Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to design and build, stay productive, or occasionally fool myself into thinking I’m being productive. Here’s the current list of my favorite stuff.

Workstation

  • 14” MacBook Pro, M3 Max, 36GB RAM (2024)

    More than enough machine for design work and local dev at the same time. It stays silent through Figma, a dozen browser tabs, and a running dev server, which is all I really ask of it.

  • Studio Display

    A single clean 5K panel that handles both design and code. The extra vertical space matters more than I expected once I started living in component files all day.

  • Keychron K3 (low profile)

    A compact mechanical keyboard that doesn’t eat half my desk. Quiet enough for cafés, satisfying enough to type on all day.

  • Logitech MX Master 3S

    The horizontal scroll wheel alone earns its place when I’m nudging things around a canvas or scrubbing through long files.

  • Herman Miller Aeron Chair

    If I’m going to sit at a desk most of the day, I’d rather do it in a chair my back doesn’t complain about.

Development tools

  • VS Code

    Boring and dependable, which is exactly what I want from an editor. A handful of extensions and a quiet theme and I’m happy.

  • Ghostty

    A fast, no-fuss terminal. I spend enough time here that small amounts of latency genuinely matter to me.

  • TablePlus

    Great for poking at databases without writing a throwaway admin screen every time I need to check something.

Design

  • Figma

    Where most of my design work starts and where I keep design systems organized. The variables feature finally made tokens feel native.

  • Linear

    For tracking client work and my own projects. Fast, opinionated, and it gets out of the way.

Productivity

  • Raycast

    My launcher, clipboard history, snippet manager, and half a dozen other things I didn’t know I needed until I had them.

  • Obsidian

    A plain-text home for project notes, article drafts, and the running log I keep for every client engagement.

  • Cron

    Calendar that protects deep-work blocks and makes scheduling with clients across time zones far less painful.

  • Focus

    A simple website blocker for the stretch of the morning when I just need to build something and get momentum going.