Below are some of the apps, services, and hardware that I currently use. The idea became popular through the Hemispheric Views podcast Episode 97 and then further through Robb Knight's App Defaults directory.

This time around, I copied my previous default apps post and updated it, striking through things that have changed. Hopefully, it's still readable. I find it useful to see what changes over time.

AI

I occasionally use Google Gemini on my phone for quick searches or voice actions. I've been leaning more toward using Kagi Assistant, though.

I use Microsoft Copilot for work. It does an outstanding job of pulling together meeting notes, helping me summarize conversations, and finding things across the organization. It sucks at everything else.

On the personal side, I tend to use Kagi Assistant in my browser's sidebar when I want to do something with AI. It usually starts as a quick search in Kagi, and I jump to Assistant when I need more.

I also use GitHub Copilot a bit in Visual Studio Code. Not something I do every day, though.

Blogging

I use Pagecord to host my personal blog and handle my weekly newsletter. I tend to use my email for creating quick posts and the web interface for longer posts.

Browser

I use Microsoft Edge (with about 23 custom profiles) for work and Helium for personal use on my Windows PC. I'm experimenting with some browsers on Android.

Calendar

My family events are in our Apple Family Calendar, work events are hosted in our company Outlook (Exchange) Calendar, and personal events I keep in my Google Calendar. I use the default Samsung Calendar app on my phone to consolidate them. My Outlook for work also pulls in my personal calendar, so I can see everything overlaid. I'm trying out Hey Calendar on my phone to see how it works out.

Email

I have a couple of custom domains that I use for some emails. These are hosted through Migadu (because it's dirt cheap), which then forwards to Hey. Hey is then configured so I can receive and respond to emails from addresses in these custom domains. I tend to use a custom domain for accounts and services and my Hey email address for everything else. I have a custom domain email for my websites but have been using Hey email for everything else.

News

My news consumption is primarily Kagi News. I subscribe to a few categories' RSS feeds, and they show up in my feed. I love that it only updates once per day and is formatted to provide a simple summary, highlights, and sources. I may listen to a podcast here and get a newsletter here and there that covers the latest news in more detail, but overall, I found myself not looking at news (or social media) much. When I do, I still go to Kagi News.

Notes

I jump between various note-taking apps, so I don't have an extensive collection of notes (since they're scattered all over). My favorite robust notes apps have been Obsidian and Reflect. I've hopped between both quite a bit. But today, I tend to use paper for quick notes. Recently, I started carrying around a Plotter personal-size notebook for jotting down notes.

I started using a Supernote Nomad for handwritten notes. My Plotter is where I write ideas, personal tasks, and anything else that comes to mind. For work notes, I use the Plotter A6 refill paper that sits on my desk (without the binder), and anything I want to keep I stick in a cheap A6 6-ring binder that sits on my shelf.

Reading

I often switch between the convenience of Kindle and the physicality of physical books. Currently, I'm mostly reading non-fiction in physical books, and fiction I tend to listen to on Audible.

For RSS, I'm a big fan of Feedbin. I'm still a fan of Feedbin, but I've actually been cutting back on RSS and using the Hey Digest feature for content I want to receive. I currently save articles to read later in Instapaper, though I'm not set on that workflow yet (I haven't been using it long). I used Readwise Reader for a while but found it too much (in terms of functionality and price) for my needs. I started using Raindrop again for bookmarks and also for things I want to read or watch later.

Reminders

I use Samsung Reminders because it is the default on my phone, but primarily because it can be configured to have full-screen, in-your-face notifications, which is what I need. I've been using the default Google Task reminders on my phone since I switched from a Samsung to a Pixel a couple of months ago. I'd love to find an alternative where I can hold the button on my phone to input a reminder. It honestly doesn't get used much.

Search

I'm a fan of Kagi search. 

Social Media

While I have accounts on many platforms, I haven't been using social media. Instead, I'm in favor of posting anything I want to say to the world through my blog and having discussions with people through email. This intentionally limits my interaction with the outside world.

Tasks

For work, most of my tasks are in Azure DevOps. Personally, I don't have very many and have started using my Supernote Plotter to manage these. I consider "reminders" as anything that needs to be done at a certain time and "tasks" as things I'd like to do reasonably soon.

Writing

I've been intentionally trying to write more. Writing helps me think. I write in many different places.

I try to stub out ideas in my Plotter notebook.

Blog posts are either created via email (Hey) or directly in the PageCord UI.

Online, I feel like I need a decent grammar-checking tool because I'm a mess. I'm currently using LanguageTool since it doesn't seem to get in the way and provides the basics without overwhelming AI (looking at you, Grammarly).

Other

I've been using Niagara Launcher on my Android phone in place of the default launcher. It's a very minimal UI with many great features.

I favor technology, though something about the feel of paper appeals to me. It’s the feel, the sound, even the smell of paper that keeps me coming back, not the efficiency.

In fact, paper systems don’t work for me. I’ve tried bullet journaling, planners, and other approaches. I love the writing part, but after it’s written, it gets abandoned.

The Index Card system, where I have an index card on my desk and I write my tasks for the day and check them off when they get done, has been the only analog system that has worked for me.

The idea is to use paper for the first and last mile and the digital system for everything in between.

This year, I embraced my fondness for paper and attempted something novel, though not overly daring (perhaps excessively costly): the Plotter notebook. Why? Well, I'm in favor of having these index card-sized pages in a notebook I can carry around and remove or move around as needed.

The Plotter is a ring-system notebook, which means you can easily add, remove, and move pages and dividers around in the notebook as desired.

I love the idea of having multiple sections in the notebook for different purposes, like tasks, journaling, tracking, and whatever else comes to mind. The ability to change my mind is key.

Knowing me, I like high-quality products. And the Plotter would seem as high-quality as it gets. A lovely leather cover, quality paper, and quite a few paper options.

The plan is to keep it simple. Use it for jotting notes down throughout the day, much like I have prior, but now it's a portable (and lovely smelling, I might add) notebook.

The book focuses on Dan’s Buyback Principle:

Don’t hire to grow your business. Hire to buy back your time.

Here are my distilled notes:

• DRIP Matrix: Spend most time in the Production quadrant, then Investments. Quickly clear Delegation; transition Replacement.
  • Delegation: low-value work that someone else can do.
  • Replacement: High-value work others can manage after transfer.
  • Investment: things that add capacity over time, like training, relationships, health, and investing in systems.
  • Production: Work of the highest value that only you can do.
• Your time is worth your pay divided by 2,000 hours. Your buyback rate is your pay divided by 8,000 hours. If you could pay someone less than your Buyback rate to do a task, you should. For instance, Tina earns $200,000. Her time is worth $100/hour and her Buyback rate is $25/hour. If someone can do a task well for less than $25/hour, outsource it.
• Audit your time and energy. Batch tasks. Use your calendar. Prioritize significant tasks first, then smaller ones will follow.
• Delegate by recording how to do every task, creating step-by\-step playbooks and checklists. Adjust your expectations. You do the first 10% to set the context, someone else does the 80%, and then you do the last 10%, adding personal touches and polish. Give your team the freedom to resolve issues without your approval.
• Transactional leadership is when you tell someone what to do, check in on them, and provide next steps. Transformational leadership gives them the outcome, measurements, and coaching.

80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome.

My Action Items:

• Create a DRIP matrix to delegate and replace my current tasks and responsibilities.
• Update my 2026 calendar with big rocks.
• Use a tool like ManicTime to see what I’m spending time on.
• Create a system to document my tasks for delegation.
• Start using Microsoft Copilot more to triage my inbox, prepare for meetings, take meeting notes, and create follow-up tasks.

Who should read this book?

It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they tell us what to do. - Steve Jobs

“Developing, training, and operating chatbots the way that OpenAI—and Google, Anthropic, and Meta do, with a more-is-more approach to building ever-larger datasets and ever-larger data centers to train and run them, is, as we know, an almost incomprehensibly expensive undertaking.”

Fixits give me that early-career feeling back. You see the bug, you fix it, you ship it, you close it, you move on. There’s something deeply satisfying about work where the question isn’t “what should we do?” but rather “can I make this better?” And you get to answer that question multiple times in a week.

Kagi’s Research Assistant happened to top a popular benchmark (SimpleQA) when we ran it in August 2025. This was a happy accident. We’re building our research assistants to be useful products, not maximize benchmark scores.