My Windows productivity stack
I cracked the screen of my laptop at work. Call it bad luck. The zipper of my sweater was stuck between my laptop when I closed the lid. At first, I thought it was a smudge but after touching it, the whole screen started flickering.
Luckily, it’s my work laptop, meaning it can be fixed while I get a replacement to continue working.
With the upside, this also comes with a downside, as processes of quotes and approvals are needed before any repair can be done. Meaning I’m stuck with this replacement for quite a bit longer. And as there are delays at Dell, the entire process will take even longer.
We work in the Microsoft ecosystem, so as long as everything I require is in the cloud, I can continue working. But still, I require a few extra “applications” for my productivity and organization of things.
So hereby a list of them. Do note that these mainly serve in my role as a product owner at our company, and everything Microsoft is already preinstalled.
1Password (passwords): everything starts with my favorite password manager, which did not have any breaches in the past, unlike many others. It has all my passwords and information, so even on a new device, I can quickly log in.
Powertoys (launcher): a Microsoft power user set of utilities, which I mainly use for fancy zones to define my Windows layouts (where to place applications), and it’s run command bar. I just need to tap Alt+Space to launch, after which I can do calculations, open programs, … Similar to Apple Spotlight. Theoretically, I can also launch programs via Windows+s, but I find the command bar much more appealing.
Espanso & Sublime Text (text replacement): I’ve been using Mac (personal) and Windows (work) side by side for years. Yet, one thing I don’t understand is why after all these years, Windows still doesn’t have a native text replacement tool, like available on Mac. Nothing more convenient than typing ”em” to get a fully expanded email address. For that reason, I always install Espanso, a lightweight and free app for text replacement. Unfortunately, to define snippets, you need to edit their configuration files, which you could do via Notepad. But I use Sublime Text, a full-featured text editor, for better overview and access.
Ticktick (tasks): after doing a thorough check of what’s available, I settled on Ticktick as my to-do manager for both work and personal things. For a long time, I’ve held on to Things but as that’s “Apple” only and adding to-dos is not that quick, I decided to make the switch, making it easy to manage and follow up whatever device I’m using. In Ticktick, I add recurring and general tasks to get notification pop-ups. I don't add tasks linked to my meetings, as those go into Tana.
Tana (notes & tasks): over the years, I’ve been testing and moving from one note-taking application to another, with a similar story for task managers. While for note-taking, I could have kept using Obsidian (which I still do for personal stuff), however, my biggest struggle is task linking for context. When I’m in meetings, I take notes and record actions and tasks. But moving them to a task manager takes work, and when I would start working on a task I could get stuck, missing the context of why the task was created. I’ve been using Tana for 1.5 years now, and I love its super-tags, so I can add a task in a meeting note and easily retrieve it afterwards. It’s also flexible enough to tweak with tags, due dates, … making it perfect for me to plan my days and stay on top of everything I need to do.
ArcBrowser with full syncing: as much as I like Arc, with its minimal feel and features, it doesn’t allow for multi-profile and plugin syncing. So, when logging on to a new device, I’ll need to reinstall and re-authenticate everything. So for the moment, I’ve settled Vivaldi, Chrome (for work Google applications) and Edge (set as default) for my browsing needs.Web apps: besides the above applications, I also install a few websites as independent apps, allowing me quick access to them, without having to open the browser. Websites I install as such are ChatGPT, Claude AI & brain.fm (for focus music).
