Alfred has been the a lifesaver on macOS and I use it instead of Spotlight. Aside from the usual shenanigans like launching apps, searching etc., I have a bunch of custom integrations for updating my notes, looking up information on the internet and the like. I also use it as my default snippets manager on macOS.
Tools tagged with #productivity
My primary LLM assistant is Claude. I use the Sonnet 4.5 model and occasionally use the Opus 4.5 models for anything that needs a little more thought. I also use Claude code as my primary coding assistant with all its ecosystem tools/mcp/skills/agents etc.
I use f.lux for adjusting my screen’s color temperature based on time of day to reduce eye strain and improve sleep quality. This is also cross-platform and my configuration is consistent.
I can’t remember the number of times I’ve had to re-run a specific task before macOS slept on me on my work laptop. This has been a lifesaver to prevent macOS from sleeping and killing any active sessions.
Obsidian is the last app in my quest for a good local note-taking system. Having used pretty much every tool out there, the fact that Obsidian is local, stores files in plain .md files is the killer feature. It does support a lot of plugins, but I pretty much use it vanilla with a few core plugins. Pretty much everything I keep track of goes into Obsidian. I don’t obsess much with the Zettlekasten approach to note-taking with backlinks.