I wonder why people like it... is there some killer use case, or does it just interrupt your work endlessly with Skype notifications, software updates, and other nonsense?
It's bad enough that I keep my GMail open continuously... I've thought about shutting that down for most of the day too.
The key to making Growl good is to prune what it notifies for. What do you actually care about? Me, I mostly use it as an iTunes track info display, just a little note in the bottom corner of my screen that fades in and out quietly, and reappears when I hit a hotkey. I've also used it to display error messages when debugging an Applescript. There's one guy who uses it to [give himself instant visual feedback when he breaks the build](http://szeryf.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/way-beyond-cool-autot...).
I don't have it notify me with info about every email. I don't have it tell me when someone IMs me. If an app starts spamming me with notifications about something I think is unimportant, I go into Growl's prefs and turn that app off.
I use Growl for exactly one thing: To notify me of deliveries via the Delivery Status widget. Because if I don't act on picking them up quickly, I might have to wait 1 to 2 days to get my package from the office.
Everything else? Off, because there's no material benefit for me being notified.
I pretty much just get my wife's IM messages via Adium / Growl. Growl lets me scan them to see if I need to switch workspaces to respond, and if I don't, then I don't break flow.
Nothing much else bugs me in Growl on any regular basis.
I wonder why people like it... is there some killer use case, or does it just interrupt your work endlessly with Skype notifications, software updates, and other nonsense?
It's bad enough that I keep my GMail open continuously... I've thought about shutting that down for most of the day too.