In this post I'd like to share how I ( @asciimoo - the author of Hister) use Hister to maximize my productivity and privacy.

The tools I mention are interchangeable: the concepts apply equally well to different environments and operating systems.

The Search Workflow

My core workflow comes down to three steps:

Open Hister as quickly as possible

Check with the fewest keystrokes whether the result is already in Hister

Fall back to a traditional search engine if nothing relevant is found

Let me walk through each step.

1. Opening Hister Instantly

Setting Hister as your browser's default search engine is a good start, but it still requires you to switch to a browser window, open a new tab, and hit Enter before results appear.

A much faster approach is to bind a global hotkey in your window manager that jumps directly to your browser and opens a new Hister tab. With this setup, a two-key combination always puts a fresh search prompt in front of you.

I use the i3 window manager.…