This is personal to me, reflecting what actually creates outsized value in my daily workflow.
Here's my approach: I'm obsessed with sensitivity analysis in my productivity system. What do I mean by that? I've analyzed where I spend the bulk of my time and identified which tools fundamentally transform those high-volume activities. It's about majoring in the majors — being extremely intentional about optimizing the activities that either:
Consume the largest chunks of my day Create disproportionate value when done exceptionally well Represent critical bottlenecks in my workflow When you look at my actual working hours, two activities dominate everything else: email and meetings. So the tools that transform those experiences deserve top billing in my productivity stack. Everything else follows a similar logic — if it doesn't meaningfully improve a high-volume or high-value activity, it doesn't make the cut.
This list represents the tools that have survived this ruthless prioritization process. These aren't just nice-to-haves; they're the core technologies that fundamentally reshape how I work and what I'm capable of producing each day. Let's dive in.
Superhuman
Simply the best email experience ever created.
You get out what you put in. Take time to set up the automation tools and you will save time every day.
Time-saving features:
Keyboard shortcuts / swipe actions My favorite feature. From any email draft you can click schedule (or Command + Shift + A), Superhuman opens your calendar where you click on open slots. Once you hit done, it inserts all available times as friendly text into the body of the email. I intentionally work out of my email inbox. When I send an actionable email I always set a reminder for it to return to my inbox if no response. That way nothing falls through the cracks, and I don’t have to create a task in another app with a deadline to worry about. I save commonly used bits of text (especially with media / links) as snippets. From any email draft just type ; and you can search for and insert any saved snippets. Yes, it has a learning curve. Is it worth it? 1,000%.
Claude
Alternatives: Chat GPT, Gemini
Claude is the ultimate leverage tool for professionals - it dramatically amplifies your existing capabilities in ways that transform how you work:
No more blank page syndrome - Claude gives you substantial first drafts for any content, immediately putting you in refinement mode instead of creation mode Project-specific context is a game-changer - load your company's knowledge, documentation, and communication style to create a hyper-specialized assistant that understands your specific business. Pro tips: I use to load in all relevant knowledge to your job Cross-domain intelligence in one conversation - seamlessly move between analyzing data, drafting communications, and strategic thinking without switching tools Scales with your expertise - the more judgment and domain knowledge you bring, the more Claude amplifies your capabilities Disproportionate value creation - high-level professionals get exponentially more value because Claude multiplies their existing expertise rather than replacing it The bottom line? Claude isn't just another tool - it's a force multiplier that creates competitive advantage for those who know how to collaborate with it effectively.
Zapier
Zapier automates anything. We use this at a company level for connecting any repetitive tasks. I also use it personally to automate annoying, repetitive tasks like sending a personal gmail email when a lead form is submitted.
Coda
Coda is a go-to for knowledge across the company. It’s more flexible than spreadsheets and docs, and you can create nested sets of pages inside of one document. Formatting is easy, it’s friendly to links and media, and you can make advanced internal apps that work really well for internal processes.
Chrome
My main hack with Chrome is that no text is allowed at the top level.
You can see that I have a couple of bookmarks (Claude and ChatGPT) but the text is removed and only logo shows.
I use emojis to organize my folders which maximizes real estate while being super easy to remember.
Zoom + Fathom
The best videoconferencing service + strong AI call recording and summarization.
Fantastical
The best calendar app of all time. It is Mac-only. Nothing comparable for Windows.
Riverside
💡 Why I love it.
Video and audio content creation powered by AI
Slack
If implemented with discipline and clarity, Slack cuts out a lot of email noise and brings remote teams together.
➕ Great for: intra-company communication.
➖ Not so great: can be noisy.
🚨 Use this guide for a clean Slack experience 👇
Apple Notes
I’ve tried OneNote, Evernote, Obsidian, Notion, Coda, Google Docs, etc. For simple note taking, KISS applies. Notes syncs across devices, organizes my notes in folders, and (this is important to me) saves locally so that I never lose access when I’m on a flight, have bad cell reception at a conference, etc.
Beta
Not quite ready for primetime, but watching closely.
These tools aren't quite ready for prime time yet, but they're showing incredible promise. I'm keeping a close eye on them because they could fundamentally change how we work in the next 6-12 months:
AI Meeting Assistants (beyond Fathom) – Tools like Otter.ai and Fireflies are evolving rapidly, but we're still waiting for that perfect combination of real-time transcription, action item extraction, and seamless calendar integration that truly transforms meeting workflows. Video AI Editors – Runway and Descript are getting closer, but we're on the verge of tools that can take raw footage and create professional-quality edits with minimal human intervention. Think of the creative possibilities when you can simply describe the video you want to create. Voice Interface Tools – Voice AI is about to hit an inflection point where it becomes faster to speak commands than type them. Elevenlabs is just the beginning of what's possible when we move beyond the keyboard as our primary input device. AI Code Assistants Beyond GitHub Copilot – The next generation will understand business requirements, not just code syntax, potentially transforming how non-technical founders bring products to market. Personal Knowledge Graph Tools – Moving beyond traditional note-taking, these tools will automatically connect information across sources, surfacing relevant context exactly when you need it. Context-Aware Digital Assistants – These will move beyond simple commands to understand the full context of your work, proactively suggesting resources and connections based on what you're currently focused on. Multimodal Creation Tools – The ability to seamlessly move between text, image, video, and audio creation in a single interface is coming, potentially eliminating the need to switch between multiple creative applications. What I Don’t Use:
Traditional project management tools (Asana, Monday, Trello) – I've found these often create more administrative overhead than actual productivity. For me, a combination of email reminders and smart calendar management works better than maintaining separate task management systems. Note-taking ecosystems like Notion – While incredibly powerful, these can become digital black holes where information goes to die. I've learned that perfect organization doesn't equal perfect productivity. Apple Notes gives me just enough structure without the complexity. Complex automation systems – While I love Zapier, I've seen teams get lost building elaborate automation systems that are fragile and hard to maintain. I follow the rule: if it takes longer to automate than to do manually for 3 months, it's not worth automating. 
Gabriel Stiritz Tech Stack
