Backward-compatible improvements
Backward-incompatible changes in a workflow, as in API upgrades, break things. Backward-compatible changes can be adopted more experimentally. Since lowering the cost of experimentation is so valuable, it's worth seeking out "drop-in replacements." Here are a few favorites:
- Advanced clipboard managers. I use Alfred's, but any modern tool will do. I now consider both the ability to use my clipboard as a stack and to search my clipboard history essential. Ordinary copy and paste operate on the top of the stack and therefore exactly match familiar behavior.
- Advanced screenshot software. I use CleanShot X but have not tried other alternatives. CleanShot X can be configured so that overriding the built-in keybindings almost exactly mimics built-in behavior while also providing the opportunity to edit / enhance screenshots on the fly.
- Learning keyboard shortcuts.
- Trialing task managers by duplicating some tasks in the new system and either linking or otherwise syncing the two systems. (This might seem like extra work, but the linking / syncing process is often a good test of how usable the new system is.)
One unimplemented plan I have in this spirit is to override g <search text> in Alfred, which currently does a Google search for <search text>, to first log the text of the search to a local log and then do the Google search.