Things that help me tick.

Workstation

• M1 Ultra Mac Studio, 64GB RAM (2022)

  The Mac Studio has been a long time coming. Previously I used the M1 Mac Mini, but it only supported a single display. Now I can have lots of displays.

• Apple Studio Display (Standard Glass)

  This is the successor to iMac 27" display from yore. This goes perfectly with the Mac Studio. The in-built audio is pretty good, (the mics not so much), and the webcam has nifty tricks built in.

• LG Ultrafine 4k (2x)

  These perfectly compliment the Studio Display (they have the same color profile and DPI). Having the Studio Display is nice. Having 3 is better.

• Apple Extended Keyboard

  While this isn't an ergonomic keyboard (I couldn't get the MS Sculpt to work natively with macOS, that was my favorite keyboard), it works great along with the trackpad, and has 10-key numbers.

• Apple Magic Trackpad

  I have found gestures to be far superior to using a mouse, even for design work. It is also less strain on my wrists.

• Elgato Key Light

  I don't actually use this as a key light for recording, but direct it to the wall opposite my desk to lighten the room and provide more natural lighting.

• Elgato Stream Deck

  This little wizard is useful for all kinds of things, even if you don't stream. Great for shortcuts, macros, and other quick actions that you do repeatedly.

• Elgato Wave XLR

  I switched to this for easy audio controls and less cable clutter.

• Røde NTG2 Shotgun Mic

  Have a mic obstructing your face is never great. I chose this mic to mount it above my monitor and aim it at me, providing great audio while remaining natural in video calls, screen recordings, and live streams.

• Apple Homepod (Original) Stereo Pair

  Getting in the zone and staying there for prolonged periods is important to me. Good music helps tremendously. Great-sounding music is even better!

Development Tools

• VSCode

  Over the past few years VSCode has come a long way, especially with the available plugins for the Laravel ecosystem. While I don't like the UI so much, it is very capable.

• Terminal

  I love Apple's terminal app, sprinkle on a custom theme, OhMyZsh! with a few good plugins, and you have a great terminal.

• TablePlus

  Great software for working with databases. Has saved me from building about a thousand admin interfaces for my various projects over the years.

Design

• Affinity Designer

  This is my go-to for designing vector graphics like logos or other one-offs.

• Figma

  Figma is great for designing web mockups.

Productivity

• Bullet Journal

  While not digital, staying analog from time to time is great to reset your baseline. The bullet journal is a natural starting point to check in with yourself and lead an intentional life.

• Apple Calendar

  I work best using a time-block approach. This helps me plan out each day and find the time necessary to complete my tasks. Using Apple's Calendar app works great, because it works seamlessly across the Apple ecosystem. I used to use a Pomodoro app, but this works better for me.