
Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier? - ajonit
Everyone has those own little workarounds that make life easier.<p>Here are a couple of mine -<p>1. Using AutoHotKey to write my signatures, frequently used expressions (ex: plm becomes &quot;Please let me know if you need some more information.&quot; , answers to frequently asked queries by customers, open specific files with a keyboard shortcut)<p>2. Using IFTTT : This tool helps a lot. One of the ways I use it is to save my monthly utility bills (arriving in Gmail) automatically every month direct in my chartered accountant&#x27;s shared dropbox folder. That email in turn is auto archived, so such bills are completely out of my way.<p>What are your time saving hacks that you use frequently?
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baddox
A common one, but undeniably useful: find a type of sock you like, buy a
_bunch_ of them, then throw out or donate your old ones. Then never sort those
socks again.

~~~
reubenpressman
I've done this with all of my shirts, pants/shorts, and briefs as well.

~~~
MadMoogle
Have you ever had an issue with people asking why you wear the same shirt all
week?

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saurabh
1\. Synergy

I use Synergy to use my netbook's keyboard and touchpad for my workstation. I
just zoom everything up on the workstation and lay back on the bed and code.
Very cool. Bash alias on both systems is "synergize"

The next thing that I am going to do is switch the server and client roles
automatically so that when I am using the workstation I would be able to
control my netbook.

2\. Tmux

I ssh to the workstation from my netbook and attach to a running Tmux session.
Feels like working locally.

3\. Redshift

Decrease brightness in the evening, I have a bash alias called "soothing"
which does the job.

4\. Wake on Lan

Start the workstation in the bedroom if I am in another room. Bash alias
"wakywaky"

5\. Map Caps Lock to Esc

Just do it. Useful if you are a vimmer.

6\. Vimium

Useful if you are a vimmer.

7\. A simple text file to track TODO's with vim

Vim makes it super easy to track TODO items. No plugin required. You can move
around and makes changes quite fast.

~~~
sciurus
Related to #7, I use a shell alias to open vim with three splits:

    
    
        alias wl="vim -o $HOME/worklog/{todo,progress,done}"
    

Tasks flow down the splits. If you'd prefer tasks to go left-to-right, use
`-O`.

~~~
saurabh
Nice. I am stealing this. I have the leader mapped to <Space>. And I move
around splits and tabs using this.

    
    
        "New horizontal split
        nmap <leader>s :split<CR>
    
        "New vertical split
        nmap <leader>v :vsplit<CR>
    
        "New tab
        nmap <leader>t :tabe<CR>
    
        "Easy close
        nmap <leader>q :q<CR>
    
        " Split navigation
        nmap <leader>j <C-W>j
        nmap <leader>k <C-W>k
        nmap <leader>h <C-W>h
        nmap <leader>l <C-W>l
    
        "Tabs like Vimium 
        noremap <S-j> :tabprevious<CR>
        noremap <S-k> :tabnext<CR>

~~~
ejstronge
You should check out `:help CTRL-W_v` and most of `:help opening-window` in
general; the first few of your shortcuts are already in Vim by default. I had
similar shortcuts until a serendipitous trip into the help docs.

~~~
saurabh
You are right. I used to use them but pressing Ctrl was a pain in the pinky
finger. :sp and :vs is 2 more keys to press. Using Space as a leader makes
everything available at the flick of my thumb. I rarely ever move my eyes to
the command pane.

I forgot to mention that I have mapped Space+P to CtrlP fuzzy finder. That too
is a one pinch like operation, even though it requires two keypresses.

------
myhf

        echo 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com >> /etc/hosts

~~~
grimtrigger
Whats this do?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Easily increases your productivity by factor of 2-4.

~~~
notduncansmith
On a busy news day, probably closer to 8 for me. Seriously. It can be a real
problem. I actually took the plunge and did this for a while, and now I feel
I've built up enough self-control to not need it. The difference has been
amazing.

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thatswrong0
When I'm paying with a card I hold my wallet until I get my card back. I wrote
myself a script and have my dot files on github to make setting up a new
machine quicker. Tons of gmail filters. Ian's knot to tie my shoes (I know,
doesn't really save time, I think there's an XKCD that shows the break even
point on time investments like that). Aliases like 'helpme' that remind me of
some Git commands I always forget. Brush my teeth while peeing.

Yeah, mostly stupid little things.

~~~
freditup
I like these tips: \- Holding your wallet also helps you be sure to put the
card back in your wallet and not someplace else. \- I think everyone agrees
that the dotfiles one is useful \- I personally need a better shoelace know as
opposed to a faster one haha, but always fan of when people are willing to do
something unconventionally and better

------
LVB
My shirt rack has three "zones". Clean clothes go in zone 1. When I take out a
shirt, I put a special color hanger in its place. At night I hang up my shirt
in the next zone, or chuck it in the hamper as appropriate.

My memory for little stuff sucks, so this makes it easy to wear each one three
times.

~~~
jacknews
or wear a clean shirt every day. Just sayin.

~~~
DanBC
A clean shirt on a clean body probably isn't gettin too dirty to wear after
one or two wears.

Not washing clothes until they need to be washed is probably environmentally
beneficial - saving all that water and energy.

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bkjelden
I am terrible at remembering things, so for parts of my daily routine, I will
just remember the number of things I need to grab/do, rather than the things
themselves.

For example, there are 9 things I need to put in my gym bag when I pack it
before going to the gym/work. Remembering that there are 9 things is much
easier for me than remembering that list of 9 things, so I can just count as
I'm packing and know when I'm done, and the probability of something foreign
getting in is very low (although I have on occasion packed two pairs of socks
instead of socks + underwear - never a fun way to start the day).

Or another example - I need 4 things in my pockets before I leave for work -
keys, wallet, phone, work badge. The count of 4 is way easier for me to
remember than the 4 things themselves.

~~~
reubenpressman
Why wouldn't you just keep a list in your bag?

------
notduncansmith
A Mac app called Alfred has saved me countless hours. It comes with a
clipboard manager (extremely useful), and the ability to create custom
workflows/hotkeys, which I use to switch back and forth between Skype, Chrome,
and Sublime. iTerm2 already has a hotkey feature built in, but if it didn't
I'd have made one (takes <30 seconds).

Following Gary Bernhardt's advice, mapping Caps Lock to a modifier key (he
recommends Control I think, I mapped it to Alt) has been awesome.

Aliasing common Git commands to 2-3 letter commands has been nice. gc -> git
commit, gaa -> git add --all, gpom -> git push origin master, etc.

Vimium for Chrome is nice if you're used to Vim keybindings for navigating.

hop is a command-line tool for jumping to directories (or SSH'ing into
servers). Immensely valuable.

~~~
philip1209
We have an internal wiki page with custom alfred formulas for our company.

"customer <email>"

"domain <domain>"

"logs <logs>""

It makes life for engineers, support, and sales much more efficient.

~~~
notduncansmith
I wish there were enough Mac users at our company to make this worthwhile. Is
your whole team on OS X?

~~~
philip1209
No, but in general company laptops are macbooks. They play nicely with
virtualized operating systems, SSHing into *nix servers, windows via bootcamp,
etc.

The Alfred formulas are shared more out of courtesy than a company need.

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kareemm
If I need to take something with me out of the house that I don't normally
take (i.e. NOT my laptop bag, keys, etc), I leave it on the floor beside the
door out of my apartment. Which means I can't help but look at it when walking
out the door.

~~~
notduncansmith
My fiancee used to think I was nuts for doing this! This entire thread has
really helped validate a lot of my personal habits. Thanks, HN.

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Mizza
ag. I use this tool between 50 and 100 times a day.

[https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

~~~
jasonlotito
How does it compare to just using git grep?

~~~
jeffreyrogers
It works outside of git repositories and is faster than grep or awk.

~~~
ics
Especially helpful in emacs with projectile (which has a function projectile-
ag). Create a quick binding to locate all the FIXMES and feel free to
experiment. Maybe it should also open file and mark the lines in a new frame
for ultimate bug squashing...

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rushi_agrawal
As someone who use git quite a lot, I have created a TON of aliases for it, so
that I have to type very less. Sometimes, I have created bash functions as it
needs to handle some logic too.

For example: gl (git log), gb (git branch), gr (git remote -v), gpom (git push
origin master), gpuom (git pull origin master), gcam (git commit -a -m), gcaa
(git commit --amend -a), gc <github-ID>/<repository> (git checkout -b
[https://github.com/$1](https://github.com/$1)), etc

~~~
attilagyongyosi
This is exactly what I did when we started our current project at work, on
which we use Git. I also made aliases gl, gr, gb. gc means 'git commit -m' for
me, and I have gco for 'git checkout', gcb for 'git checkout -b', gpod for
'git push origin develop' and gpud for 'git push upstream develop'. Made my
life so much easier. :)

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philip1209
Create a public link to your availability from google calendar and share it
with people to decrease the time it takes to schedule meetings.

------
ivan_ah
The Mac OS text-to-speech tool is awesome for proofreading.

Another use for it is to be read blog posts to while doing the dishes and
making coffee.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
You can also use it from the terminal with the `say` command, e.g. `say -f
myfile.txt`

------
elnate
Resealable sandwich bags. I use them to portion food, either raw or cooked,
and freeze. It means even if I'm working 50+ hours this week I can cook a
couple of meals on Sunday and be sorted for the week. It also means that,
since I live communally but cook by myself, I don't have to eat the same meal
for four days in a row.

~~~
philip1209
I use ball jars. They are reusable, they basically never spill during transit,
and they fulfill multiple other roles.

------
thomasvarney723
I can't recommend LastPass enough. Also, PIA for VPN. I put a little cash and
my credit card in my phone case so that I have only one thing to carry and
always have money on me. I really liked f.lux when I used windows, if only I
had a decent replacement for ChromeOS.

~~~
tokenizerrr
I really want to like LastPass, but I can't get over all of my passwords being
stored on someone elses server. Doesn't that seem like a terrible security
risk?

~~~
berberous
Well, this scares me:

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/11/lastpass-finds-security-
hol...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/11/lastpass-finds-security-holes-in-its-
online-password-manager-doesnt-think-anyone-exploited-them/)

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/severe-password-
mana...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/severe-password-manager-
attacks-steal-digital-keys-and-data-en-masse/)

~~~
PeterWhittaker
The LastPass vulnerabilities affected only bookmarklets (used by less than 1%
of LP users, according to LP) and OTPs (no estimates for use).

I've been using LP for over a year, didn't know either feature existed until
the disclosure: I use it strictly for its main capability, encrypted and
unique site passwords.

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ryandvm
I don't use deodorant. At all. I haven't for about two years now. And I
guarantee you that I have less underarm smell than you.

Every morning I splash a squirt of rubbing alcohol under each arm. No smell,
no white powder, no creepy aluminum salts.

~~~
mistermann
> no creepy aluminum salts

As someone who's used them for probably a decade now, I wonder what you think
is creepy about them?

Also, I've read about some rubbing alcohols not being safe for long term use,
have you heard this, and what have you settled on?

~~~
steanne
possibly alzheimer's disease. ...or maybe not.

[http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-
claims-r...](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-claims-risk-
factors)

------
xcdz
Get a dressing gown/robe if you want to be warm at night but don't want to
sleep with heavy clothing, and want to be decent if someone knocks at the
door.

Sounds obvious, but I never realized how useful it is.

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MadMoogle
Instead of keeping squishy balls at my desk, I have something that resembles
Thor's hammer, except it's weighted. I play with it idly during the day[0],
which helps strengthen my grip and forearms. I started doing this when my
hands started to show signs of RSD. Haven't had an issue with it since.

[0] I don't swing it, as I'm too worried about accidentally hitting somebody.

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conductr
My credit card details are saved in my Gmail account because when I want to
buy something online my wallet is usually in another room

I feel the risk is low, I trust google enough and there's really no risk as a
cardholder anyway

~~~
DanBC
The risk is low, but if the issuing bank finds out that your CC details were
stored online they'd refuse to cover you if you were hit by fraud.

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Moemars
Stopped shampooing and conditioning hair (they either have chemicals, are
expensive or smell terrible).

My showers take 5 minutes. Saves time, water and hydrates your skin.

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31reasons
Work from home if possible.

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amorphous
collapsable comments for HN

