Several years ago I wrote a simple blog post on ESC alternatives:

https://www.eduardobautista.com/escape-key-alternatives-in-v...

Interesting! I didn't know about `CTRL+C`.

You may like to also try `CTRL+[`. It's the telnet escape character and seems to be a general substitute for ESC on OSX, Windows, and I think Linux too. I find it pretty quick since my hands can work together.

Another handy tip I ran across was to remap CAPS LOCK to CTRL. Quite nice for both Vim and Emacs users once you get used to it.

Alt+Movement is what I usually use, since it's easy to hit on my keyboard, and lets you combine dropping out of insert mode and a movement command to move you towards where you want to be for whatever you want to do next.

If you don't want to move, you can just hit Alt+l as the "default" escape.

I use that all the time except for the case where I'm doing a visual block insert when the control-c doesn't do what an escape does.

Holy crap really?!?

Man, that'll definitely save my pinky from cramping up every so often.

Funny, after two years on Vim, I just discovered Esc