Software and other things I use and recommend.

These are the tools I rely on to stay productive.

Workstation

  • 13.6” MacBook Air, M2, 16GB RAM (2022)

    I've been a Mac user since the first Intel Macbook in 2006. More RAM needed in 2025 for local LLM dev.

Productivity

  • Apple Notes

    I've tried everything from Evernote to Obsidian, Reflect, Mem but nothing gets out of my way enough enough. I use Notion for work.

  • Reclaim.ai

    Smart meeting booking links, automated smart calendar blocking & habit scheduling. Combined with Cron/Notion caldnear app.

  • Things

    The best Personal task manager I've ever used. I've tried them all. For work nothing really stuck, Linear is OK but I often end up using Notes or Notion instead.

  • Clay

    Clay is a personal CRM, I use it to remember things about people I've met, remind me to keep in touch & find experts in my network.

  • Banktivity

    Not perfect, but the best app out there for tracking personal finances on Mac in detail. Without this I wouldn't know if I had any money or where it was.

  • Texts

    Supercharged version of iMessage, with a focus on privacy and security and rolls DMs from WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, LinkedIn & Discord into one unified feed. I'm using it for all my personal messaging now.

Development tools

  • Cursor

    Game changing. I'm 2-10x more productive depending on the stack.

  • Lightning.ai

    Jupyter Notebooks obviously, but I recently switched to running Notebooks on Lightning AI for AI/ML dev. Easier to share code & provision GPUs on-demand. Next best thing to a local 4090 build.

Learning & Investing

  • Goodreads + Kindle + Readwise Reader + Snipd

    Goodreads to track Books, read on Kindle. Readwise Reader for everything else (articles, PDFs, Videos, etc.). Snipd for podcasts. Highlights across Kindle, Reader & Snips sync to Readwise.

  • Public Markets

    Most consumer finance apps in the UK are bad, so I use Interactive Brokers primarily for investing, with the exception of tax-wrapped ISA & SIPP.

  • Financial Analysis

    I avoid news. Most analysis available to the public is poor compared with institutional grade research, but it's improving and I read The Macro Compass, Howard Marks, The Morning Hark, the FT, Odd Lots, All-in Podcast, X.