Mishkun

Just install Karabiner-Elements and make your digit keys turn into function keys with a press of a fn button. Easy to touch type and space-efficient

Have you tried preconfigured Emacs distributions, like Doom or Spacemacs? You just open your init.el file and uncomment packages you want to enable with pretty good defaults. They have package managers preinstalled too, like straight.el. Also, every package has easy to paste initialization snippet