My Current Tech Stack

👋 I am always curious to hear about other people’s workflows and the tools they use. I tend to experiment and try lots of different tools. Below are the tools I am currently using.

Anything interesting you see there? Or anything you don’t see and that you recommend?

Email

• Superhuman (see also [[⚙️ My email workflow]])

Calendar

• VIMCal (see also [[📖 Calendar tech MOC]])

Personal task management

See also [[⚙️ My todo workflow]]

• Capture
  • Drafts (works on desktop, phone and apple watch)
• Daily planning
  • A 3x5 index card to capture the “impactful” action items of the day
  • An obsidian note each day (“Daily Note” page) that captures the other todos of the day
• Future todos
  • Todos due later are in a single Obsidian page with my “active projects” and all related todos. My learning: it is a forcing function to keep the “backlog” of future todos to a reasonable amount. If future todos require more than a single page, it means I am overcommitting and I need to say no (vs. becoming better at organizing more todos)
• Reminder/Recurring
  • Due for reminder during the day
  • Calendar events in Google Calendar for things due in the future

Time tracking

• High-leve tracking
  • A page in my analog journal following Cal Newport’s time-blocking method
• Granular tracking
  • An Obsidian page each day named “YYYY-MM-DD Log” that go granularly and in which I add an entry for each activity
• Automated tracking
  • I use the Timing app to track what I do on my laptop. This is useful to complement the analog journaling if I don’t remember when/what I did at a certain time in the day.

Meeting minutes

• In daily notes in Obsidian
• if recording is needed, I use the Just Press Record on the Apple Watch or Loopback on laptop to record, Otter.ai to get a transcript, Dilliger.io + Roam-highlighter to create a summary

Learning and Idea Log

• Capture
  • Obsidian if at my desk
  • Drafts if on the move, and then added to Obsidian
  • If complex idea on the move, Just Press Record to capture thoughts and Hazel to get notifications in Draft (through import folder) to add to Obsidian
• Organize
  • Obsidian
• Practice
  • NeuraCache

Daily/Weekly/Monthly Reviews

• Analog journal in which I review the key highlights captured in Time Tracking, Meeting Minutes and Learning and Idea log

Reading

• Kindle books on Kindle Oasis
• Readwise to capture highlights and sync them to Obsidian See also [[⚙️ My reading workflow 🌱]]

Journaling, thinking and writing

• Morning pages
  • I write on cheap sheets of paper, scan with my iPad the pages and save into a PDF file which is encoded in a Cryptomator vault.
• For quiet and high level thinking
  • Analog journal
  • Prizmo Go if I need to transcribe the handwriting into Obsidian
• Everything else
  • Obsidian (see also [[📖 Linked Thinking Tool MOC]])

Learning and remembering

• “Smart Random Note” plugin in Obsidian with “starred” searches to remember books, articles, ideas, notes.

Digital automation

• Cloud automation
  • Zapier for no-code automation
  • Airplane for code-based automation
  • AppSmith for personal internal tooling (free open-source alternative to Retool)
• Desktop automation
  • Alfred as a launcher
  • Keybord Maestro: mostly for window management
  • Hazel for managing files
  • Bartender 3 for minimalist menu bar

Chat

• Slack
• Whatsapp
• Facetime
• Messenger

Collaboration

• Loom (and now Slack) for video messages
• Skitch for screenshots

Fix Office setup

• MacBook Pro
• Apple Keyboard
• Apple Mouse

Mobile Office Setup

• Roost as a super light and compact laptop stand
• TripMode to minimize data consumption and speed when I am using the hotspot

Health

• Apple Watch for exercises and uploaded into Strava
• Oura Ring for sleep tracking
• Bearable for experimenting and finding links between behaviors and outcomes See also [[⚙️ Health Tech]]

Meditation

• Oura app on my phone for unguided meditation
• Timeless app on my watch as a minimalist meditation timer

Home automation

• Thermostat: Ecobee
• Front door lock: Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen
  • [[Yale DB Touch Instructions.pdf]]
• Security Camera: blink See also [[📖 Home automation tech MOC]]

Personal website

• Blot.im as blog/web engine on top of markdown files in Dropbox
• Cloudflare as DNS
• NameCheap for the domain name

Apple Watch

• Face #1: Productivity
  • Drafts
  • Just Press Record
• Face #2: Mind
  • Unwind - Mindful breathing
  • Timeless for meditation
  • Apple Music with MP3 recordings for Yoga Nidra and TM White Noise
• Face #3: Exercise
  • Apple Workout
  • Heart rate

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