Tips & tricks

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.

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.