
Ask HN: What tools have most helped your day-to-day productivity? - cadeljwatson
I&#x27;m looking to find out what tools people use (software, apps, or otherwise) to increase productivity. It could be things like task management systems or more specific development tools (like a certain CI provider).
======
markshead
I have a 7-minute sand timer I picked up for a few dollars. Whenever there is
a task I keep putting off, I'll commit to doing the task at least until the
timer runs out. It probably sounds silly, but it really helps me get things
done that I'd avoid otherwise.

~~~
harrisi
How often do you find yourself either keeping to that seven minute limit or
going past it? Also, do you flip it over at the end if you go past the seven
minutes? How do you decide when to start it?

~~~
markshead
I don't flip it over. Usually I'll go beyond the timer for some period of time
because once I get some momentum on a task, I'll want to finish it up. I also
use it to timebox activities that can consume the entire day. For example, if
my office starts getting messy I may decide I want to spend 7 minutes a day
just straightening things and organizing. In that situation, it becomes more
of a notification of when to stop and get back to other work.

------
throwaway010718
My reply falls in the _otherwise_ category.

The Nutribullet blender has let me add one additional billable hour a day.
Instead of cooking breakfast I blend it. Half an avocado, 1 raw egg (for the
downvotes), protein powder, a little flour (or walnuts), creatine a frozen
banana (or carrots), and almond milk. I love them.

I make these twice a day and prepare 3 smaller quick meals. Less dishwashing.
Less decision fatigue as to what to eat when I awake.

I also purchased a pull-up bar and skip the gym most days.

A better Wifi router surprisingly helped too. I was previously adamant that my
old one was fine since it provided 5X the bandwidth provided by my ISP anyway.
I was wrong.

I'd also recommend learning to cut your own hair and stop watching the news so
you can concentrate on your tasks and not ruminate about the state of the
world.

~~~
lev99
I use to visit a barber twice a month to maintain my hair. The total time cost
was 5 hrs/month, and a cost of $50/month. Now I shave my head 3 times a week.
The total time cost is 8 minutes a shave, or 1.5 hours/month and a cost of
$10/month.

The 3.hrs/month and $40/month extra is nice, but I wouldn't recommend it to
someone as a productivity hack.

~~~
thunfischbrot
What kind of hair "maintenance" are we talking about? My admittedly low-
maintenance hair style takes one visit about every two months and costs ~20USD
each. Just wondering whether this is a case of both different hair styles and
different local barber pricing, or whether there's more to it.

~~~
lev99
I had a stylish haircut. It included using both a razor and scissors. The
haircut looked significantly worse if it grew 1cm and noticeably worse at
.75cm. My hair grows about 1.4cm/month.

I bundle style, hygiene, diet and exercise together in a group called
"appearance" and find investments in this category valuable for non-malicious
social engineering.

------
matt2000
I use a bunch of IDEs from
[https://www.jetbrains.com/](https://www.jetbrains.com/) (mainly Idea) and it
is hands down the most important thing for my productivity. Been using them
for over 10 years, super worth it.

~~~
chris_st
Seconded. I've used RubyMine for years (at home and at work), just getting
into Go, and finding GoLand by them is fantastic.

Also tmux.

------
bobx11
I record my screen all day using a cron job and shell script and a small node
express app to review the day and categorize time. I always was inspired by
John Carmac's discipline so I do that knowing I'm recorded and know I will see
it later when reviewing my day.

It's way more of an optimizing tool than switching ide's ever was for me.

~~~
mslate
Open source it! :)

~~~
quizbiz
please!

------
kevan
I've slowly developed my own system to focus my efforts. It's mostly manual
now but I'm automating it.

Daily: Reference my weekly goals and decide what I intend to do for the day.
Look back on the previous day and pull over not-done items that I still need
to do. It's very tactical execution. Examples are cleaning the house,
finishing up taxes, or scheduling lunch with a friend.

Weekly: I write a summary of the areas in life I care about (work, family,
social interactions, fitness, reading, volunteering) because my memory isn't
great. I also reflect on the previous week's goals. Then I decide on goals for
the next week. It's similar to iteration retro/planning at work. The big thing
to watch for is intentions that show up multiple days but I don't end up
executing. This is a sign that either I need to focus on it more, or stop
wasting energy on it if it's not actually important. Examples of weekly goals
are getting 7 hours of sleep, going to the gym 3 times, or building a feature
in a side project.

Quarterly, or whenever I finish a big goal: Review the big picture goals. Are
they the right goals? Are my weekly goals helping me achieve them? Examples of
these are training for and running a 15k, completing a side project, or
starting a band.

~~~
rp1229
What tools or apps are you using to track/automate this data?

~~~
kevan
I'm building a web app for it. I could probably piece it together from
existing tools but I needed a side project and I think other people might
benefit from it.

------
na85
Bullet journaling.

If you scrape off the layer of Tumblr or pinterest types who spend their time
on calligraphy and washi tape, underneath is a really great system for
productivity and dumping your brain to an analog medium.

Bonus: it's just a book and a pen, so it's "cross platform", and I never have
to worry about XaaS providers going under, or Google killing a project and
losing all my notes.

~~~
CogDisco
Do you have any recommendations for tutorials or guides?

~~~
Bilters
[http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/](http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/)

------
_tulpa
I use Ike for Android (Eisenhower time management matrix). It's adapted for
people who can't use 'Delegate' for less important tasks:

    
    
          Now | Soon
        -------------
        Maybe | Don't
    

Everything else I've tried for task management left me kinda paralysed trying
to figure out what to do first and procrastinating.

The `Don't` quadrant is also a good place to record the things I do to
procrastinate.

Keeping it all on my phone and _not_ syncing it to a device that I actually
use for work also stops me idly peeking at other tasks and loosing focus on
what I need to finish (at which point I just take a break instead)

The app I use can have multiple matrices for work/home/whatever, but I tend to
just usea single matrix and focus on managing _all_ of my time.

------
alaq
I also use Workflowy for my notes/todos/journal. I connect it with complice.co
where I set my intentions for the day every morning.

------
cmcginty
I usually create reminders from my desktop but I want to READ, DISMISS, SNOOZE
and RESCHEDULE them on my phone. This led me to combine two usefull apps.

1) Remind Me Later ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remind-me-
later/id408236729?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remind-me-
later/id408236729?mt=12)) - Let's you create Google calendar events from your
desktop with single shortcut. It works like google "quick event" text box.
Just write the reminder with a day or time at the end. I created a new
calendar in Google to group all my reminders.

2) Calendar Notifications Plus
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.qua...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.quarck.calnotify&hl=en))
- Ensures you get a notification for every calendar event, even ones without
an alarm. From the lock screen you can dismiss or snooze the reminder. You can
configure the list of snooze times and the default swipe length. You can move
the event to a different date and time. You can pick which calendars it
monitors, so if you just want it to see your reminders, it can.

~~~
thinkingemote
>It works like google "quick event" text box

Google has removed this feature in Calendar, sadly.

------
cameldrv
Gmail filters. Take a month. Whenever an email comes in that is not
actionable, unsubscribe, or create a rule that either trashes it or sends it
to a low priority folder. PayPal notifications of monthly statements, your
credit card bill has been paid, mailing lists, make a rule for all of em. Now
your inbox contains almost exclusively email from a person to you. This makes
it far easier to operate at inbox zero.

~~~
over_score
There's a nice open source alternative I use called imapfilter by Lefteris
Chatzimparmpas. I have it set to run every 2 minutes on a remote server and
have the config file in an svn repo. It's easy to add new rules locally, and I
have it set to auto-deploy when I commit a change.

It's also pretty powerful. For example, any email in my "Newsletters" folder
is automatically deleted if it's 30 days old.

Same as the above comment, it only works if you are diligent about adding new
rules, but after a while you'll notice that the only emails in your inbox are
important.

When moving to this type of system, instead of manually deleting or moving an
email from your inbox, add a rule to do it for you, commit it, and watch the
email disappear from your inbox. Write the rule once and you'll never have to
deal with that type of email again.

------
davidcuddeback
A door that closes.

~~~
loco5niner
I wish

~~~
davidcuddeback
Being able to work out of a home office helps with this. And moving out of San
Francisco helps with being able to afford a home office. This wasn't my
primary motivation for moving out of SF, but it's been a nice benefit.

------
tzhenghao
Sorry for the non-answer here, but I think this is rather subjective depending
on what kind of work you're doing and the tools needed for the job.

With that being said, learning shortcuts/macros for whatever tool you're using
can lead to impressive productivity gains. This can be learning up more
shortcuts for Vim, to learning how to create tables efficiently in Excel
(lol). Customize some for yourself if you need to.

Another thing that has worked for me is automation. Automate as many things
that are repetitive as you can. In software, this can be simple bash scripts.
Learn how to scripts well. If it's 3 manual steps that you need to get an app
running for dev purposes, stick it all into 1 script and run just that 1
script.

You're minimizing the risk of human error and increase your productivity
significantly.

------
mike_n
StayFocusd chrome plugin -- I set it up so that I have a grand total budget of
10 minutes _combined_ between 8am-10pm to look at notorious time-suck sites
like Reddit/NYT/FB/etc. After the time is up, you're locked out of all the
sites. It's great, and free.

------
Tenobrus
Emacs, Org mode, magit, Alfred.

------
gormanc
Visual Studio Code with the LaTeX Workshop addon is definitely my favorite
LaTeX editor. The integration with the Chktex linter, latexmk, git, and all
that jazz just makes it so much easier to focus on writing.

For research management I had been using Mendeley for a while and got a bit
frustrated with the way it handled bibtex. Like it got really annoying when I
had papers which fell into multiple categories and/or were used in multiple
papers. My new setup is to use JabRef to manage individual bibtex files for
specific projects and to use Mendeley just for document management and notes.

Oh also PyCharm is extremely good.

~~~
danielecook
I initially like Mendeley but ran into problems over time. I've tried half a
dozen options out there and found www.paperpile.com to be my favorite.

------
tonyztan
Workflowy: [https://workflowy.com](https://workflowy.com)

Dynalist: [https://dynalist.io](https://dynalist.io)

Either one works great for productivity.

~~~
phirschybar
I used Workflowy for a couple years and loved it. But I craved something a
_little_ more robust and found [https://checkvist.com](https://checkvist.com).
It is similar to WF in terms of concept and UI but it has a lot of handy
extras.

~~~
maxkir
Hi, thanks for mentioning. I'm a Checkvist developer, if you have any
questions - please ask.

~~~
severine
Wow, has this really existed for seven years? Congratulations, smooth as silk,
impressive!

~~~
maxkir
Well, a bit more, actually. It will be 10 soon :)

------
Dejital
C# Developer:

\- Vi-key bindings in Visual Studio (and VSCode) for editor navigation

\- Resharper for code generation and file navigation

\- A password manager for maintaining secure passwords

\- Todoist to for task management

\- Evernote (premium) for notes management

------
itamarst
Tools really only can help you so much. Productivity is a lot more about
attitude and skills. The necessary attitude is that you are trying to avoid
unnecessary work, instead of the more typical of attitude of trying to do all
the work more efficiently.

More here:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/)

------
jacques_chester
I have ADHD-PI (previously called ADD).

The two things that have helped me most are (1) ritalin and (2) pair
programming. Between the two of them I can stay mostly on task. I am able to
use less ritalin when I am pairing, which I like, because at higher doses I
get uncomfortable muscle tension.

Coming third, a fair way back, is a calendar program. Any one of them will do,
so long as I can program multiple reminders.

Everything else is negotiable. I'd scribble code by hand before giving up
ritalin.

------
jonathankoren
Leechblock
[http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/](http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/)

------
bamboozled
I use this every minute of the day :) [https://tomato-
timer.com/](https://tomato-timer.com/)

~~~
dominotw
Came here to say pomodoro technique. I use a physical kitcten timer at home
but use this website when I am working out of a coffee shop.

------
sackeyj1
I have a running list on google doc where I write down every and anything that
pops up in my mind throughout the day that I consider a to-do or inquiry. I
organize the document by day and start with three categories: high priority,
medium priority, and low priority. I tend to develop anxiety when I think I
might forget a novel idea or task because of the other obligations I have
throughout the day. Once I write down the to-do/inquiry, I vow to put the
thought away until later in the day when I have down time to get more in
depth. This has really helped me stay focused on tasks more deeply.

I also maintain a bullet journal. Like others have described, once you get
past the frills and truly customize it's functionality, it becomes a very
powerful tool for accountability. If you are a paper and pen type of person.

------
dgudkov
Switching Gmail to the Inbox mode. Then it suddenly becomes a pretty decent
task queue management tool.

------
redindian75
Figma.com (a browser based Sketch) for me.

I am able to quickly prototype out ideas. I used to use Slides or OneNote for
jotting down ideas, now I just sketch them out and wire them up as a quick
prototype. Now I have all of my quick sparks sketched and drawn out without
getting lost.

~~~
danielecook
have you seen [http://www.draw.io](http://www.draw.io)? I like that one.

~~~
redindian75
Yes - I have & I use it for user flows. But that is mainly for flowcharts and
visio type of drawings.

------
coolvision
I'm using "Lights spreadsheet" to fight procrastination and build good habits:
[https://www.ultraworking.com/lights/](https://www.ultraworking.com/lights/)

------
VladimirGolovin
Workflowy ([https://workflowy.com](https://workflowy.com)) - diaries,
projects, brainstorming, someday/maybe idea storage.

Evernote ([https://evernote.com](https://evernote.com)) - a store-and-forget
tool for information of any kind that I might need at some point.

Matterlist ([https://matterlist.com](https://matterlist.com)) - to-do lists,
recurring tasks, calendar. (Full disclosure: it's my own Wunderlist
alternative, currently in alpha testing.)

~~~
terraforming
Matterlist seems interesting. My problem with these kind of services always
comes to two things:

\- Pricing; \- Privacy;

I find it incredibly expensive to spend 5usd (and 10 on some) for essentially
a to-do-list software. And you might tell me that it's the price of a coffee,
but it really is not. A coffee, where I am from, is much cheaper, but more
importantly, everything is subscription based nowadays. How come it is so
expensive?

\- Privacy: Is that E2EE? I suppose not. Does anyone know of such a project
that has E2EE and is not from the US? (edit: apparently, matterlist is from
estonia. Good)

Also, you state "Try our native apps __now __! It 's free!". I would, but
apparently it's "coming soon". There are no accounts and there is nothing to
download yet. Is it even possible to use it right now?

~~~
VladimirGolovin
> _Is that E2EE?_

Not yet. However, this is something I'd absolutely like to see implemented,
including for my own personal use. Alternatively, we could use optional
LastPass-style encryption based on a master password for task texts, which
should be easier to implement (though it will restrict search by task text to
client-only).

> _How come it is so expensive?_

We'll need to be self-sustained for the long term. The app is 100%
bootstrapped and there will be no external funding. Plus, a to-do app just
cannot afford to be unsustainable, because its closure will hurt a lot of its
users. So we'd prefer to scare off some part of our potential user base, but
in exchange gain better financial stability and thus longevity.

Also, it may be just me, but the app, as it currently is, with all its rough
corners, provides _much_ more value (at least by a couple of orders of
magnitude) to me than it's planned monthly cost.

> _Also, you state "Try our native apps now! It's free!". I would, but
> apparently it's "coming soon"_

Sorry for that. We haven't publicly announced the app yet, but the site is
written and designed as if the app is already available for download, hehce
the mismatch.

------
kody
The timer on my watch for Pomodoro. The tactile alarm is less jarring than
audio.

Also Vim.

------
grizzles
rm -f gulpfile.js

I recently made a decision to try hard to avoid a build step in my scripting
projects. Happy with it.

------
kleer001
There's no object or process (hardware or software) instrumental to
productivity. It comes from the personality dimension called conscientiousness
(not intelligence). It can be improved with focused work.

Here's Harvard's advice on doing that:
[https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/raising-
your-...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/raising-your-
conscientiousness)

------
mixologic
[https://rescuetime.com](https://rescuetime.com) , when I bother to pay
attention to it.

------
danielecook
I'll detail some of my favorites for Alfred, in the terminal, and in sublime-
text.

 _Alfred_

I like [http://www.alfredapp.com](http://www.alfredapp.com). Gives you
immediate access to lots of tools and you can install custom workflows. A few
favorites:

sublime workflow - [https://github.com/franzheidl/alfred-
workflows/tree/master/o...](https://github.com/franzheidl/alfred-
workflows/tree/master/open-with-sublime-text) \- Useful for opening folders or
files in sublime.

git repos - [https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-
repos](https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-repos) \- Search local repos in
alfred

font-awesome search [https://github.com/ruedap/alfred-font-awesome-
workflow](https://github.com/ruedap/alfred-font-awesome-workflow) \- Retrieve
css for fontawesome.com icons.

HN - [https://github.com/wkgg/hackerNews-alfred-
workflow](https://github.com/wkgg/hackerNews-alfred-workflow) Shows hacker
news in Alfred.

I've also written a couple workflows. There is a really nice python library:
[https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-
workflow](https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-workflow) that makes it easy.

gist-alfred - [https://github.com/danielecook/gist-
alfred](https://github.com/danielecook/gist-alfred) \- Search and copy github
gists from alfred.

Quiver-alfred - [https://github.com/danielecook/Quiver-
alfred](https://github.com/danielecook/Quiver-alfred) \- Search and open
quiver notes

codebox-alfred - [https://github.com/danielecook/codebox-
alfred](https://github.com/danielecook/codebox-alfred) \- Search and copy
codebox snippets.

I've come to rely on the codebox and gist workflows for managing snippets
quite a bit.

 _Terminal_

Autojump
[https://github.com/wting/autojump](https://github.com/wting/autojump) \-
Remembers what directories you have visited and allows you to jump to them.
Jump to them by typing

    
    
      j <fuzzy search dir name>
    

pyenv - [https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv) \+
python-virtualenv - Manage python versions or virtual environments at the
directory level. Makes managing multiple projects with different software
requirements much easier.

direnv - [https://direnv.net](https://direnv.net) \- Similar to pyenv except
it allows you to set environmental variables. Useful for setting things like
API keys.

 _Sublime-Text_

I'm a big fan of sublime text. Some of my favorite packages are:

git - [https://github.com/kemayo/sublime-text-
git](https://github.com/kemayo/sublime-text-git) \- Add, commit, branch, push,
pull

GitGutter -
[https://github.com/jisaacks/GitGutter](https://github.com/jisaacks/GitGutter)
\- Shows which lines are modified, added, and deleted in the gutter of the
editor.

SendCode -
[https://github.com/randy3k/SendCode](https://github.com/randy3k/SendCode) \-
Send code to the terminal/iTerm/IDE.

SublimeLinter-flake8 - [https://github.com/SublimeLinter/SublimeLinter-
flake8](https://github.com/SublimeLinter/SublimeLinter-flake8) \- Used to
clean up Python code.

------
meaydinli
I use Pocket to save articles to read later, Todoist for my to-do list, and
OneTab chrome extension to keep my Chrome tabs clean.

~~~
over_score
Wallabag is a great open source alternative that you can host yourself.
Anything interesting that I stumble across on hacker news (or elsewhere), I
add to Wallabag, then when I fly I have a huge collection of articles to read.

------
bewe42
Sorry for a non-answer, but I noticed whenever I get excited trying out new
tools and apps (I love productivity apps), what is really happening is that I
just procrastinate. Tools can be useful but won't make you magically more
productive.

Having said that, what I find incredibly useful is Scapple as a form of
"smart" paper.

------
priyadarshy
I use Sunsama daily ([https://sunsama.com](https://sunsama.com)) to navigate
my time + tasks. Disclaimer: I also work on making it.

I also built a really fast rig recently. It saves me a lot of time since I’m
spending less time waiting for projects to build and can’t lose focus.

------
pokstad
TextMate - simple with great bundle support.

Also, a new version (v2.0-rc.8) just came out a few days ago:
[https://github.com/textmate/textmate/releases/tag/v2.0-rc.8](https://github.com/textmate/textmate/releases/tag/v2.0-rc.8)

------
nerdydude1
Vim.

------
sebazzz
Developer journal, simply in OneNote, kept day by day and a separate section
for general knowledge or quick snippets.

It takes some time before it pays off, in my case one month, but it offloads
your memory and allows you to quickly look up issues to problems you have had
before.

------
pvb
vim,tmux,i3,taskwarrior and redmine

------
szastupov
It's totally fine to be a nerd about your tools, but sometimes, productivity
comes when you stop being one.

I had major productivity boosts after switching from a nerdy tool, to a more
mainstream one:

Linux -> Mac

Vim -> Emacs -> Sublime -> Vscode

Gdocs/OpenOffice/iWork -> MS Office

etc...

~~~
szastupov
Also, stopping hating JavaScript and embracing it allowed me to do awesome
things. I used to be a system/backend-only engineer, but once you get your
head around UI, you get a lot more freedom.

And it's not just about getting MVPs out. For example, I had to make a few
audio-processing algorithms, and in order to help myself understand and debug
those, I build a simple web app to visualize each step of effects chain. Oh,
and with hot module reloading, I can record a sample, then change the code and
see updated results without losing the sample. Bret Victor level of
productivity ;)

Oh, and after some bundling and transpiling (if necessary), I can run the same
code in browsers, node.js and mobile (we're actually using jscore directly)!

------
jlelonm
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Freedom:

[https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)

It's a siteblocker, except at the VPN level (so you can't just disable it from
your browser).

Really helps me be productive.

------
mimagic
if like me, you're an avid user of vim, the vimium [0] plugin was a game
changer in my productivity.

[0]: [https://vimium.github.io/](https://vimium.github.io/)

------
werkjohann
Walls. They block distractions to a number of senses: audio, light, smell.

------
weitzj
I use [http://www.hammerspoon.org](http://www.hammerspoon.org) for scripting
my own window management, extra shortcuts for my mouse, pomodoro timer.

~~~
nusbit
care to share how you use hammerspoon?

~~~
AdamGibbins
\- Flip audio outputs dependant on the application running (e.g. if Zoom I
want my headset with mic, if Spotify I want my DAC/Amp).

\- Mute sound when suspending, so I don't accidentally wake my laptop up with
the volume on in some public place.

\- Bind applications I use often to capslock+letter.

\- Close ScanSnap application when my scanner isn't plugged in, and open it
when it is.

\- Move windows and resize them when I'm docked into monitors.

\- Type my paste buffer into places where paste is forbidden.

\- Extend my screen timeout from 2m to 10m when at home (based on SSID).

A few of the examples, there's 1000s of things you can do.

------
zeroxfe
Evernote and VSCode have both been gigantic productivity boosts for me.

------
mw67
The "Do Not Disturb" mode on my mac and iphone

------
jakebasile
Vim, although now I often use Atom with Vim bindings for Clojure work.

Parinfer for Atom.

Clojure. Easily the most productive tool in my library.

------
BrianOD
Netsso.com, bookmarker which holds all my links to places I might wish to
revisit, behind one single sign on, from any PC/ Android. Very fast re-find
search. Also loads my Dropbox while encrypting the files if i wish to, and
they decrypt on any other machine, with no software required. Takes Notes,
too,

------
phirschybar
The clipboard manager in Alfred

~~~
Voyiatzis
Ditto, indispensable utility within a must-have mac OS utility. I look forward
to one day having the option to increase the font size of the clipboard.

------
rodjomatic
Autohotkey, Resharper, Timesnapper, Evernote, Stickies (the app, not the
paper)

------
fiveFeet
gitlab projects - for todo lists, notes etc., (so they can be accessed
everywhwere)

pycharm - for editing python programs

Zim - for wiki style editing

vim - for remote files, non python files etc., where pycharm is not option

------
hprotagonist
tmux, emacs/emacsclient, org-mode.

------
hestefisk
pen/paper, OneNote, think-cell for graphs / reports, Alteryx for quick data
blending.

------
uselpa
orgmode for work on the Mac, OmniFocus on Mac and iPhone for private tasks.

