My Digital Garden

My productivity tools

4 min read

My beloved tools

Create a productive workflow is something very personal and that can take a time. It also elvove over time, depending on what you want to achieve. Here’s the tools I use improve my productivity and my workflow.

Development

  • Iterm2 for terminal and shell commands. Splitted in 5 windows : one for Rails server, one for Sidekiq, one for Ngrok, one for Rails console and one for commands.
  • Brackets for coding. Free, open-source, distractionless and with state-of-the-art plugins. I’m using Emmet a lot and Indentator. Nothing fancy here.
  • Git and Github for version control.
  • Insomnia to test and consume APIs faster than using cURL commands.
  • Ngrok to create public URL and expose my local server when needed.

Note taking

  • Obsidian as the central system of my note taking process. I’m still improving my workflow on it, but for now, it’s the best note taking app I tested. I use it as a second-brain, for digital gardening and for my Zettelkasten workflow (or kind of). I’m using Obsidian Publish to publish this garden by the way.
  • Raindrop for bookmarking. It’s still very new in my workflow. I’d been inspired by Bryan Jenks’ workflow where he describe Raindrop as “the entry point of his zettelkasten workflow in Obsidian”.
  • Typora to write and read Markdown. I was using it a lot before Obsidian, but it’s now less relevant. Still an awesome tool!
  • Evernote for scaning documents and sending it to my desktop. I was using it as my main note taking app, but now it’s a mess and most of the note wasn’t that relevant, so I stoped and replace it by Obsidian.
  • Notion for team knowledge. I started using it very early when their free plan had still a limited blocks. I still have some great notes on it but stop using it because of the pricing. Still a very great tool, that evolve quickly.
  • A physical note book and a pencil. Because yes, in Date.current.year these are still relevant tools to use! 😄. I’m using it mostly to draw architecture schema or mockup UI or UX flow. Also a lot of Post-It though.

Productivity

  • Todoist to create todo lists. The best tool for me in this category. I’m brain dropping every task that need to be done to then categorize it in projects and sub projects. I tag everything with where I need to do this task (on computer, at home, in the studios…) and add deadlines. This is my prefered app for Microproductivity. I also use the template feature which save me a lot of time when buying equipment for a newly opened studio. I just upload the template when we’re ready to start purchases and keep track of deliveries and important things using the Kraljic Matrix for supply-chain management.
  • Alfred in replacement of Spotlight. I litteraly launch everything with Alfred. Using my keyboard to launch apps, find documents, open folders or website is so much more efficient than the mouse. I’m considering upgrading to the Powerpack. Lot of apps are creating integrations for Alfred that are useful.
  • Calendar for Mac and Google Calendar on Android. No need to explain how I use it though.
  • Trello to visualize tasks. I was using it a lot for project management when I started to code, but quickly stop. I find it time consuming to have your card constantly updated. I’m now using Github Project section for code management, but I’m still using Trello when I need to share the board with a -not-so-techy- team.

Communication

  • Slack for messaging with teams and communities. I do think I’m sending more messages on Slack than by all phone, Facebook, Whatsapp and other tools like these together. I’m also using Slack as a notification center for Studiomatic using their API. All of our notifications from various sources are sent to Slack and organized in different channel.
  • Messages by Google for sending text message from both my phone and desktop. Not a revolutionnary app, but the only one available on Android that let send SMS from a desktop app.
  • Messenger for messaging. I was totally hooked when Facebook first came up in France and still using it today.
  • Mail for mac and Mailbutler for emails. I’m using Mailbutler mostly for tracking openings and for countdown before sending.
  • Discord for communities and video games. Not the app I use the most. I prefer Slack.
  • Whatsapp for messaging. Let’s be honest, I hate this app. But I don’t know why, some people like it a lot.

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