43 Folders

Back to Work

Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

Join us via RSS, iTunes, or at 5by5.tv.

”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Open Thread: What's your killer app?

The other day I was talking with someone about the novel and non-obvious ways that people use Excel in their work and home life. Gotta say, I've personally seen some pretty amazing stuff happen when people take a favorite app, get really good at it, then bend it to their will. (And Excel is perfect for this.)

This tracks to Danny's Life Hack concept by which the alpha geeks were achieving lofty heights of productivity partly by mastering 1-3 "killer apps" -- then using them to solve most of their information and functional problems in fairly novel ways.

So my question for you: What's your killer app? Is there one place where 80% or more of your activity takes place (by choice)? Vim? Excel? Perl? Firefox? Post-it Notes? What's yours and when did you realize you'd become a badass at using it?

JoAnna's picture

What’s yours and...

What’s yours and when did you realize you’d become a badass at using it?

Filemaker and TypeIt4Me.

I realized I became a filemaker expert when my husband started calling me from work and asking ME for advice on creating fields & layouts. And, in the past, I did consult on it professionally for one of the big media commpanies in hollywood.

You don't need to be an expert to have TI4M be wonderful, you just have to program in your own intuitive shortcuts for things you either don't want to type out, or things that you have to repeatedly type but don't have the capacity to remember. it's like Word's autocorrect on steroids. It is truly one of the most elegant applications out there.

I am visibly crippled on the rare instance when I have to work on someone else's computer.

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

Popular
Today

Popular
Classics

An Oblique Strategy:
Honor thy error as a hidden intention


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

Scared Shitless

Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »