My Professional Toolkit

December 2, 2022

Preferences are preferences, but should you want a recommendation, here’s my current setup:

Hardware

Mouse: Logitech G403
Keyboards:
- K73 - custom keyboard, not available in stores.
- Magic Keyboard for Apple users and Glorious GMMK for PC users (goofy name aside, you’ll need to buy key switches and keycaps).
Headphones:
- AfterShokz OpenComm Bluetooth - Bone-conductive, lets my ears breathe. All-day battery. Ridiculous range. Fantastic noise cancellation. Minimal audio latency. Great for conference calls. Terrible for music.
- Sennheiser HD 599 SE - Open air, lightweight, excellent audio capabilities out of an unpowered 1/8” jack. (Disclaimer: I’ve haven’t used the HD599 myself, but my discontinued HD590 and HD598 have been in service for 15 years and 8 years, respectively, and I have 0 regrets.)
Displays:
- 27” Dell U2720Q - I use a window manager to split the screen real estate into two parts. Others may prefer two monitors.
- 40” Dell U4021Q - It’s basically 50% more real estate over the 27” with slightly less pixel density. Oh, and it’s curved.
Laptop:
- 2021 Apple MacBook Pro 14” M1 Max - I love this machine so much I now have two of them: one in Space Gray and one in Silver to keep my personal and work lives separate. (Also, given that my livelihood depends on technology, the redundancy has been super-helpful on the rare equipment failure.)
- Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 - Still my favorite laptop after Apple’s offerings. Highly configurable. Skip the touchscreen and add the cellular modem.
Cellphone: iPhone 13 Pro - this was a mistake. Opt for the 13 Mini.
Tablet: reMarkable 2 and iPad Pro 11” for content creation and content consumption, respectively.

Software

E-mail client: Mail.app (MacOS’s default e-mail client). Thunderbird for Windows/Linux.
Calendar: Fantastical - desktop app that’s a fantastic calendar.
Window Manager: Divvy - cheap and good
Note-taking: Joplin - markdown-based note taking. Chosen as it effortlessly absorbed my old Evernote notebooks. Could use better sharing/multi-surface features, but they’re constantly improving the experience. Jury is still out.

Important desk accessories

A Desk Mat - an infinite mousepad. You can find them in all sorts of patterns.
Lighting: Lume Cube LED Desk Light - inexpensive but wholly adequate.

Furniture

Chair: Herman Miller Aeron - Modern (not classic) edition, fully loaded with arm rest and lumbar adjustments. Size B and Carbon or Mineral color for me. Be sure to read the details carefully as there are many editions of this chair and it’s not always immediately obvious which is wich.
Footrest: Get one. I use this as it came free with an old desk.