FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-- MY TECH STACK

BROOKLYN, NY—

we’re back with another edition of the newsletter. this week I’m gonna detail every piece of software I use. it’s gonna be way too detailed. from picture taking to processing to to do lists and accounting. I hardly do anything pen and paper so it’s all digitized. once again my weekly reminder this is how I do things because it’s how my brain works. You can do them as well or make your own. You just at one point put in your email to hear what I have to say so this is what I’m saying this week. Anyways back to the main point.

SOFTWARE

To Do Lists, Project Management, Notes, CRM, Databases— Notion

The holy grail of organizing. I’ve used Notion as my home base for like 4 years and everything is in here. Call notes, project management, invoicing, CRM. I made a basic template of how I utilize the software which you can find here. Super customizable so you can use it however you want. Always trying to iterate on this so give feedback if you have any!

Accounting— QBO

All things finance and bookkeeping. To be honest I just pay my accountant to handle all this and he sends me a report every so often to make sure I’m still in the green. Rarely am checking my transactions. Could probably be better at budgeting but have all my credit cards and bank accounts linked in here so all transactions can be mapped to their respective receipts and purchases. Makes expense reports much easier. I also run my payroll through QBO so they’re handling all the taxes and fees associated with that.

Cloud Storage + File Distribution— Air

If you’re reading this that probably means you follow me on one or more other platforms and I have been annoying enough about Air so don’t need to say a ton about this. Replaced Dropbox for everything. Much easier and better to use. Code ‘JKHPHOTO’ for $20 your first year here.

Footstep Creative comms— Slack

We used to have an iMessage chat but it was impossible to find anything and nothing worse than losing stuff in email chains. Much more organized version of a groupchat with video chats built in. As a guy who has never been apart of corporate America booting up slack each Monday morning and seeing my little status circle turn green heals a part of me. Also epic when clients and external partners can be integrated into channels for better comms. Please drop any epic Slack bots and integration in my inbox so I can pimp out our workspace.

Music Listening— Spotify

People say Apple Music has better sound quality but I am normal. Team Spotify.

Email— Apple Mail client

Got off the dot com a while ago and I prefer Apple Mail. All my inboxes in one place and I’m becoming a real Apple ecosystem guy trying to assimilate to all the native apps. (except Maps, but we’ll talk about that some more). I also have a plugin Mailbutler that helps me stay organized and reminders.

Photo Processing— Capture One

All things photo editing. I’m culling, grading, exporting all out of here. It’s a good day when I don’t have to open photoshop in the retouching lifecycle of a project.

Journal— Apple Journal

My friend Max told me I wouldn’t be able to journal everyday for a year on January 4th, 2024, and that’s all I have needed to recap my day in daily entries since. I’ve used a couple programs now— had a Notion template going, then used Day One, and now I’m back on the native Apple one. It syncs to my laptop which is nice and I’m now on team less apps more native software. Pen and paper would also work perfectly fine but I’d lose that.

Calendar— Notion Calendar

Syncs to my Notion databases which is nice. Has all my Google Calendars in it. Has a nice scheduling and AI notes feature I like. Besides that is the exact same as any other calendar. Team less apps unless it is made by Notion.

Browser— Safari

Started using Safari like a month ago because I was bored and needed to add some excitement to my life. Team less apps more native software. It’s fine. Don’t notice a big difference from my past life as a Chrome user. Do miss my Chrome plugins. It’s nice to have my passwords integrated though.

Treatments— Keynote

Team less apps more native software. Will not be paying for a Microsoft subscription. Hate working in Google Drive. Will die before opening Canva. Does all the same things. Local on computer. You get the gist.

Creating phonebooks and zines— Adobe InDesign

The last frontier of the Adobe Suite for me. I think the last product I use besides the occasional Photoshop retouch when I leave a C stand or soft box in the back of a picture. My invoice template is in InDesign, and design all my books and zines in here. Not really sure what the alternative would be in Google or another suite. Also learned InDesign and it is seemingly more confusing than anything else out there so seems like a good skill to have.

Maps- Google Maps

Have always been team Google Maps and probably will always will be. I don’t really care that in Apple Maps you can turn the map 3D and see what the buildings actually look like. Team more apps less native software.

Flight Tracking- Flighty

If you are a frequent flyer this is one of the greatest apps ever created. I would die for Flighty app. It gives me a nice map with all the places I have gone, but more importantly has saved me a couple nights stuck in the airport because it somehow gets Delta delay and cancellation notifications faster than the Delta app. I’ll be posting said map on my instagram story at the end of the year and no kidding 50 people guaranteed will ask what app it is. Happens every time. Highly recommend for people who like data, planes, or travel a lot.

Indoor exercise- Zwift

What a wonderful software that makes exercising feel like a video game. Copped a trainer last year and as a hater of treadmills thought it wouldn’t get me excited, but every day I come home ready to hop on my bike-version-of-mario-kart and push some watts.

That’s the full tech stack for this week. Hit me back if I need to add any must-have’s to my arsenal. Till next time

JKH