there is a lot of features in Alfred, but my absolute favorite is the workflows [1]

I use Alfred workflow with dash [2], so i can type "go fmt.Println" into alfred, and jump straight to the man-page.

I also use Alfred workflow with SnippetsLab [3], to open my personal notes in a similar fashion.

    1: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/
    2: https://kapeli.com/dash

Dash is also an absolutely wonderful app, for having all your coding docs on-the-go. Since I am often without internet access, Dash lets me continue working. It even has offline stack exchange if that rocks your boat.

    3: https://www.renfei.org/snippets-lab/

SnippetsLab provides a very much awesome way of organizing all your snippets of code / notes, etc.

This way of navigating means I have to use the trackpad pretty infrequently.

My only complaint about these tools, is that I'm stuck in Windows at work :-(

For another software I use daily and can no longer live without, it would be tmux.

It isn't so annoyingly stupid like Spotlight. For months, I open a single file called TODO.TXT via Spotlight. I enter T..O..D.. and select TODO.TXT from the list. I don't search for anything else with Spotlight that begins with TOD or even TO. But Spotlight for whatever reason decides that for every second or third search attempt, it must show me an entirely different file than the one I opened a thousand times by pressing exactly these letters.

It is hard for me to grasp how in 2016 a piece of software can be so ignorant to such a simple behavior.

But: It took me a few attempts to start using Alfred. I personally only use it to open files and programs and to search in files. The default behavior with pressing space twice is very annoying if you want to open text files. So I tweaked the settings a bit and now it works for me:

Default Results:

    Essentials: - all unchecked but *Applications*.
    Extras: only check: Folders, Text Files, Documents, Images.

Search within files by starting your search with the word in like "in FOOBAR".

That's what works for me and replaced Spotlight.

I use the paste manager A LOT. But that might be only in the paid version.

It can be "taught" to do things. If you want to open something with 1-2 letters you can just repeat yourself a few times (2-4?) and it will learn and remember. Spotlight just does not do this.

See my comment above. For me it seems more accurate.