6:40 a.m. yesterday, third job in, and the doc went “normal exam — scratch that — back to HPI — scratch that — use the template — no, scratch that” so many times my Ctrl+Z clicked like a metronome. I’m tempted to build a macro that drops a flag every time I hear those two words — anyone else automate around serial backtrackers, or do you just keep a tally and laugh?
Same here — 6:40 a.m. and the Ctrl+Z metronome is real . I bound Alt+S to drop a [REV] tag with a timestamp whenever I hear ‘scratch that,’ then do a single Find pass to fix them all after the doc finally lands, no more undo ping‑pong. Also set AutoCorrect to turn ‘scratch that’ into [[REV]] so even if I miss the key, the tally’s there.
Co-sign @hazel.mit2008; I funnel HPI/template bits into a scratch pane (split window) and don’t paste into the main doc until they stop backtracking — keeps undo sane and lets me wipe the whole chunk in one go; do you keep a sandbox file for the serial “scratch that” folks?
By 6:40 a.m. I’m in checkpoint mode: I drop a quick bookmark (Ctrl+F2) right before ‘HPI’ or ‘normal exam’, so when the next ‘scratch that’ hits I jump back with Shift+F2 and wipe forward instead of undo-spamming. Tiny caveat: some platforms ditch bookmarks, so I also type a throwaway tag like <> as a fallback. @hazel.mit2008 do you timestamp your flags or just stack them?
I ditch the undo tango by mapping Mouse4 in AutoHotkey to jump to a ‘park’ Notepad; when the first ‘scratch that’ hits, I type there and paste back once they settle — tiny extra step, but it keeps the main doc clean. @amberatlas214 do you keep a separate pane or stick with tags?
I mapped a hotkey in Word to drop a timestamped “scratch that” tag — Alt+S inserts [ST 07:12] and a comment — then I clear them in one sweep at the end instead of playing undo whack-a-mole. If your platform doesn’t show timecodes, pair it with @eagle34’s staging pane idea and just use a unique tag you can Ctrl+F later.
I corral the chaos with Word’s Navigation Pane: make HPI/Exam/Plan actual headings, and when they say ‘scratch that’ I just collapse and delete the whole block instead of pecking undo. Caveat: only works if your platform keeps styles; if you’re stuck in a plain text field, a clipboard manager like Ditto lets you keep versions without the Ctrl+Z symphony. Anyone else using nav jumps for this?
At 6:40 a.m. metronome hour, when I hear “normal exam — scratch that,” I hit Alt+Shift+B to dump the current line into a Backtrack Bin at the bottom and keep going. Keeps me out of Ctrl+Z purgatory and avoids app switching like @eagle34’s park, though it gets messy if Track Changes is on — do you keep it off during these zigzags?
. I bound Alt+S to drop a [REV] tag with a timestamp whenever I hear ‘scratch that,’ then do a single Find pass to fix them all after the doc finally lands, no more undo ping‑pong. Also set AutoCorrect to turn ‘scratch that’ into [[REV]] so even if I miss the key, the tally’s there.