After many, many years being a vim user I switched to VS Code in 2020. The language server and available plugins make it a joy to use. I have quite a few plugins installed, but here are the ones I couldn't live without:

* Vim mode
* ErrorLens
* GitHub Actions

I used iTerm2 for so long, but after reading a couple of blog posts about WezTerm I decided to bite the bullet and switch, and I'm glad I did. Lua as a configuration language is great, and I'm really enjoying both the UI and workspaces capability.

Everyone needs a place to store their code. I've use Bitbucket in the past, but went all-in on GitHub with the launch of GitHub Actions. It's the primary store for all my personal and private projects, and I make sure that I have local backups with gickup

The majority of sites that I build today use Eleventy, and are hosted by Netlify. If a site needs any interactivity, Netlify Functions provides everything that I need.

I started using Obsidian at the end of 2021 after multiple failed attempts at keeping a personal knowledgebase using various tools (TiddlyWiki being the most recent).

I kept it simple, using it as a place to drop unstructured notes. Then in 2025 I realised that I was using Bear, Ulysses, Obsidian, Todoist (and paying for them all) and I could consolidate down into a single app.

A combination of the Tasks and Quickadd plugins replaced Todoist, I have an Inbox folder for things that would previously have lived in Bear, and there's a Books folder for writing long-form content. It's working well for me so far.

MindNode is my go-to app for mapping out heirarchical data.

I've used it to build org charts, test out new information architectures for docs and bring order to an unsorted brain dump of ideas by clustering them together.

I was a heavy Pocket user until it was unceremoniously shut down in 2025. After evaluating the options, I switched over to Readwise Reader. It's saved searches gave me everything I needed from my pocket-tagger project, and the reading interface is much nicer.

Most of my content today comes from newsletters and private Slack communities. I still read a handful of sites via RSS (also in Readwise Reader) too. Readwise allows me to save any articles for later and not interrupt my concentration.

I catch up on my reading either on my phone, or using a Boox Color 7 (which is great at night time).

Podcasts and I have never gotten along, but recently I've been trying to diversify what I'm listening to.

Overcast is a wonderful app. My two must-have features are smart-speed (removes pauses) and the queue playlist, which lets me queue up 4-5 episodes and hide the rest so I don't get overwhelmed.

Although I don't get along with podcasts, I love audiobooks. I think it's because they're a bit longer, so there's time to acclimitise to the narrator's voice, and the content can go a bit deeper. Plappa is a mobile app for AudioBookShelf, which I run locally.

I listen to non-fiction, primarily management and psychology books. However, I have been known to become absorbed in a 30+ hour series from time to time. You can see what I'm listening to on Goodreads

Some books just aren't suited to (or aren't available in) audiobook format. For these books, I read on my Kindle Oasis and on the Kindle app on my iPhone.

I don't get time to sit and read for hours at a time, so stealing 3-4 pages whilst waiting for something else is a great way to increase how much I read.

Sunsama is my one-stop-shop for what I need to do each week. My day to day work is split across Todoist (personal), Jira, email (GMail), GitHub, Asana and Slack.

Keeping track of everything across all of those systems is almost impossible - something will slip through the cracks.

I can pull all of them in to a single view using Sunsama and schedule the work on my calendar around meetings. Allocating time for each item keeps me honest and has led to more realistic expectations.

Being able to aggregate all the systems and plan once per week, then use a single source of truth for the rest of the time has been game changing.

Finally, Fantastical, my calendar app of choice. I use it on MacOS and iOS, and happily pay the annual subscription to support the developers. There are two big wins for me: Calendar sets and Openings (their Calendly alternative).

We use calendars a lot in my household. We have separate calendars for myself, my wife, things we're doing together, our kids, the dog, house related work (such as tradespeople), plus my work + travel (TripIt) calendars. Being able to configure groups of calendars to show on demand is great. I can use my "Work" calendar set during the week, then switch to "Family" at the weekends.

I used to be a big Calendly user for booking interviews at work and coffee catch-ups with ex-colleagues, but have switched to Openings as it's included in my subscription and supports all of my calendars, not just my work one.

I'm a long time 1Password user, and have managed to convince all of my immediate family to use it too. Shared vaults are great for tech support, and they allow my wife and I to keep track of documents that we need.

Autocomplete works great, and it's the single source of truth for all of my software licenses and club memberships. I couldn't live without it.

I used Alfred for the longest time, but have recently jumped ship to Raycast due to it's extensions system and Javascript capabilities.

Most of the time it's a quick application launcher, but I have a couple of other uses (such as the emoji picker), and some custom workflows that call APIs and copy things to my clipboard.

I've recently started using it's snippets capability, both for common replies and for demo purposes (with autoexpand enabled).

The swiss army knife of MacOS automation. My Hammerspoon explorations started when trying to resize a window to 1080p on an ultrawide monitor to record videos, and it expanded from there.

I originally used Hammerspoon to manage my windows, but I've since installed Aerospace. Hammerspoon is now used for managing system preferences.

I have many utility bindings. One stops my machine from sleeping, another wraps the currently selected text in a link tag and sets the URL to whatever's on my clipboard. A different one toggles screen mirroring. The last toggles my audio output to be my Airpods or my external speakers. Anything I used to go into system settings for is now managed with Hammerspoon.

There's a lot more I could do with Hammerspoon, and I'm just getting started.

I started building out my A/V setup when recording a screencast series back in 2015. It's received some upgrades over the years and now looks like:

* Microphone: Shure SM7B with CloudLifter and Scarlett Solo DAC. Mounted on an Elgato Wave Mic Arm LP
* Camera: Canon M200 with EF-M 15-45mm lens
* Elgato Key Light Air (x2)
* Stream Deck (x2)

* OBS for scene control + green screen filters
* Screenflow for recording and editing videos
* Hidden Bar to hide everything in my taskbar and increase continuity

The most recent addition to my desk - an M1 Max Mac Studio with 2TB SSD and 64GB RAM. Bought to replace a 2018 Mac Mini, this thing handles everything I throw at it and stays cool to the touch whilst doing so.

I disable notifications on most apps, so having a way to receive notifications that I do have enabled is key. The Apple Watch fulfils that need and more.

It gets used for important notifications and fitness/sleep tracking, not much more.

I have both sizes of the iPad. The smaller one is primarily used for reading and the larger one is for media/board games.

I mainly use the iOS versions of the apps mentioned above (Readwise, Reeder, Obsidian, MindNode) but also have a couple more:

* Plex for media
* Board games! Currently Wingspan, Lords of Waterdeep and 7 Wonders
* Google Docs for on-the-move reviews

The reMarkable is a, well, remarkable device for thinking and note taking. I use it when I need to think and take notes and don't want to be distracted. Most of the time, I'm reading a long Google doc

It also gets a lot of use as a whiteboard whilst on calls. Whenever I need to sketch something out, I reach for the reMarkable's screen sharing ability and share the reMarkable app on my desktop. It feels liek drawing on paper, but everyone else can see my sketches in realtime.

Before I picked up a Switch, the last console that I owned was a Playstation 2. Going from that to the on/off experience of a switch was like night and day.

I travelled a lot for work, and the Switch allowed me to take games with me. My top 3 games: Hades, Into the Breach, and way too much time playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

The most recent addition to my gaming setup. All the benefits of the Switch and all of the power of a gaming PC. I've played a ton of games that I never got around to playing on my desktop - mainly platformers, but also some FPS games too.

If I could only recommend one game for the Steam Deck, it would be Hades 2.

For the longest time I used my gaming PC for League of Legends only - a habit that I've since kicked! After upgrading in 2024 I'm now catching up on a lot of games released over the last couple of years. Time is at a premium, so I allow myself to play while walking on a treadmill to double the efficiency!