Sometimes it takes awhile to “get” a piece of software, to understand how it fits into your workflow.

That was my experience with Keyboard Maestro, which I picked up in one of those software bundles. At first, I didn’t know what I would use it for, but as I’ve used it more often, I’ve found more ways to use it.

Here’s just the latest example, and it’s a relatively minor one: “When Microsoft Word is active, ‘save’ every minute.”

(If you don’t use/like Microsoft Word, replace it with Pages, or TextEdit, or whatever program that you work in.)

Now, I’m fairly obsessive about hitting “Save” frequently, but I bet everyone reading this has had the experience of getting into a groove while writing or working on some project, when suddenly the computer crashed, or the program crashed, or it simply locked up.

With this Keyboard Maestro macro, I won’t ever have to worry about losing more than 1 minute’s worth of work. It will automatically save for me every minute.

Note: I seem to remember that some applications won’t allow you to ‘undo’ after a save. Word allows undo after save, but you should check your application and consider whether or not that is an issue for you. I save to Dropbox, which keeps previous versions for 30 days (longer if you pay for their ‘packrat’ service). I consider Dropbox my “Undo” for major changes.

1. mathcat345 liked this
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