If you’re one of those people who likes using the yellow “stoplight” button on windows to minimize them into the right side of your Dock…
…then this is probably a familiar sight to you:
That’s just madness, my friends. MADNESS.
If you decide you don’t like the looks of that, then there’s a way you can minimize windows into their programs' Dock icons, which’ll keep things all organized and stuff. Plus, your Dock won’t look like window mayhem. Seriously, that screenshot above gives me the shivers.
To do this, visit System Preferences> Dock and check the box labeled “Minimize windows into application icon.”
Afterward, you can get a minimized window back by either right-clicking or clicking and holding on the Dock icon in question. That’ll bring up a contextual menu from which you can pick what you want to de-minimize.
Of course, this is only one of approximately a million methods you could use to manage windows in OS X. What’s your favorite way to do that, dear readers?