You think the goal is to find the right tools.
But the goal is to have fewer places for your work to disappear.
I’ve seen creators drown in Notion databases they never finish building, app-hop project managers every quarter and spend more time playing with their tools than shipping from them.
The productivity content niche has you believing the next tool is the thing that will blow up your business.
It won’t.
The secret sauce is knowing what each tool in your stack is responsible for and building systems around that clarity.
Here’s what runs my business right now.
The stack
Half of these tools will be gone in 6 months. I’ll get into why at the end. First up…
1. Codex
This is where the leverage comes from these days. I use it for code, agents, automations, debugging and experiments. If I want to build something, a custom workflow, a new piece of infrastructure or a script that handles a recurring task, Codex is where it starts. It’s changed what I’m able to build without a dev team.
I switched over from Claude Code a few weeks ago. Claude Code has been unstable lately with random bugs and inconsistent behavior. Codex has improved massively. It one-shots things I throw at it now. Night and day difference from where it was a couple months back.
Bigger point though, you should be switching between LLMs regularly. Not because one is always better, but because they leapfrog each other constantly. The tool that was best last month might not be best today. If you lock yourself into one and never test the others, you’re leaving performance on the table and you won’t even know it.
2. Ghostty
My terminal. If you’re building your own systems, you need a fast, reliable place to operate in. Ghostty is that for me. Nothing hectic. Does its job without friction.
Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, uses Ghostty. He broke down his full workflow in this video with Greg Eisenberg. It’s worth a watch if you want to see how someone at the bleeding edge operates day to day. That video is what sold me on Ghostty in the first place.
3. Obsidian
Personal knowledge base. I use this daily now, notes, random ideas, newsletter drafts, including this one, lessons and systems. Anything that lives in my head goes here first.
It’s free, syncs to iCloud, it’s on all my devices and it’s basically an upgraded Notes app with way more capability.
There’s a whole lot I’m still discovering about it.
4. Notion
Shared structure. Lead magnets, client-facing system breakdowns, content organization and content automation.
If it needs to be structured and usable by someone other than me, it lives in Notion. Obsidian is personal, messy and mine. Notion is structured, shared and built for collaboration.
Fast, simple, always open. I’m looking for a strong open-source replacement but I haven’t found one that doesn’t add friction.
Until then, GCal stays.
6. Todoist
Execution layer. If it’s not in Todoist, it doesn’t happen. I don’t use it for planning, I use it for doing.
A task has to exist somewhere for it to get done. This is that place.
7. superwhisper
Highest ROI app in the stack. It captures voice-to-text so fast that I can get an idea out of my head before I lose it, between calls, mid-workout. Most of my best ideas used to disappear because the friction between thinking and writing was too high. superwhisper killed that friction.
I built my own dictation app, “Dictator.” I use that when I’m on the go. But when I’m at my desk, it’s superwhisper. The team behind it is so good that my DIY version doesn’t come close in terms of polish and accuracy. I mentioned that app here.
8. Tailscale
Makes private access to my machines and local systems painless. I run systems locally that I need to reach from anywhere.
Tailscale handles that without turning it into a networking project. It works.
9. Paperclip
Part of my custom stack. This is a local control plane I’ve built for my workflows, agents and business ops.
It coordinates the AI systems running. Not something you can download from the App Store, it’s something custom built. Which is the point.
The highest-leverage part of my infrastructure is the part I control.
10. Tella
Async recordings, walkthroughs and content without turning everything into a meeting. When I need to explain something to a client, document a process or create a quick piece of content without setting up a full production workflow, Tella handles it.
It’s fast and outputs something professional without a lot of effort.
11. Amphetamine
Tiny app, massive utility. Keeps my machine awake during long workflows, renders, uploads and local system jobs. If you run anything that takes time, which you should, you need something to handle this. Amphetamine does it cleanly.
The other thing worth saying is a lot of this stack exists because I built custom infrastructure on top of it. Paperclip isn’t something I installed. Codex isn’t a writing tool I open and close. The leverage in my business comes from the layer I built between the tools and my workflow.
If I had to rebuild from scratch tomorrow, I’d start with Claude Code and ask it to replace half the stack. That’s what I’ve been doing lately.
That’s the direction this is heading.
More on that soon.