For me the most important thing was learning to add a 'j' at the end of each macro and running it multiple times. So lets say you want to crack open an array that looks like this:

    $address = array(
     'name'  => '',
     'line1' => '',
     'line2' => '',
     'state' => '',
     'country' => '',
     'postcode' => '',
    );

That's a lot of commas and quotes etc. Nowadays I usually punch this into vim:

    name
    line1
    line2
    state
    country
    postcode

Then I start on the first line and record a macro that wraps that word in quotes, then appends hashrocket, quotes, comma, and then moves to the next line. Run the macro 5 times with 5@<register> and the you get your array.

If you're a heavy macro user, you might find `:noremap <Space> @q` to be handy. Just stick your temporary macro in q (the easiest one to stick it in :), then press the spacebar to run it whenever you want.