Every time when I am in a pair-programming session and the other person does not use a clipboard manager I am taken aback at how such a thing is even possible. To me, a clipboard manager is such an essential piece of toolkit that I forget it’s there.
What is a clipboard manager? In its simplest form it’s a history of the things you copied. For example, you select text “Foo”, press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on a Mac), then repeat the same on text “Bar”. The clipboard manager will keep both “Foo” and “Bar” values handy for use when needed.
Simple as that. And so, so effective! Every time you need to copy many things from one window to another, select and copy them one by one, go to the other window, paste them one by one. You save a ton of window switching and clicking around! Good clipboard managers support searching through the history of things you copied and they are smart about the type of content you copied, such as plain text, URLs, images, etc. There are many more reasons why using a clipboard manager makes your day easier.
Personally, I use the clipboard manager that comes with Alfred, the OS X productivity app. But there are literally hundreds of clipboard managers out there, for all major OSes and most of them do their job just fine. Choosing one is mostly about personal preference on keyboard for keyboard shortcuts and styling.
So, what are you waiting for? Get one!
