Alright, I've been asked quite a few times already about my personal tech stack and learning workflows.
The most important thing to remember is that neither tools nor routines or workflows make you learn. They can certainly help by giving you more time, easier access to information, and better UX. However, it's all about mindset and the drive to grow. In the end, if you're not excited about learning and optimizing your processes, nothing will make it work.
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General philosophy - I tend to have a dedicated device as a physical context enabler. Thus, it reduces my overload and questions about what to work on. Selecting a particular device turns on a particular mode. Some folks tend to have a couple of virtual spaces on one device, I find it not working for me.
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š„ļøĀ iPad - Reading.
š±iPhone - Listening
š» MacBook/iPad - writing
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I switched to the iOS ecosystem mostly because of the cross-integration and the UX of the communication between the devices. Additionally, I feel like this hardware set presents me with a better quality of apps and optimisation opportunities.
šContent Consumption
- Reader - Digesting articles, newsletters, pdfs. Highlighting, tagging, and making notes.
- Snipd - Digesting podcasts. Highlighting and tagging fragments, creating text summaries with AI and sound snippets.
- Kindle - Digesting ebooks. Same as above.
- Readwise - Data aggregation. It pulls all the highlights from those 3 apps and creates flashcards out of them. For everyday revisit.
- LogSeq - Pulls all the data from Readwise. Create data blocks with tags I can later browse, connect and work upon. Raw database of everything, power using search and tag functionalities.
- Notion - Ready produce directory. Project-related content.
- Slack, Discord - professional communities.
ā”General effectiveness
- Cron - ditch your GCal or iCal. This is the one and only calendar app. Multiple time zones, accounts, keyboard manageable, wonderful UX.
- Arc - ditch your other browsers. Arc allows you to have dedicated spaces with different login/cookies data, keyboard management, custom dashboards created out of websitesā cutouts and much more.
- Endel - dynamically generated sounds to induce a chosen state of mind. Stopped using Spotify or listening to music while working or studying.
- GoodNotes 5 - Iām using the iPad along with the Apple Pencil. Sometimes you just canāt beat handwriting. Doodling, drafting during meetings, journaling, brainstorming. Also, you can share your notebooks externally or insert them into Notion for example.
- Raycast - Apple Spotlight but supercharged. Launching all the apps directly from the bar, managing all menu options, apps working in the background and much more.
- Life lesson to go by: you donāt need to use your mouse in most cases - itās simply slower. Use shortcuts and train your writing speed using i.e. https://10fastfingers.com/typing-test/english
āļøAutomations
Those play an increasing role in my life. And with time, theyāll have an even larger share of importance. Reducing cognitive limits of my reluctance to do many steps to conduct a simple task.
- Apple Shortcuts - operating my iPhone with voice. Quickly creating and managing notes/tasks in Notion. Doing multiple actions with one shortcut/voice command
- Make.com - automating workflows between apps with some native integrations or webhooks
- KarabinerElements - changing keyboard binding, introducing multiple keystrokes under one button.
- Keyboard Maestro - advanced workflows ignited through the keyboard. Apple Shortcuts on steroids. In my case, mostly used to combine couple Shortcuts and external automations under one key combination.
š¤Relations management
- Airtable - all contacts database. Tagged and described.
- Dex - daily network management. My current personal CRM.
- LinkedIn - my go-to Social Media
- WhatsApp - the less Social Media stuff, the better š