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:
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.