Two things: Emacs and pen-paper (yes, the old-fashioned paper notebook and a pen). Eulogy follows: Emacs has helped me eliminate software clutter. Seriously.

Two things: Emacs and pen-paper (yes, the old-fashioned paper notebook and a pen). Eulogy follows: Emacs has helped me eliminate software clutter. Seriously. Computer and software maintenance is a major productivity killer for me. Install this upgrade, update this app... I really hate that process, and even Mac OS does not hide it behind the scenes. Emacs and org-mode helped me get rid of my mess of "productivity" apps, which also means less thinking about which app to use for what. It helps that Emacs just helps me bend text files into my thought flow, and I don't have to adapt to Productivity-App-Of-The-Day's model of anything. To-do lists go into an org-mode file. Latest thoughts about work can go into a an org-mode file. I can slice and dice them and write them as free-form or as organized as I want. It's immensely liberating. It helps that I don't have to worry about a proprietary file format biting the dust.