The complete list of Visual Studio Code hotkeys can be spawned in the IDE by pressing ctrl+k followed by ctrl+s.  Explained another way, hold down the control key and type k s for keyboard shortcut.  There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio Code.  This page will highlight some of the more important ones. 

There are three important panels we'll be using in Visual Studio Code.  The Explorer panel that lets us select files, the Code Editor panel that we'll write code in, and the Terminal panel where we'll see the output of our code while running a program.

Explorer Panel: Ctrl + Shift + E

Code Editor Panel: Ctrl + 1

Terminal Panel: Ctrl + ` (The ` key is in the upper-left corner of the keyboard under the escape key.)

In the Explorer panel you can manipulate files using Ctrl + C, Ctrl+ V, Ctrl + N, and the Delete key to copy, paste, create and delete files.

You can use the Ctrl + ` key to bounce back-and-forth between the Code Editor panel and the Terminal panel.

You can run a Python program by pressing Ctrl + F5 key.  After pressing Ctrl + F5 be sure to swap to the Terminal panel using Ctrl + ` to observe the output of the program.  If the program also accepts input you'll enter the input in the Terminal panel.  

Shift + F10 will open the right-click menu on an item.

Python is a language that uses tabs in the code as whitespace.  The tab key is also commonly used to move the focus between elements in a GUI.  The Ctrl + M key toggles between Tab Moves Focus mode and tab creates whitespace mode.

Ctrl + Shift + M will jump you to the Problems tab that will help you identify bugs in your program.