Problem:

All of these other editors have handy functionality to quickly find a file

Solution:

ctrlp.vim is a plugin that allows you to do that.

The plugin’s page has full instructions, but the most important detail after work done in yesterday’s post to declutter my vim windows:

After pressing Ctrl-P, use <c-t> or <c-v>, <c-x> to open the selected entry in a new tab or in a new split.

Otherwise, you’ll end up replacing your file in the currently open window with the file you’re opening.