Usually my workflow involves switching between buffers but more recently I split my buffers horizontally.
While you can use C-x ^ to make the current window taller, it puzzles as to why there isn’t a shortcut to do the opposite.
Emacs has C-x { and C-x } to make the window wider/narrower if you split vertically. Just no shortcut to make window shorter.
To shorten the window you need to do:
C-u -1 C-x ^