The Tools I Actually Use

I have a rule for these lists: I am only allowed to include something if I have used it at least three times in the last week. Anything I have not touched in seven days gets cut, no matter how much I like the idea of it.

The result is shorter and less impressive than the lists I used to make. But it is also, I think, more honest.

Software

Obsidian. I have tried every notes app — Notion, Roam, Logseq, Bear, Apple Notes, a folder of plain text files. Obsidian is the one that stuck, for the simple reason that the files are plain Markdown on my own disk. When the company eventually enshittifies or shuts down, I will still have my notes.

iA Writer. For drafts that are going somewhere other than my notes. The typography is so good that it makes me a slightly better writer just by association. I will open it for an essay, write for two hours, and forget that I am looking at a screen.

tmux + nvim. I am not a vim purist — I use VS Code for pair programming and any project where I am debugging heavily. But for writing code alone, especially on a remote machine, terminal vim inside tmux is still the fastest thing I have ever used. The mouse is a tax I am happy to avoid.

# tmux config — three things I cannot live without
set -g mouse on
set -g base-index 1
setw -g pane-base-index 1
bind | split-window -h -c "#{pane_current_path}"
bind - split-window -v -c "#{pane_current_path}"

Linear. For work. It is the only project management tool that has ever felt designed for the people using it, not for the managers watching them.

Things 3. For personal todos. It is a paid app that has not had a meaningful update in years, and I do not care. It does exactly what I want and nothing else.

Hardware

A 13” MacBook Air, M2. I bought the smallest, cheapest configuration that would not actively embarrass me, and it has been the best laptop I have ever owned. It weighs nothing, the battery lasts all day, and it is fast enough for everything I do.

A single monitor, 27”. I tried dual monitors for years and found that I just put Discord on the second one. One monitor forces me to full-screen what I am working on, which is better for my attention.

A mechanical keyboard with brown switches. I will not say which one, because the keyboard community is exhausting. It is a keyboard. It types. The switches are quiet enough not to annoy my partner.

AirPods Pro. The noise cancellation is the only reason I can write in coffee shops. I am aware they are an Apple product and therefore compromised in various ways; I do not care.

What is not on the list

I should mention the things that did not make the cut, because the absences are more interesting than the inclusions:

• Notion. I have an account, I pay for it, I have not opened it in two months. It is on the chopping block.
• A standing desk. I bought one. I sat down at it. I never stood up again.
• A paper planner. Every January I buy one. Every March I stop using it.
• A second monitor. See above.

The pattern is clear: I am bad at predicting what I will actually use. The list of things I think I need is much longer than the list of things I actually reach for. The gap between them is the most useful thing I have learned about myself this year.

The honest version

If I were giving advice to someone setting up their first workstation, I would say: buy less than you think you need. Live with it for six months. Notice what you reach for, and what you reach past. Add things one at a time, only when you have a concrete complaint that the new thing solves.

This is boring advice. It is also, in my experience, the only advice that works.