Bonus

Just a few of my absolute fave things. Mostly Mac stuff, sorry Windows fans. But AutoHotkey gets a special mention cos that thing is fire.

Macros

One of the easiest ways to get started with automation is to record macros. Define a series of actions once, then play them back whenever you need to repeat the task.

AutoHotkey is weapon for automating everything on Windows. I wish it was available on my beloved Mac.

Fortunately, Keyboard Maestro IS available on Mac. At the time of writing, I have 1396 macros defined. I love each and every one of my beautiful macro children.

Launchers

If you’re reading this then you’re probably all over these. But in no particular order:

Alfred must be the most configurable launcher on the Mac.

Raycast is slick and has AI everywhere. And now it’s on Windows.

LaunchBar is still my fave. I’ve tried everything else but this workhorse doesn’t quit.

Web apps

Airtable is a cross between a spreadsheet and a database. I demonstrated it briefly at Nodefest when generating filenames.

Hammerspoon is nerdy as hell and I love it. Shortcuts, window management, UI automation, you name it. All programmable in Lua.

CLI

CLI is short for Command Line Interface, i.e. programs you run from a terminal or command prompt. There are many, many command-line tools that I wanted to talk about but had to cut for time. Also because it would be boring as hell.

Originally I actually had a whole bit on backing up in the “Avoiding Again” section. I wanted to give a shoutout to restic – a backup program that creates snapshots of your data.

When you’re creating the same folder structure again and again for new projects, consider using a project templating tool like cookiecutter.

I’m also a big fan of the kitty terminal emulator, and Fish shell.

If you’re still reading, congrats. There are so many other things that I wanted to put down here but I’ve – wouldn’t you know it – run out of time.