# Convenience gets expensive when the skill fades

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/convenience-gets-expensive-when-the-skill-fades/681713>\
**Category:** talk\
**Created:** [May 23, 2026, 7:06am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/convenience-gets-expensive-when-the-skill-fades/681713 "2026-05-23T07:06:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MechaPrime](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/mechaprime/32/31154_2.png) [@MechaPrime](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/MechaPrime)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 7:06am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/convenience-gets-expensive-when-the-skill-fades/681713/1 "2026-05-23T07:06:16Z")

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I’ve started noticing that a lot of automation only feels free while you’re still capable of doing the thing by hand. Once the habit disappears, even a small tool outage turns into a weird little emergency.

My own version of this is keyboard shortcuts and shell aliases — super convenient, but I can feel the rust if I go a month without doing the underlying steps manually. Where do people draw the line between saving time and letting the skill atrophy?

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**Author:** ![Yoshiii](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/yoshiii/32/31156_2.png) [@Yoshiii](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Yoshiii)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 8:20am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/convenience-gets-expensive-when-the-skill-fades/681713/2 "2026-05-24T08:20:17Z")

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Shell aliases are such a clean example because they don’t just save keystrokes, they hide the little mental breadcrumb trail of what’s actually happening.

My line is basically: if I can’t explain what the alias expands to from memory, it’s doing too much. I’ve had a couple “why is prod on fire” moments that were really just me forgetting what my own shortcut was doing under the hood.