The coziest ‘gearing up’ montage

I WISH BUILDING A STACK of tech tools had its own ‘gearing up’ montage. That pulse-thumping, sweat-beading, muscular vein-popping supercut of closeups on the suede gloves, the comically large utility belt of shotgun shells, and the soiled-up bandana locking the hero’s badass curls perfectly in place. Then, we whip to the money shot — a slow pan out with 80s synth-heavy music reaching a crescendo as the hero emerges, back-foglights framing his silhouette right before he says an absolute cringe oneliner that the world will universally agree is fantastic.

This scene from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1985 action romp Commando approximates that vibe well.

This is not how it feels to build your productivity tech stack.

For starters, it’s a far more grueling process. Anyone who obsesses over productivity has an inbox full of emails from the hundreds of productivity apps they’ve abandoned at the slightest sight of inconvenience or flaw. What’s more, the breakup happens right after they’ve poured hours days into optimizing the perfect app setup (*cough* Notion power users).

Overproductivity feels like a peak that people toil over and over to climb, but look inward (or ask your therapist), and you might realize that (surprise!) it’s a childhood trauma manifesting in your adult life. Hooray!

Why do we even have to be that productive? What’s pushing us to shore up hundreds of dollars on productivity tools? What intestinal parasite have we developed to be compelled to believe that “*pushing in the nerd glasses* um, actually life is an RPG” and so we must buy a $25 Notion template? A $95 Life ‘OS’? A $500/y email app that skins Gmail to be ✨ 𝓾𝓶 𝓸𝓴, 𝓪𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓽𝓲𝓬 ✨? Like, give me a break.

I’m saying this with fervor because this was me. I know the sad feeling of getting hooked on the little cat animation congratulating you for “getting things done.” Or the totally performative IG story of the “messily” arranged spread of your journal, Macbook, and severely overpriced latte, and you go like #hustle #productivity #blessed, but deep inside, you feel none of those things.

So, yes. Not all productivity highs are created equal. Sometimes, your peak productivity is actually just a valley from which you need to GTFO of…ASAP. It’s not just one valley, either. It’s the same downward slope you’ll encounter multiple times that can kill your full potential, not with a single strike but by a thousand little cuts.

Like other issues you probably have in life (again, speaking from experience here), it’s about learning to face the issue head on. It’s the alarm you snooze triple times. The needle-moving business email you need to send but keep putting off. It’s the voicemail you’ve wanted to send to a friend lest your feelings and insecurities explode. It’s sometimes confusing, but girl, act like Charli and stop running. You having a serious talk with your self-sabotaging alter ego is you “work[ing] it out on the remix.”

Here’s how.

Three non-negotiables when building your productivity tech stack

I’ll preface this by saying that this will NOT work for everyone, except for people like me, and hopefully you, somehow the perfect individual to come across this haphazard attempt at an essay on productivity. That is also to say that the three non-negotiables would vary for each person, but here’s mine.

1. The tool should be good at doing what it promises to help me do.
2. The tool should function well enough not to require so much time and energy to set up or maintain.
3. The tool should look and feel good to use.

When I made the commitment that my apps or tools should pass every criterion, it became too easy. I had to say “no” to very powerful apps like Todoist, however much I liked (and still like) it. The McGyver apps — those all-in-ones that technically do all things, but do them all-too-middlingly — gone! You know those apps. I also felt inclined to get rid of any app that had me develop formulas for it to work, or any app that inadvertently prompts me to overthink which font or icon to attach to a page (We all know I’m talking about Notion, right?). The last ones to go are those apps that are actually good but either look — excuse my French — fucking ugly (sorry, Amplenote) and take too goddamn long to load (bye, Evernote).

It should also go without saying that I’m just not going to pay more than 15$/month for an app. So all the daily planners that do nothing but (poorly) link tools via API don’t make the cut.

This isn’t to say I’m not willing to pay for apps. I am. But I’m being smart and listening to my credit card statement. For apps, I won’t pay any more than $10 if it’s a subscription. The sweet spot should be around the $5 mark, but let’s be honest, the sweetest spot is free (there are some on this list). Honestly, I’m good to shell out a bigger chunk of money if it means I get lifetime access, which is also why my middle finger subconsciously goes up as I write this sentence about Adobe (see ya, won’t miss ya!).

Yep. Years and years of bad productivity decisions all halt when I (hopefully) finally land on this pretty definitive list. Here it is. That moment when Evelyn felt everything everywhere at once. I found it.

Tools that help me make productivity my bitch

OK, here’s the deal. These tools aren’t the most decked out in terms of features. But they work. That’s also the point, I guess; to access only the features you need to move the needle in your work, life, and passions.

It’s also worth mentioning that this list is a running list, which means I can add or remove apps. Bookmark if you must. Actually, do. I’ll update it as regularly as I can.

Anyway, here goes.