Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
I&#x27;ve easily saved 100 hours already using ChatGPT.  If you haven&#x27;t heard of it already, this is, in my personal opinion, superhuman general AI with almost no limitations except that it might not be free forever and it likes to stay SFW.  For example, if you ask it to list &quot;What pieces of software that most users don&#x27;t use is most likely to save me 100 hours - keep your answer brief and specific&quot; you get the response at the bottom.  Interesting answer that opens the door to more specific questions.  If you want to achieve a task quickly, just ask ChatGPT how to do it.  Give plenty of instructions on the kind of response you&#x27;re looking for.<p>Here&#x27;s a specific example of how ChatGPT has saved me time: I asked it to make some text I wrote shorter and more likely to succeed, and it suggested eliminating the entire second half of it as it takes away from my point and isn&#x27;t likely to achieve the result I want.  That actually ended up saving me the work associated with the entire second half of my proposal.<p>Others have had it make recipes and meal plans, by just listing what they had at home and asking it to list recipes using those ingredients. It is superhuman in many of its abilities.<p>I would write a caveat but don&#x27;t feel like it.  I&#x27;ll just ask ChatGPT: &quot;I consider you almost superhuman but in no more than 15 words summarize the caveats or ways in which it would be wrong to consider you superhuman. Be extremely brief and specific, get right to the point.&quot;<p>it&#x27;s answer: &quot;I am a machine learning model and not a human.&quot;<p>So, there&#x27;s your caveat.  It&#x27;s a machine learning model and not a human.<p>---<p>*<p>[Prompt: What pieces of software that most users don&#x27;t use is most likely to save me 100 hours - keep your answer brief and specific.]<p>It&#x27;s difficult to determine what specific software may save you 100 hours without knowing more about your specific needs and workflows. However, here are a few suggestions for software that may be helpful in increasing efficiency and saving time:<p>Task management and productivity software: Tools like Trello, Asana, and Todoist can help you organize and prioritize your tasks, set deadlines, and track progress. These tools can help you stay on top of your work and reduce the time you spend on tasks that don&#x27;t align with your goals.<p>Text expansion and automation software: Applications like TextExpander and Alfred allow you to create custom abbreviations that expand into longer phrases or blocks of text. This can save you a significant amount of time if you frequently type out the same phrases or long emails.<p>Text and code editors: Advanced text and code editors like Sublime Text, Atom, or Visual Studio Code can save you time by providing features such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and project management. These tools can help you write and edit code more efficiently and make it easier to navigate large codebases.<p>File management software: Applications like Hazel and Dropbox can help you automate file management tasks, such as organizing and renaming files, and keeping your files synced and backed up. This can save you time and reduce the risk of data loss.<p>It&#x27;s important to keep in mind that the software that will be most helpful in saving you time will depend on your specific needs and workflows. It may be helpful to spend some time identifying the tasks that take up the most time in your work and looking for tools that can help you streamline those processes.