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.

  • 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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