Tips & tricks

A New Version of a File in Google Drive: The Link Stays the Same

Don't upload a corrected PDF as another file. Manage versions swaps it out under the same link — for everyone who has it.

Group Work Without Overwriting Each Other: Suggesting Mode in Docs

When everyone in a shared document just rewrites directly, changes get lost and nobody knows who deleted what. Suggesting mode turns edits into proposals to approve.

An @ Comment in Google Docs Can Assign a Task

Mention a colleague in a comment and check Assign — a remark turns into a task with an owner, one that can only be resolved once it's done.

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.

Citations in a Minute: ZoteroBib and Google Scholar's Cite Button

You don't have to build a bibliography by hand, and you shouldn't leave it to AI either. ZoteroBib generates a citation from a URL, DOI, or ISBN, and Google Scholar offers one for every result.

Screenshot the Whole Page — Even the Part You Have to Scroll To

Ctrl+Shift+S

Edge and Firefox capture an entire web page from header to footer with a single command. No extensions, no stitching pieces together.

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.

A Glossary for Your First Meeting: AI Explains the Acronyms in Your Materials

New project, and a document full of acronyms and jargon? AI pulls out every term and explains it in context — flagging what it's only guessing.

Added to a 30-Email Thread? AI Tells You What's Expected of You

A forwarded conversation, “see below,” and thirty emails of history. Drop the thread into AI and ask: who's claiming what, where's the agreement, and what are you supposed to do.

Regex Without the Learning Curve: AI Writes It, Explains It, Tests It

Describe in plain words what you want to match, and AI returns a regular expression with a part-by-part explanation and test cases. For Sheets, editors, and bulk edits.

Two Lists Side by Side: AI Finds What's Missing

Attendance against sign-ups, payments against orders: paste two lists and AI lists what's in one and missing from the other — even through typos.

Ten Questions Your Audience Will Ask After Your Presentation

Before you present, have AI generate the audience's questions — curious, skeptical, and the one from your boss about money. You'll find out which ones you can't answer while there's still time.

Mail Merge in Czech: Let AI Get the Vocative Case Right

In Czech, “Dear Mr. Novák” is wrong — it has to be “Dear Mr. Nováku,” the vocative case. AI adds a properly-declined salutation column to your contact table, for hundreds of names at once.

Proofreading That Doesn't Rewrite You: Fix Only the Errors

AI loves to improve your style, even when nobody asked it to. Tell it to fix only spelling and punctuation and list the changes — your voice stays yours.

Where's the Setting? Ask AI Instead of Digging Through Menus

Tell AI the app, version, and what you're looking for — you get the exact path in the settings. No more clicking blind or following guides written for a five-year-old version.

Text With Missing Accents? AI Restores Them

An email typed on the wrong keyboard layout or an export from an old system: paste the text into AI and get it back with the accents in the right place. It works in reverse too.

Paste the Error Message Into AI, Not a Search Engine

Instead of trawling ten-year-old forum threads, paste the error message — or a screenshot of it — into AI and ask three things: what it means, what to do, and what not to do.

Smart Quotes and Dashes: Typographic Proofreading by AI

Before you publish, have AI fix only the typography: smart quotes, dashes instead of hyphens, spacing around numbers and units. It leaves the wording alone.

The Address Bar Is Also a Calculator

Type 154*1.21 into the address bar and the result shows up right in the suggestions — no Enter, no opening a calculator.

In-depth guide · 26 min

A custom website with Claude Code, git, and Vercel: from idea to domain

A guide with prompts: a website without hiring a developer — from scaffolding through git as a safety net to a domain and Vercel. Proven on this site.