Tools I Recommend & Home Office Setup

This is a list of products, tools, apps, and services that I use to be productive. The list also includes items that feature in my home office and YouTube studio.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means that if you buy a product or service, I may be compensated. I only recommend products and services that I love, though!

Special shout-outs

• Apple Notes is my note-taking app of choice. It can do a lot more than you think. To get the most out of it, check out my course Organize Your Life with Apple Notes.
• OmniFocus was the first task manager I ever used, back in 2011. It’s really sophisticated and fantastic for people with lots of projects and who like to track their to-dos and projects in detail. If that’s you. check out my course Organize Your Life with OmniFocus 4.
• ‍Things is the most gorgeous and well-designed task manager out there. Its thoughtful design and simplicity might be just what you need. Learn how to build a workflow around Things with my video course, Organize Your Life with Things.
• Todoist is my favorite cross-platform task manager. It just keeps getting better and better. You do need to learn how to use it. Check out my course Organize Your Life with Todoist to hit the ground running. (Click the Todoist link to get two months of their Pro plan for free.)

Video recording and editing gear

I use the following gear to record and edit my videos.

• Elgato Key Lights: for making sure I am well-lit in my videos when I’m recording in my studio. You can control them with mobile and desktop apps, which is incredibly convenient.
• Elgato Key Light Mini: for lighting me up properly when I’m recording on the go.
• Final Cut Pro: the most intuitive video editing software. Perfect for someone like me with moderate video editing skills.
• Rode NTG5 microphone: for talking head shots in which I don’t want the microphone to be visible.
• ‍Rode PSA1 arm: for mounting my microphone on, so the mic doesn’t have to sit on my desk.
• ‍Shure MV7 microphone: sound like a radio broadcaster. Good for calls and video recordings where you don’t mind having a mic visible.
• Sony A7C full-frame camera: picture quality is amazing, has lots of features that are convenient for my use case, such as a screen that flips out to the side and rotates, as well as being ready to use as a webcam out of the box. Battery life is excellent too.
• Sony FE 24mm F2.8 G lens: a great, compact lens that (because of the F/2.8 aperture) can create that awesome background blur you often see in YouTube videos. I find that a focal length of 24 mm is the sweet spot for talking head shots.
• Sony MDR-7506 wired headphones: perfect headphones for monitoring sound while recording or editing.
• Zoom H5 audio recorder: when I’m using the Rode NTG5 shotgun microphone, the audio records to an SD card in this recorder.

In the past, I have also used the Sony alpha 6400 camera with a Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN lens. Those produced excellent image quality as well, so you really don’t have to spend the extra money on the full-frame Sony A7C camera with a (more expensive) full-frame lens.

What else is in my home office

• Apple MacBook Pro (2021, 14", M1 Pro). MacBook Pros are simply the best laptops.
• Dell U2723QE external monitor: really solid. Screen quality isn’t quite as good as the MacBook Pro’s screen, but then again few screens come close to that.
• Grovemade desk furniture, including the walnut monitor stand and keyboard tray.
• ‍Herman Miller Aeron chair: expensive but totally worth it if you spend a lot of time sitting at your desk. Take good care of your body.
• Logitech MX Master mouse: ever since I was a hardcore gamer as a teenager, I’ve used Logitech mice. I simply love them.
• ‍PreSonus Eris E3.5 speakers: I needed a pair of speakers once I got my external display and these are great value for money.

Productivity and travel apps

In addition to the special shout-out productivity apps above, I love these apps:

• Backblaze: automatically and continuously backs up all of your files to the cloud. Never lose documents again.
• Canva for creating graphics in your browser—it’s super easy to use.
• CleanMyMac: remove junk from your Mac, freeing up space and making it run quicker.
• Clocker: a neat little app (for macOS) that shows me what time it is in various cities and time zones around the world where I have family and friends.
• Colorslurp is a neat little macOS app for figuring out what color you’re looking at.
• Fantastical: a fantastic calendar app! Its user interface is delightful.
• Flighty: the absolute best flight tracker app. I fly quite a bit and Flighty tracks my flights, notifies me of delays and changes, and syncs my flights to my calendar.
• HEY: a new, refreshing take on email by the makers of Basecamp. HEY makes handling my email fun, rather than a chore.
• IA Writer: my favorite app for writing long-form pieces.
• Notion: the app I use to plan my YouTube videos, prepare for my podcast episodes, and much more. Notion can do it all. If you want to keep your to-dos, notes, and other material all in one app, go with Notion.
• Savvycal: for scheduling meetings without the back-and-forth.
• TripMode: an amazing little app for your Mac that lets you block certain apps from Internet access. Super handy when you’re traveling, at a coffee place, or on your phone’s hotspot and you don’t want your cloud backups to take up all of your bandwidth or data.
• Typeform: my favorite app to share forms and run surveys. It’s great for getting people’s feedback but also, for example, to process applications.

Physical and mental health

• Bigger Leaner Stronger: an excellent all-in-one guide on how men can build muscle through weight training. I still have a lot of muscle to gain, but at least I know how to do so now!
• Day One: a journaling app for Apple devices. While I enjoy journaling on paper, I rarely got around to it , I rarely took the time to journal, until I discovered Day One. Lovely app for getting your thoughts out of your head.
• Headspace: dip your toe into meditation with this low-key app and Andy Puddicombe’s wonderful voice.
• Fitbod: great app for getting into weightlifting if you’re new and need help creating exercise routines.
• Hevy: super handy app for tracking your weightlifting. Lets you create lifting templates and helps you while you’re in the gym. Previously I used an app called Strong, but Hevy is better and is being developed much more rapidly.
• MacroFactor: fantastic app for building the body you want. You track the calories you eat and you track your weight. It then does some very smart math for you to figure out how much you should be eating to achieve your goal weight.
• Ten Percent: excellent meditation app that combines guided meditations with lots of explanation, challenges, and wisdom.
• Waking Up: my favorite meditation app. Includes guided meditations by different teachers, conversations about meditation- and mindfulness-related topics, and more general wisdom for life.

Website, courses, and email list

• Fathom Analytics is my app of choice for understanding how many people visit my website—while leaving visitors completely anonymous and respecting their privacy.‍
• Kit: The very first thing you should do if you want to make a living online is to start an email list. And you should do so with Kit.

• Screenflow is the app I use to record my Mac, iPhone, and iPad screens for YouTube and for my courses.
• Teachable is my course platform of choice. I love it mainly because it handles sales and value-added taxes for me, which would otherwise be a massive pain in the ass. There are course platforms with more and better features, but none of them handle tax properly (even when they say they do; trust me).
• Webflow: my website designer, content management system, and web host—all in one! Webflow makes it a breeze to create a blazing-fast website that looks exactly like you want it to.

Podcasting

• Riverside for recording and editing my podcast episodes. For recording, it’s like Zoom except it records audio and video locally, so an unreliable Internet connection is no problem. For editing, it makes it so easy to edit both the audio and video versions of the podcast based on the conversation transcript—and it uses AI to automatically create podcast video clips for social media. It’s really cool.
• Transistor is where I host my podcast. It’s easy to use, fast, and inexpensive.

Online security apps

• ‍1Blocker: a tracker blocker for Safari. It makes it super easy to allow or restrict certain types of tracking, depending on what you’re comfortable with.
• ‍1Password: you should be using a password manager and 1Password is my password manager of choice.
• NordVPN: when you’re on a WiFi network you don’t trust (like at a coffee place), use a VPN to prevent others from snooping on you. I’ve tried a bunch of VPNs and NordVPN works most reliably for me.