Tips & tricks

Close Twenty Tabs With Three Clicks

Right-click a tab for “Close other tabs” or “Close tabs to the right.” And Ctrl+click selects multiple tabs at once.

A Forgotten Password? Your Browser Knows It

A password your browser once saved can be revealed anytime — uncovering a login you thought was lost for good.

Turn an Email Straight Into a Calendar Event

Gmail turns an open email into a Calendar event in three clicks — with the subject as the title and a link back to the conversation.

Forward as an Attachment: A Whole Thread in One Email

Gmail can forward an email as an .eml attachment — even ten messages at once. The recipient gets the originals, headers and all, not a mangled copy.

Send and Archive: Two Actions, One Button

A hidden Gmail setting adds a second button to Reply that sends the email and tidies the conversation out of your inbox in one move. One click instead of two.

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.

Photograph the Whiteboard — Google Photos Will Find It by Its Text

Google Photos reads the text in your pictures. A photographed whiteboard or slide can then be found a month later just by searching for a term that was written on it.

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.

Edge Will Read an Article — or a PDF — Out Loud: Ctrl+Shift+U

Ctrl+Shift+U

Built-in read-aloud with surprisingly natural voices. Listen to an article while cooking or on the way home from work.

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 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.

A Kid's Account: Limits and App-Install Approval

A child's first phone doesn't have to be a battle. Family Link and Screen Time give parents install approval and time limits — set up in advance, not after the conflict.

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.

Quick Share: Files From Android to Windows, No Cable

AirDrop's counterpart is built into every newer Android phone — and with a free app from Google it sends photos and files to Windows too.