Life Toolbox

These are the tools I wish I’d discovered sooner, they’ve all made a significant improvement to my life.

Tools

Obsidian

Obsidian is my second brain built with everything written in markdown just how I like it. With plugins like Kanban I manage projects; with Web Clipper I grab the good bits from the web without breaking flow. Everything lives as simple files, so nothing is trapped.

Tmux

Tmux lets me split one terminal into many, keep them running, and jump back in exactly where I left off. I don’t know how I managed development before I discovered tmux. Now I keep at least five sessions active, each with a few windows, and each of those with two to five panes. And that’s just on my laptop! It’s more or less the same story on the servers. Did I really have thirty terminal windows open before, or was I just managing fewer things at once?

Health

• Creatine: Since I started taking creatine, muscle soreness after workouts has all but disappeared.
• Water: I was in my mid-30s when I realized my frequent headaches were mostly due to dehydration.
• Annual blood tests: What gets measured get’s managed.
• Gym, free Weights:
• Pull-up bar: I used to think using only the lat pulldown machine in the gym was enough, but after installing a pull-up bar at home, I discovered muscles I never knew I had and corrected a longstanding back issue.
• Toastmasters: Progress was slow, but thanks to Toastmasters I overcame stage fright, and social anxiety. At its worst I almost had panic attacks just talking to a cashier.