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Open Thread: What's your killer app?
Merlin Mann | Aug 21 2006
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? 106 Comments
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 Kinkless + iCal (oddly enough...Submitted by MEP (not verified) on August 21, 2006 - 5:15pm.
Kinkless + iCal (oddly enough without syncing them though). iCal is my "hard landscape" and kGTD collects my action lists and projects (which I would sync with iCal if the Palm syncing was working properly). I like how kGTD takes most of the grunt work out of managing my action lists and project lists. For action lists on the go, I'm using a customized set of DIY HPDA templates tucked into my pocket moleskine. I also use remind + geektool for my "slightly soft but still date related landscape" like birthday reminders, regular chores, maintenance tasks and bill scheduling. I used to live in text editors -- first Emacs (while in school using Unix machines), then HomeSite (while working as a web designer and app developer on Windows) and later on vim (in my post-computer industry life on OS X before finding kGTD) but I'm starting to appreciate tools that do more work for me letting me concentrate on my actual goals. Quicksilver is a killer app too, but I don't really use it for all it's worth (yet). » POSTED IN:
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