Minecraft wiki entry for Time-saving_tips, associated text: Particularly when away from the base collecting materials, don't clutter the inventory with unneeded items. The player should normally carry logs and possibly some coal and or iron, and then craft items such as extra tools, fences – even the crafting bench itself – only when you need them. This maximizes the space you have available for the items you are collecting. The main exception is torches, which are constantly used; these should be made half a stack at a time whenever you have less than a dozen of them. Similarly, ladders may be needed in a hurry, so you might want to keep some handy. It may also be worth keeping a chest in inventory, in case you want to clear out your inventory in a hurry.
Another crafting speedup is to always try to make round numbers of constantly-used items. For example, when making fences in, one log makes four planks, which makes eight sticks, which makes two fences with two sticks left over. It's usually better to make fences eight at a time (four recipes), which uses up exactly five logs without waste and without cluttering the inventory; or as an alternative, you could routinely make any spare planks or sticks into torches or any other frequently-used item. Similarly, make 24 ladders at a time, with seven logs. Even signs can be mass-produced with 13 logs (one goes to sticks, the rest to planks), but since signs only stack to 16, this will produce 1 1⁄2 stacks. Fence gates cost exactly one log apiece, and their crafting recipe lets you do any number up to a stack quickly (by moving half-stacks six times). Boats can be resourcefully crafted in one of two ways: five logs make four boats on Java Edition, or seven logs on Bedrock Edition.
When creating some large stone-type builds, it can be worth it to build a stonecutter table. A large cobblesstone stairscase will cost less in raw matterials if the stairs are crafted via a stonecutter instead of the crafting table, thus saving time mining stone-type resources (cobble, deepslate, etc.)
Pressing and holding shift while collecting outcome instantly puts all crafted items into your inventory. This is useful when crafting many items, but be careful when crafting unstackable or 16-stackable items. The inventory can also let the player quickly divide a stack among multiple slots. Pick up a stack of items, then click and drag across several inventory or crafting slots to divide the stack evenly between those slots or right-click and drag to place a single item per slot. This is especially handy for 3- and 6-pile recipes such as slabs & stairs, paper & books, fences, and so on.
To immediately move a hotbar item into the crafting bench, press its corresponding number key while hovering your mouse on the slot you want it in.
Don't forget the 2×2 crafting grid in your inventory can be used to craft any 2×2 recipes, not just a crafting table.