Sure, Linux Mint is fast. But there's yet a default timeout before opening a file or a menu entry. Want to get rid of it?

• First, choose one-click launch in nautilus' settings - this alone is much gratifying in terms of saving time.
• Second, fill the file named .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory with the following:

gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0
gtk-menu-popdown-delay = 0
gtk-menu-bar-popup-delay = 0
gtk-enable-animations = 0
gtk-timeout-expand = 10

When you have reinitialized, your folders, files and menus will be opening faster than they used to.

P.S. Here's the complete list of settings you may include in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 : http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/GtkSettings.html#GtkSettings.properties