Tip #0: Use Emacs 22 Emacs 22 is super stable. About half of my .emacs file (before I cleaned it up) was loading stuff that's now part of Emacs 22 and has autoloads. Tip #1: Never quit Emacs Okay, this has nothing to do with your .emacs file, but I have to put it in here. Just because your .emacs file should load quickly doesn't imply that you should quit and restart all the time. Figure it out! T