About Me

Who am I?; Work; personal computing environment
Published: November 28, 2021 Reading Time: 6 minutes
personal tools log
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Work

I’m devoting all my time to grow the technical team at Meaningful and launching new products.

Previously

My Standard of Performance

Hold yourself to the highest standards. - Marcus Aurelius

Rules and principles, if followed consistently, create freedom. Here is what I call “My Standard of Performance” to borrow words from Bill Walsh. I try to embody this standard every day.

  • Demand only the best from yourself. Be fair, both with yourself and—especially—with others. Always work hard: when given a task however boring but important, focus on it until it’s done. Your life depends on it.

  • Understand that no matter what you do, results do not depend on you. Focus on your work. The rest will follow.

  • In every situation choose Alive Time vs Dead Time. Always make the most of the present moment. Do not let seconds and minutes die, you must as well die altogether.

  • Choose always the healthier option. Exercise every day, your body needs to move and be put under stress so your mind can relax. Eat only nutritious food. Avoid the ultra-processed. Avoid sugar. It’s OK to give in, no more than once a week.

  • Conduct yourself in an honorable way. Always dress appropriately. Short hair and clean-shaven. If with a beard trim it, take care of it. Presentation matters. Don’t be afraid to go out of the ordinary from time to time. Avoid pretentious attire.

  • Whenever possible—always—help others. Never put yourself in a position where you can’t help those who need it most.

  • Don’t talk too much. Make your words count. Don’t waste your breath in chit-chat and futile discussions.

  • Be friendly and care for your friends and family. Life is not a hermit’s game. The road is better if not traveled alone. Seek fulfilling relationships. Avoid the transactional. Eliminate the toxic.

  • Allow yourself to have strong opinions only if you understand the subject. But hold them loosely, most likely you’ll be wrong. Keep an open mind The work it takes to have an opinion

  • Be a skeptic. Question everything, especially yourself. Excellence is an iterative process, one that never ends.

  • Own your risk. Never use others to save yourself. Let this guide your actions. Never say or do something you don’t believe in.

  • Don’t binge on anything. Eat mindfully and awareness. Curate your sources of information. Always choose quality over quantity.

  • Practice gratitude and happiness every day. Both are learnable skills and will lead to a better and saner life.

  • Read this page constantly. Learn it, improve it, and live it every day.

Personal Computing Environment

On a normal day I may spend 10+ hours using a computer, so I try to be very selective about the tools I use. Below is the current list of tools and apps I use.

Hardware

Software (Apps + Scripts)

I try hard to keep my machine as clean as possible. If I start using a new app or service it is because it really solves a pain point. Periodically (once a quarter usually) I’ll review my environment and uninstall whatever I haven’t used in a while.

Also, I divide my tools into “workspaces” depending on the type of work I’m doing. I have three workspaces: default, writing, and programming.

Default Workspace

  • If I’m not writing or programming this is the workspace I’ll be in. I list here all the apps that help me do my routine activities as well as maintain my computing environment.
  • Password Manager: 1Password
    • I used KeePassX and Bitwarden previously but switch to 1Password because it makes it much easier to share passwords with my family. Still I think there is room for improvement here as a Password Manager should be local-first.
  • Notes + Task Management: Logseq
    • Logseq is an open-source “outliner” similar to Roam Research but it’s local first and stores all the data in plaintext files.
  • Calendar: Apple Calendar
    • I try to avoid using the calendar as much as possible but being involved in multiple projects with different stakeholders means that I need some scheduling in my life.
    • I use the native Apple Calendar app to view my default Google Calendar.
    • I also use Reclaim.ai to keep all my work and personal calendars in sync.
  • Browser: Brave
    • I love Brave because it blocks a lot of ads and annoying scripts by default but it’s also fully compatible with Chrome so I can keep using all the extensions I need:
      • cVim: vim bindings on the browser. Browse the web without moving my hands away from the keyboard.
      • Grammarly: Can’t live without it.
      • Minimal Twitter: Makes for a better Twitter experience
      • Metamask: Crypto Wallet
      • Privacy Badger: Block tracking scripts
      • Memex: Read-it-later app that stores the data locally and supports highlighting + annotations.
      • 1Password: autocomplete passwords
      • Dark Reader: dark mode for all sites when I need it.
  • Key Remapper: Karabiner
    • I use Karabiner to remap the Caps Lock key to my Hyper Key (TK-Links)
  • Text expander: Espanso
    • I hate typing the same things over and over (name, email, dates, etc.). Espanso is an open source and scriptable app that will auto-expand text for you. For example typing xem will autocomplete to my email address.
  • Spotlight: Raycast
    • I use Raycast to open apps, search files, trigger repetitive commands, and a bunch of other things.
  • Automation: Hammerspoon
  • Music: Spotify

Writing Workspace

Only three apps are allowed in this workspace: Logseq for notes, ideas, and drafts. The native macOS Dictionary app and Spotify for music.

Programming Workspace

  • Terminal: iTerm2.
    • I don’t know how anyone can survive with Apple’s native Terminal app.
  • Terminal Multiplexer: Tmux
    • You can check my current configuration here.
  • Shell: zsh
  • IDE: Neovim, Goland.
    • Neovim is a great text editor and with a few plugins it’s also a good development environment. For heavier work though I love JetBrains tools. My default IDE is Goland.
  • Helpers: Postman, DataGrip
    • I use Postman for API development and testing.
    • JetBrains DataGrip for DB-related work.
Alberto Sadde's profile picture round
Alberto Sadde
Programmer