Tools & Tech

I’ve been building out this set of tools and tech to support my work for over 20 years. My advice: start small try out new apps and platforms in relation to what you are trying to do and use projects as a context to learn new tools and tech. This is my “tech stack” with related resources. Some of the resources contain affiliate links to help offset the costs of resource sharing.

Contents

  • Obsidian
    Obsidian is my go to application for pretty much everything I do as part of my work as a music teacher educator. It is a hub for my teaching with plans and assignments, it houses all of my note making and work with existing scholarship and ideas along with my own research projects, it’s where I now do all of my writing unless I am collaborating with other folks and need to write in a google doc. It’s where I keep all of my meeting notes. All this and more. I pay for Obsidian’s sync service so I can access it across devices and also pay for the publish service so I can publish notes from classes that interns or TAs can access as well aspects of special projects. I also pay for Obsidian’s Catalyst account, which gives me access to the most recent updates but really it’s to financially support a company that makes an application that is core to my work.
  • Arc browser
    Arc is a great internet browser that supports the high degree of context shifting I do throughout the day. I can move seamlessly between “workspaces” or sets of tabs and as well as between signed in accounts on Google. I have a set of work “spaces” that I use for general ASU work, research, and teaching and then a set of spaces for things I do that are not specific to my university work.
  • OmniFocus
    OmniFocus is my task manager – everything I need to work on goes in there and eventually gets organized into varied projects and contexts.
  • Fantastical
    Fantastical is my calendar of choice – I honestly don’t remember why I like to use it better than the apple calendar, but it is my calendar app.
  • Spark mail
    Spark mail is my email app of choice. I use it for multiple email accounts and it integrates nicely with omnifocus. With a simple shortcut key I can send any email into OmniFocus, fill out the details and assign a due date. The folks at Readdle (the company behind Spark) hype up the AI aspects of the app but I don’t currently use the integrated AI.
  • PDF Expert
    PDF Expert, another Readdle, app is my PDF reader of choice. It makes it easy to interact with and annotate PDFs and also has AI integrations that I rarely use. Why Readdle rather than the Mac preview or other PDF apps? I honestly can’t remember at this point but it is fully integrated into my workflows so I keep using it. Plus, Readdle is based in Ukraine so it feels good to support the company.

  • Text Expander
    Text expander saves me hours each week. I set hotkeys or short key combinations that “expand” into anything from common feedback to students to an entire mad libs-style message with fillable fields, optional that I can paste in an email. Anything thing that you repeatedly type throughout a week deserves to go into text expander. For instance when I type “-mtg” in an email, the message below pops up letting me add a link to my Calendly appointment tool along with an optional greeting.
  • Keyboard Maestro
    Keyboard Maestro lets me create “macros” that automate all kinds of things. It saves me time of having to find and open a set of files individually by simply typing a hotkey. This is critical for the high degree of context switching that I do when moving from teaching classes, having meetings with students, having research team or other meetings, and working on projects.
  • Text Sniper
    Text Sniper lets you assign a hotkey to select and copy text that is otherwise not selectable with a cursor. For instance, I can be in a zoom meeting, hit the hotkey and copy a line of text from a slide that someone is sharing and then paste it in my notes, without having to take a screen shot. It is also perfect for when you want text from a document or site that hasn’t been run through OCR. I use it often.
  • Cleanshot X
    Cleanshot X is a screen capture and recording tool that I use throughout the day. Whether grabbing a part of a website, an image from a PDF file to paste into my notes, or when I need a quick and simple screen recording to show someone how to do something, Cleanshot X is there in my menu bar ready to go. I also have a hotkey set for quick access to the custom screen select for capture.
  • Hazel
    Hazel is an automation tool for assigning actions to folders. I only have a handful ot automations set up with Hazel. The embarrassingly simple automation below took a couple of seconds to set up but is used pretty much everyday. It is designed so that anytime I download a PDF file to my computer it automatically gets moved to a folder titled “Download PDFs” in my download folder so I know exactly where the PDF files are. I have another Hazel automation that asks me if I want the PDF to be sent to DevonThink Pro but I often ignore it and move files manually when I have the headspace to figure out where they should go.

  • Obsidian
    • Daily Notes
    • Projects plugin (now discontinued)
  • ClickUp
    • For collaborative project management or when working with student workers, project managers etc.
  • Google Docs
  • Omni Focus
    • For all of my own task management and project management
  • Notion
    • For consulting or collaborative projects when I need to build out a system for people or orgs (rare)

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