Tips & tricks

Drag a folder into a Save dialog — and you're there

You don't have to click your way through a Save dialog: drag a folder or file from Finder into it and the dialog jumps straight to that spot.

Cap charging at 80%: your battery lasts years longer

A laptop permanently docked at 100% is wrecking its battery. Almost every manufacturer has a hidden option that stops charging earlier — and multiplies the battery's lifespan.

Camera at eye level and light from the front: two minutes for a better impression

A laptop sitting on the desk shoots your chin and the ceiling from below, and a window behind you turns you into a silhouette. Camera height and light direction fix more than a new webcam ever will.

Speedy meetings: 25 minutes instead of 30, a break as a bonus

One checkbox in your calendar shortens default meetings to 25 and 50 minutes. Between calls you get a breather you don't have today.

Find a time: let the calendar show when everyone's free

Don't arrange a meeting time over email. Google Calendar and Outlook lay attendees' calendars side by side, and you spot the open slot at a glance.

A second time zone in your calendar: no more counting hours

Google Calendar and Outlook can both show a second time axis next to your own. Plan a meeting across time zones by looking, not by doing math in your head.

Cable order in a minute: a clip on the edge of the desk

A cable that falls behind the desk every time you unplug it is a daily micro-frustration. An office clip and a few reusable cable ties end it for good.

jq: readable JSON in the terminal and one-expression value extraction

API response as one unreadable line of mush? jq formats it, colors it, and pulls out exactly the field you're looking for.

git stash: Set Work Aside for Later

An urgent fix comes in and your code is half-finished? git stash tucks it away in a drawer, git stash pop brings it back. No half-baked commits.

git reflog: A Rescue When You've “Deleted” Commits

Bad reset, deleted branch, a rebase gone wrong? git reflog shows the history of everywhere HEAD has been — and lost commits can be brought back.

A Global .gitignore: Solve .DS_Store Once and For All

Files from your system and editor don't belong in every project's .gitignore. Set up a global ignore file instead — it applies to every repository.

git commit --amend: Fix the Last Commit Instead of Committing a “Fix”

A forgotten file or a typo in the message doesn't need a new commit. --amend rewrites the last one, as if the mistake never happened.

git add -p: Commit in Chunks, Not Whole Files

One file has both a bug fix and an unrelated cleanup? git add -p walks through the changes chunk by chunk and asks what belongs in the commit.

Grouping Sheets: Edit a Dozen Excel Sheets at Once

Ctrl+click on sheet tabs groups them — and whatever you type into one gets written into all of them. Fix twelve monthly sheets in one move.

New Window in Excel: Two Sheets of the Same Workbook, Side by Side

Switching back and forth between the sheet with source data and the sheet with results? View → New Window shows both at once.

Alt+; in Excel: Copy Without the Hidden Rows

Alt+;

Copying a table with hidden rows and they paste in too? Alt+; selects only the visible cells — the hidden ones stay home.

Choppy Video Call? A Cable Fixes What Wi-Fi Can't

“You froze” usually doesn't mean slow internet — it means unstable Wi-Fi. An Ethernet cable is the single most reliable upgrade for calls.

The Two-Screen Meeting Rule: One for People, One for Notes

Put the meeting window on the monitor with the camera, notes and materials on the other. You look people in the eye, never share anything private, and minutes write themselves.

A Digital First-Aid Kit: Insurance and Warranties in One Shared Folder

An insurance claim or a warranty issue comes up once a year — which is exactly why you can never find the paperwork. One cloud folder shared with your partner fixes it for good.

In-depth guide · 19 min

A Song With Your Child's Name In It: A Family Anthem and Birthday Song from AI

A complete guide with prompts: Claude writes the lyrics, Suno writes the music — a family anthem, a lullaby, a tooth-brushing song, even a birthday tradition. And it works for free, too.

Cornell Notes, Stripped Down: A Folded Margin and a Summary Line

The most effective note-taking format doesn't need a template: fold a margin for questions and leave a line at the bottom for a summary. Your notes turn themselves into a practice test.

In-depth guide · 15 min

What loops are: the agentic cycles said to replace prompting

An explainer with prompts: what it means to let AI run in a loop, what's true in the hype, what's overblown, and how to safely try your first loop.

In-depth guide · 23 min

Beeper as your message hub: Claude pulls promises out of your chats before you forget them

A complete guide with prompts: Beeper unifies WhatsApp, Messenger, and Slack into one app, and Claude pulls promises and deadlines out of them via MCP on a regular schedule and writes them into Notion. Includes a patient introduction to the terminal for anyone who's never opened one.

A Ten-Minute Subscription Audit: Search Your Own Inbox

You don't have to painfully recall every subscription you're paying for — searching payment confirmations in your inbox plus two system screens puts the list together in ten minutes.

Ask AI What It Assumed

Gaps in your prompt get silently filled with the model's own assumptions. Have them listed out — see what the answer is standing on before you build work on top of it.

A Letter From an Agency: Have AI Translate It Into Plain English

Paste an official letter into AI and get four answers: what they want from you, by when, what happens if you don't, and exactly what to do. No legalese, no panic.

Stop Correcting AI Forever: Edit Your Original Message Instead

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all edit a message you've already sent and answer again from a clean slate. A lesser-known button that rescues tangled conversations.

Test Data on Demand: Fictional but Realistic

Testing a spreadsheet, a form, or a mailing? Have AI generate fifty fictional rows with names and amounts instead of copying real data.

A Table Locked Inside a PDF: AI Puts It Back Into Excel

Copying a table out of a PDF turns the columns into one tangled noodle of text. Upload the PDF to AI, ask for CSV — and check the control total.

Word on the Tip of Your Tongue: AI as a Reverse Dictionary

You know the meaning but not the word? Describe it to AI and get ten candidates with the shades of difference between them. Works for technical terms and cliché-free synonyms too.