This March, I spent a couple of days traveling through western Iceland.
While I was there, I thought a lot about tools – mechanical tools, software tools, tools that last, and tools that are fragile. The somber snow-covered scenery made me think about how quickly most of the tools we use today get outdated or replaced, and I thought about the kinds of tools that I’ve been building for myself for the last few years to help organize my life.
I took a walk around Smábátahöfnin í Keflavík (a small marina nearby) that night, unraveled myself into my hotel room, and started writing this post.
I want to share why I build my own tools and how I think we should think about building tools for life. It’s long, so here’s a roadmap. Feel free to jump around.
For the last few years, I’ve been on a journey to replace all of the essential digital tools I use for organizing my life with tools I develop, maintain, and deploy myself.
What started with a single-page notes app I made in high school has grown into a constellation of home-grown productivity tools I now rely on for my day-to-day work and learning. Here’s a sample.
[Ligature](<https://github.com/thesephist/polyx#ligature>), for long-term notes and tasks, goals, brainstorming, project planning, and other important writing.
[Pico](<https://github.com/thesephist/pico>), for more ephemeral notes and tasks that change on a daily basis. I split up my notes into two apps (Ligature and Pico) because it works better for my workflow. (More on this later.)
[Mira](<https://github.com/thesephist/mira>) for keeping track of people I know, why they’re interesting, and what we’ve talked about.
[Lovecroft](<https://github.com/thesephist/polyx#noct>) for managing and sending emails to my [mailing lists](<https://thesephist.com/>).
[Noct](<https://github.com/thesephist/polyx#noct>) for backing up and syncing all my files across computers and the cloud. Noct doesn’t have a graphical UI, just a command-line tool.
[Frieden](<https://thesephist.com/posts/frieden/>) as a public availability calendar, showing when I’m free or busy.
[Thingboard](<https://github.com/thesephist/thingboard>) for more free-form Post-its-on-the-wall style brainstorming.
[Codeframe](<https://codeframe.co/>) for spinning off simple JavaScript experiments like [the word plotter](<https://thesephist.com/posts/word-experiments/#word-plotter>).
[draw](<https://github.com/thesephist/draw>), a collaborative whiteboard, best used with my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
Taken together, these apps do almost everything I need to do on my computer to keep myself organized. I don’t use any third-party notes, task management, or contacts apps, though I used to be a big fan of Simplenote and Todoist. I’ve used Notion, Dropbox Paper, Google Docs, and Airtable, but only for working in teams that centralized on them. These days, besides email and calendar, I live within a system of my own tools, and it works well for me.