Best of Productivity — June 2025

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Article
This is Learning·47w
Tools I Use Every Day (June 2025 Edition)
A comprehensive overview of daily development tools used by a professional developer, covering code editors (JetBrains Rider, VS Code), collaboration platforms (GitHub, Teams, Slack, Discord), productivity apps (Notion, ChatGPT, Feedly), AI tools (LM Studio, Azure Local AI Foundry), and utilities (Windows Terminal, Postman, NordPass). Includes cost breakdown showing monthly expenses ranging from $50-100+ depending on licensing tiers, with many tools offering free alternatives.
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Article
Hacker News·45w
I Deleted My Second Brain
A personal reflection on deleting 10,000 notes and 7 years of accumulated knowledge from personal knowledge management systems like Obsidian. The author argues that PKM tools can become digital hoarding systems that replace actual thinking with filing, leading to cognitive overload rather than clarity. After achieving sobriety, they realized their extensive note-taking archive had become a burden rather than a tool, prompting them to delete everything and adopt a minimalist approach focused on living knowledge rather than storing it.
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Article
Community Picks·49w
The Moment I let go of Clean Code
A developer's perspective on moving away from obsessive clean code practices after experiencing both extremes - working with messy legacy code and a colleague who over-refactored. The author argues that perfectionist code cleaning can become procrastination, drawing parallels to inbox zero mentality. Instead, they advocate for pragmatic improvements: fix code when you're already working with it, focus on functionality first, and accept that some messiness is acceptable if it doesn't hinder productivity. The key is finding balance between writing maintainable code and delivering value.
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Article
Work Chronicles·48w
(comic) Work hard on the slides, they said
A workplace comic highlighting the common frustration of spending significant time preparing presentation slides only to have meetings cancelled or postponed, illustrating the inefficiency and wasted effort that occurs in corporate environments.
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Article
Work Chronicles·46w
(comic) Urgent Important Matrix
A comic illustration exploring the Urgent Important Matrix (Eisenhower Matrix), a popular productivity framework for prioritizing tasks based on their urgency and importance levels. The comic humorously depicts how people often struggle with categorizing and managing their workload using this decision-making tool.
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Article
Work Chronicles·49w
(comic) Getting work done
A workplace comic that humorously depicts the challenges and realities of getting work done in professional environments. The comic likely explores common workplace scenarios, productivity struggles, and the gap between expectations and reality in modern work settings.
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Article
Tech Lead Digest·47w
Smart People Don't Chase Goals; They Create Limits
Traditional goal-setting often creates misalignment and focuses on outcomes rather than process. Smart people instead work within constraints - self-imposed boundaries that guide decisions without locking in specific predictions. Constraints like 'never work with clients who drain me' or 'only build products I can explain to a teenager' provide adaptive frameworks that respond to feedback and maintain authenticity. This approach proves more effective in ambiguous, creative domains where rigid goals become brittle and counterproductive.
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Article
Community Picks·45w
The Best Productivity Apps You Need Right Now
A curated list of 6 productivity applications designed to help users focus and manage their time better. The collection includes ByDesign for all-in-one task management, Side Space for browser tab organization, AudioNotes for voice-to-text note taking, Digest for news aggregation, Reverie for voice journaling, and TaskHeat for visual task planning. Each app targets specific productivity challenges like distraction management, note organization, and workflow visualization.
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Article
Hacker News·48w
A receipt printer cured my procrastination [ADHD]
A developer with ADHD discovered how to overcome procrastination by applying video game design principles to task management. The key insight involves creating frequent feedback loops by breaking tasks into micro-steps, using physical sticky notes for tangible progress tracking, and eventually upgrading to a thermal receipt printer for automated task printing. The system mimics addictive game mechanics through immediate feedback, easy starting points, and visual progress indicators, resulting in dramatically improved productivity and consistency.
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Article
Irrational Exuberance·48w
My desk setup in 2025.
A detailed breakdown of a multi-device desk setup supporting 2-3 Mac laptops and a Windows gaming desktop through a single Thunderbolt connection. The setup features a CalDigit TS5 Plus dock as the central hub, Apple Studio Display, Beelink mini PC with external GPU, professional microphone, and various productivity accessories. The author emphasizes the importance of seamless device switching and cable management in creating an efficient workspace.
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Article
Hacker News·49w
Why I Switched to UTC and Never Looked Back
A programmer shares his five-year experience of switching all devices to UTC instead of local time zones. The approach eliminates mental conversion overhead, provides consistency during travel, and simplifies scheduling for remote workers. While there are minor downsides like explaining the setup to others and converting 12-hour local times, the author found it significantly improved productivity and time management across global schedules.
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Article
Community Picks·47w
All the Tools You Need in one place.
Toolfolio is a curated platform that aggregates productivity, design, and development tools in one place. It offers weekly newsletters featuring handpicked tools, resources, and products including AI-powered solutions, no-code integrations, coding components, UI kits, and project management tools. The platform serves over 4000 creators and provides categories for screenshotting, recording, design tools, and startup resources.
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Article
Lonely Programmer·49w
Laravel Superhero
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Video
YouTube·48w
Obsidian Bases Just Changed Everything
Obsidian introduces Bases, a new core plugin that transforms notes into powerful databases with filtering and organization capabilities. The feature offers three key advantages: exceptional speed when handling thousands of notes, multiple views per base similar to Airtable, and embeddable views that can be inserted into other notes. Users can filter notes by properties, create custom columns, and organize information like quotes, projects, or recently modified files. While promising for data analysis and retrieval, the feature requires comfort with Obsidian properties and may shift focus from organic note-linking to structured database thinking. Currently in early access for Catalyst license holders, Bases represents a significant evolution in Obsidian's note management capabilities.
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Article
Figma·46w
6 skills every engineer needs for the AI era
Software engineers need to develop six key skills to thrive in the AI era: using AI for problem exploration beyond automation, vibe coding to discover better solutions, leveraging agentic capabilities like Model Context Protocol for improved outputs, auditing pull requests with LLMs, managing teams of AI agents by breaking down complex problems, and continuously experimenting with AI tools to push beyond preconceived limitations. The focus should be on augmentation rather than just automation, allowing engineers to spend more time on meaningful problem-solving and user-focused development.
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Article
Awesome Elixir·48w
Build a Cross-Platform Markdown Notes System with Syncthing, Neovim & Markor (Offline, Fast & Private)
A comprehensive guide for building a cross-platform note-taking system using Syncthing for file synchronization, Neovim for desktop editing, and Markor for mobile markdown editing. The system prioritizes data ownership, offline functionality, and zero vendor lock-in by storing notes as plain markdown files. Includes step-by-step setup instructions for Linux desktop and Android mobile devices, directory structure organization, and device synchronization configuration.
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Video
developedbyed·49w
10x Your Neovim Experience
A comprehensive guide to enhancing Neovim productivity through essential plugins and tools. Covers Vimium browser extension for keyboard navigation, Typer plugin for improving typing speed within Neovim, Precognition for learning key bindings with visual hints, Mini Surround for efficient text manipulation, and visual enhancement plugins like Smear and Neo Scroll. Demonstrates practical workflows for developers looking to minimize mouse usage and maximize keyboard efficiency in their development environment.
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Article
Product Hunt·48w
Viberunner: Build personal desktop apps in seconds
Viberunner is a tool that enables users to quickly create personal desktop applications and utilities without traditional development complexity. The platform focuses on rapid app creation, allowing users to build custom desktop solutions in seconds for their personal workflow needs.
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Article
daily.dev World·48w
Clickbait Shield just got a free tier 👀🛡️
Daily.dev introduces a free tier for Clickbait Shield, allowing users to rewrite clickbait titles into informative versions up to 5 times per month. The feature helps developers filter through content noise by providing clearer, more descriptive post titles. Unlimited usage requires a daily.dev Plus subscription, which includes additional AI tools and custom feeds.
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Article
Neon·49w
How We're Using Cursor at Neon
Neon's engineering team shares their experience using Cursor AI coding assistant across TypeScript, Go, Rust, and Python codebases. They highlight successful workflows including Cursor Tab for faster coding, Agent Mode for refactoring and debugging, understanding unfamiliar code, and modernizing legacy patterns. However, they identify limitations like context gaps leading to incorrect suggestions, reliability issues in large files, and the cognitive overhead of model selection. The team suggests improvements including better context awareness, version-specific syntax suggestions, automated testing workflows, and open-sourcing the editor.
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Article
It's Foss·49w
My Favorite Obsidian Plugins and Their Hidden Settings
A comprehensive guide to essential Obsidian plugins, covering both core plugins like Backlinks, Daily Notes, and Slash Commands, as well as community plugins such as Calendar, QuickAdd, and Tasks. The guide includes specific configuration tips and hidden settings to enhance note-taking workflows, from basic diary functionality to advanced features like PDF annotation, task management, and visual diagramming with Excalidraw.
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Article
omg! ubuntu!·46w
ONLYOFFICE 9.0 Released with New Themes, AI Tools + More
ONLYOFFICE 9.0 introduces Modern Light/Dark themes with redesigned UI elements and improved spacing. New features include a Diagram Viewer for industry-standard formats, support for additional file formats (Markdown, ODG, XLSB), and AI-powered tools for OCR text extraction, smart spreadsheet formulas, and macro creation. The update also brings PDF page reordering, RTL support in spreadsheets, improved content controls, and various editor enhancements across document, spreadsheet, and presentation tools.
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Article
The Dev Craft·45w
Introducing PlanWisr: A Project & Time Management Tool for Creators
PlanWisr is a newly launched productivity tool designed for freelancers, indie hackers, and solo developers. It combines project and task management with AI assistance, time tracking capabilities, invoice creation and sharing, progress insights, and client-facing project views all in one platform.
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Article
Community Picks·46w
Cluely
Cluely is an AI assistant that monitors your screen content and audio in real-time to provide contextual answers and support. It operates invisibly during meetings and work sessions, analyzing what you see and hear to deliver relevant information without appearing in recordings or shared screens. The tool aims to help with coding, presentations, meetings, and research by understanding context and providing instant responses through a simple key press.
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Video
ThePrimeTime·48w
Dopamine Driven Development
A developer shares how using small dopamine rewards from terminal aesthetics, CI/CD pipeline animations, and testing feedback helped overcome work boredom and increased coding motivation. The approach involves creating systems that provide immediate visual satisfaction to make mundane programming tasks more engaging and rewarding.
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