Tools I swear by, distractions I justify, and gear that makes me feel like a real adult.

This is the running list of what I use day to day: some things genuinely make me productive, others just look good on my desk. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Workstation

  • Mac Studio (M2 Ultra, 64GB RAM)

    The fans have spun up exactly once, and I'm pretty sure it was because I had 148 Chrome tabs open while compiling a Next.js project for fun.

  • Samsung Odyssey G9 Monitor

    A monitor so wide I need to check the weather report before dragging a window from one side to the other.

  • Das Keyboard 4

    Clicky enough that my neighbors two floors down know when I'm coding, or when I'm just raging at Tailwind classes.

  • Chair, IKEA Markus

    It squeaks like a haunted house, but at least it keeps me humble compared to all the Aeron people.

Development

  • VS Code

    It's where I spend 90% of my waking life. The other 10% is spent installing extensions I'll never use.

  • Raycast

    The app launcher that makes me feel like a hacker every time I search for 'Spotify' instead of clicking the dock icon.

  • GitHub Copilot

    Great for writing boilerplate. Also great for reminding me how boring boilerplate is.

Design

  • MS Paint (in Parallels)

    Sometimes you just need to draw a stick figure diagram and ship it. No layers, no problem.

Productivity

  • Obsidian

    Where I pretend my notes will someday become a book. In reality, it's just a graveyard of half-written thoughts and pasted Stack Overflow links.

  • Notion

    The world's most beautiful to-do list that I never actually check.

  • Post-it Notes

    Still undefeated in speed and reliability. They also make my desk look like the wall from A Beautiful Mind.