.
For LTspice, I use the side buttons (normally browser navigate Forward/Back) to make must commonly used commands directly accessable without needing to click the toolbar or touch the keyboard. One of the side buttons acts as a modifier key to access extra macros on all the other buttons, and the other side button starts a 'Drag' at the cursor position by sending {F8}{Enter} keystrokes on buttondown.
With the modifier button held, the 'Drag' button becomes 'Move' ({F7}{Enter}), Left becomes 'Wires' mode ({F3}), Right becomes the 'Select Component' dialog ({F2}}. Finally, wheel up becomes rotate clockwise ({Ctrl}r), wheel down becomes rotate anticlockwise ({Ctrl}r{Ctrl}r{Ctrl}r) and the wheel button becomes 'Mirror' ({Ctrl}e), all of which are valid for the currently active move, drag or component placement. Its also worth noting that a plain right-click aborts move/drag/place operations.
That leaves 'Duplicate' aka 'Copy' and 'Delete' unmapped, but as they can be quite destructive if inadvertently selected, I prefer to use them from the keyboard or toolbar.
On the speed side of things - if it bogs down when you click 'Run' it usually means either you've done something dumb like forgetting to ground an appropriate node, (which doesn't always trigger an error message, as some components provide very high impedance paths to an implicit ground), or its trying to find an initial stable state for a circuit that may not even have a steady state, or you're trying to do *FAR* too much
* on your sim.
Most new sims will start and run with a
.tran 1m startup sim command (or instead of 1m, another duration depending on the timescale you are interested in) as initial operating point issues go away when the circuit starts from 'Switched off'! Other causes of stalling normally indicate a non-physically-realisable circuit, e.g. expecting a diode to instantly block when a current reverses, without allowing any stray or junction capacitance that will limit the dV/dt across it or charging a zero ESR ideal capacitor from a zero output resistance ideal voltage source.
* I am frequently guilty of this - I tend to do stuff like fully model obsolete mixed signal ICs ( https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/ltspice-simulation-madness-xr-2240ua2240lm2240-programmable-counter-timer/ ), Philips PSUs ( https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/how-do-make-a-current-limiting-knob-using-lm723-for-linear-reg-power-supplies/msg1212923/#msg1212923 ) or construct complicated sims to generate realistic test signals for anyone who has a design problem I find interesting . . . .