I'm one of those people who enjoys looking at what people's home screens look like on their phones or how their desk setups are. Yes, I know that's a bit geeky and probably overly consumer-focused, but it is one of my many flaws. That said, I particularly enjoyed reading this recent post from Doug Belshaw, whose work I am just re-familiarizing myself with after somehow losing track of him for at least a few years now. I don't mean to say he went anywhere. I just mean that my RSS feeds probably weren't fine-tuned in his particular case.
He wrote about being intentional about our tech stacks. One thing I appreciate is what he writes in his conclusion:
Being intentional about your tech stack isn't easy. Most people's working lives are often governed by other people making tech decisions for them, and their social lives depend on using tools that other people do. Thankfully, I'm in control of the tools I use for my work and am somewhat antisocial, so I'm in the un-enviable position that I can experiment with whatever I like and nobody cares.
I'm going to talk through my tech stack, admitting upfront that I am in the position he describes where some of my tech stack is due to my workplace. Other aspects are due to not having the same technical fluencies that he does. My tech stack is not going to be the model of living out our values in perfect ways. Neither does Doug claim to be doing so, but I appreciated his intentionality in thinking through his choices and options.
My Tech Stack
Enough of my preamble. Let me share a bit about my tech stack.
Devices
I have a 2021 14″ MacBook Pro with an M1, paired with an LG Ultrafine monitor. I like working on 10-key keyboards. I somehow learned how to touch-type on them years ago and haven't lost that skill, even if I don't use it daily. I use a Magic Trackpad and enjoy having as much consistency between my work office, home office, and travel setup as possible.
I keep with a trackpad even though I use mine with my left hand despite being right-handed. That helps with some work-related wrist issues I tend to have when computing for extended periods. I have the same monitor, keyboard, and trackpad at work that I do at home.
I also have the same webcam at both locations: an OBSBOT Tiny 2. I've enjoyed getting to know its features over the past year, though I haven't fully mastered the gesture controls—it occasionally zooms in tight on my face and I haven't quite cemented how to zoom back out. That's more about muscle memory than anything else.
I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and I love using it with my AirPods Pro. My favorite thing is how seamlessly the AirPods shift between my computer and my phone. It is so much better than it used to be. I am also a big user of my iPad Pro, primarily for consumption. I've recently taken up digital art classes and have been building my skills in Procreate—which has brought new life to my otherwise underutilized Apple Pencil and is a genuine source of stress relief.
My Apple Watch is a big part of my life, with a heavy emphasis on health (gotta close those “rings”) and getting away from my phone (focus modes for sleep, driving, exercising, podcasting, teaching, etc.).
Documents and email
This is a place where my workplace dictates my choices. We use Office 365, so Microsoft Word is my primary word processor and Microsoft Excel my primary spreadsheet. Our family is also in the Apple ecosystem, so Numbers shows up occasionally. And I collaborate regularly using Google Docs, with some assignments presented as Google Slides templates that students can copy to their own accounts by changing the end of the URL.
Web browser
My workplace also dictates my web browser choice, and this is the one that causes me the most friction. I much prefer Safari, but it is essentially unusable at work—I believe because Cloudflare is configured in a way that makes pages load unbearably slowly, while Chrome works ok much of the time. If you use browser extensions, you'll understand why maintaining two separate setups isn't worth it. I tried for a while and eventually succumbed to living predominantly in Chrome. My hope is that with additional upgrades to the internet infrastructure at work, there might be a future where I can be less dependent on Chrome as my browser.
My favorite extension recently is the Obsidian web clipper, which lets me clip content from what I'm reading directly into my note-taking tool. I could do an entire post on extensions and probably will someday—but I had better behave myself and move on.
Blog
My blog runs on WordPress, as does my entire website, Teaching in Higher Ed. A colleague and I are very much looking forward to doing some redesign this summer. I've also really enjoyed doing more blogging than usual this past year and have been reading a lot about digital gardens. My mind is alive with ideas and possibilities.
Analytics
Dave and I made the decision some time ago not to use Google Analytics on our respective websites and to use Fathom Analytics, instead. The privacy implications just aren't worth it for what we'd gain in terms of data. Instead, we get non-identifiable data, are GDPR compliant, and visitors to our website don't get a bunch of pop ups asking them to accept cookies or other such hindrances.
AI
My AI journey started with ChatGPT, mostly using its large language model features. I ultimately moved to Claude and am presently on the $20/month plan, though I regularly run out of tokens and have occasionally bumped up to the $100/month plan temporarily when designing things for my courses, such as games or exercises.
I work to not be overly reliant on any one company. We know how fickle they can be, saying they hold certain values and then reversing course. I have ethical concerns about AI, and those are not assuaged by my use of it. Anyone looking for resources around these concerns would be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and easy-to-navigate resource than Leon Furze's materials on teaching AI ethics).
My recent Claude usage has been predominantly in Claude Cowork. I enjoy taking the productivity approaches and principles I've written about in The Productive Online and Offline Professor and exploring how AI can amplify them, all while being very cautious about what I do and don't give AI access to, keeping a close watch on it at all times. I have not set up any automated tasks, and I don't use AI to act on my behalf while I'm away from my computer.
A lot of my longer form writing is taking place by creating drafts via transcription. On my phone and Apple Watch, I use an app called Whisper Memos. I like it a lot because it puts paragraph entries in automatically, but leaves my original wording intact other than that. as in I do not have to audibly say where paragraphs should go.
As far as transcribing when sitting at my computer, I am new to MacWhisper, which Teddy Svoronos talked about on Episode 617. it's been great so far I am just needing to fine tune my setup so it can work for my use cases best but I highly recommend it and can see why he makes so much use of it. Way back on Episode 521, Leon Furze talked about dictating most of his blog posts while he's running (for more about Leon's process, see: Artificial Intelligence Has Changed the Way I Write Forever. While I'm not doing running in either of my writing workflows I sure do get a lot of words down for these early drafts through the power of transcription/dictation using these two apps.
Code repositories
Doug mentions code repositories in his post. I have a GitHub account, though as I've mentioned on previous episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed, I can barely use it. I have written an open textbook for my business ethics class in Markdown, using LiaScript to turn it into an interactive, searchable, browsable resource with version control—which is, of course, what GitHub is really good at.
I'm very much a novice user. I also store a couple of games and exercises for hard-to-understand concepts from my classes there, but I'm not linking to those materials here. Partly because they feel clunky and there is still so much more for me to learn. And partly because my versioning commit notes occasionally let my sarcasm slip through when I keep making the same mistake over and over (and those comments were meant only for me).
Meeting scheduling
For a number of years now, Dave and I have both used Acuity Scheduling for our respective podcasts. I like it for how granular it lets you get about scheduling preferences and confirmations (whether they go out via email, text, or both). I wouldn't recommend it for people who don't like to fine-tune things, but since I'm working with both a Microsoft Outlook calendar for work and an iCloud calendar, personally, I need that level of control. People who sign up to come on the podcast deserve a seamless experience, and the last thing I want is friction around something as simple as setting a time to record.
I'm also a devoted user of Fantastical. It's more expensive than a basic calendar app, but it brings together all my calendars using what it calls calendar sets (different groupings I can view all in one place). It also has a meeting-poll feature I use regularly, which lets me offer a few time options and find what works best for a single person or a group.
Fantastical recently added the ability to layer emojis on top of calendar events, including ones I've been invited to. Since I love color-coding, it's a fun new way to visually scan what's happening in my calendar. There's still some bugginess with events from other people, but for things on my personal or podcasting calendar, it has been a delightful addition.
Time tracking
Doug mentions time tracking. I have always wanted to build this habit, but each time I've tried, I start a timer, walk away, and then it tells me I've been on email for seventeen hours. (I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.) I aspire to have a time-tracking habit firmly established and to gain that additional layer of awareness about where my time goes.
Accountancy software
Dave and I recently switched to a new way of tracking our personal finances. It's too early to report out on that, but I'm noting it here so that if I revisit this post in the future, I'll remember it may be of interest to others and was included in Doug's description of his tech stack.
Social media and messaging
Like Doug, I post on Mastodon. I occasionally post on Bluesky. I am intrigued by people like Alan Levine who have set things up to post simultaneously to both platforms. I've read about this practice but haven't cemented it in my own workflow. I tend to prefer Mastodon and haven't quite sorted out how the cross-posting would work in my case. I suspect this post from Alan re: the WordPress ActivityPub Plugin will be important in at least part of my learning process with all this.
I'm also on LinkedIn. I did decide to leave Twitter after amassing over 8,000 followers across many years and having a rich community there—but the values mismatch and the environment it has become finally took their toll. I decided to give all of that up and begin anew on these other platforms.
I am intrigued by apps like WhatsApp and Signal and have set up accounts, but I don't get notifications from them and have had some difficulty integrating them into my workflow. I am also deeply reluctant to share my contact information—or anyone else's—with apps, and that caution has kept me from fully experimenting. But I recognize that most of the world communicates beyond Apple Messages and am open to reconsidering this for privacy and other reasons.
If you're interested in a deeper look at how someone thinks through their social media presence, you would be hard-pressed to find a better source than Brian Alexander's post: What I'm Doing with Social Media and Related Platforms in Late 2025. I have gained great inspiration from Brian over many years across posts like this that he revisits on an annual or other cadence. His post makes me want to dedicate an entire future post to my full social media landscape. For now, I'm sharing it here and have bookmarked it for future blog post ideas.
What's Next?
I'm doing a bunch of experimentation on how AI can and can't amplify my productivity approaches. It started with refining my Obsidian daily note and there's much more in store with that project. This Summer, I'll be building something that will enable people to learn more about what I've been up to in more detail. As I mentioned, the Teaching in Higher Ed website will be getting a much-needed redesign, but will continue to be on WordPress at its core. Knowing me, I'll continue to play and experiment all the while.
