(emacs-init-time) "0.2 seconds" Use autoloads everywhere. Put all per-package configuration in lambdas executed on hooks, or eval-after-load. Lazy-load Helm by

(emacs-init-time) "0.2 seconds" Use autoloads everywhere. Put all per-package configuration in lambdas executed on hooks, or eval-after-load. Lazy-load Helm by mapping M-x to helm-M-x etc. - small ad-hoc edits probably don't even need Helm. I still use emacs --daemon / emacsclient (aliased to 'e'), but I keep my $EDITOR set to emacs. There's no good reason to have a long wait for startup.