This is a collection of things I use very frequently, and I think are neat and worth talking about. Software tools are included as well, but aren't the main focus of this note.

Goals and intent

The goal is to allow for spontaneous travel and be prepared for most semi-likely scenarios, but without having to sacrifice on comfort by carrying too much weight or volume.

Semi-likely scenarios includes stuff that'll likely occur semi-frequently, but not necessarily every day or multiple times a day, e.g.:

• charging something on the go,
• cleaning your glasses
• pollen allergy or headache
• needing a small bandaid
• writing something down on paper
• washing and cleaning your hands without having to look for a public restroom or sink
• spontaneously staying somewhere overnight

If your goals are just commuting to and from work, then carrying your laptop and headphones is likely enough, because all other things are either covered by your home or your workplace.

This list is explicitly not a travel packing list. If I am travelling this is a base load out I carry, which is supplemented with a larger wash pouch and clothes, but not much else.

A core idea is to have different scales of kits, each of which includes the previous one as a subset, so that you can scale up or down depending on the situation

EDC

• Peak Design Everyday Backpack 20L

• Peak Design 7L Sling

• Muji A6 notebook and pens

• small heart-shaped carabiners:

  • they come in a bunch of colors and in large quantities for very cheap. I think I bought a 20-pack for 7€
  • very small and great shape to have them in a lot of places that you could want to attach something to, e.g. water bottle, or outside of backpack/sling
  • don't worry about their sturdiness, the heaviest they will ever carry is a water bottle, which is well below their breaking point
  • add them to every bag you have so you always have one somewhere. you'd be surprised how often these come in handy

• tweezers, bandaids, injection wipes (great for cleaning anything small really, from wounds to hands to glasses), lipbalm, hand sanitizer, hairbrush, tissues,

• Peak Design Ultralight packing cubes (XS)

  • Great not just for clothes, but a lot of small things in general

• Travel-sized razor and toothbrush

• Charging:

  • Ugreen 65W GaN Charger
  • Nitecore NB 10000
  • Anker Powerline 3 Flow usb-c to usb-c
  • USB-C to Lightning adapters to not have to carry another cable
  • Muji Combinations Pouch - Small

• Dopper Original 450ml water bottle:

  • weighs just 100g, uninsulated on purpose to save weight
  • with carrier attachment
  • pairs well with the peak design 7L sling: shape of the bottle head allows attaching it underneath the sling without even needing the carabiner

Software

Day-to-day:

• vscode
• iterm2
• zsh
• tmux
• busycal: there isn't anything more powerful, flexible and customizable out there unless you want to rebuild everything from scratch yourself
• orion: webkit-based browser that combines the macOS-ness of safari with features you know from other browsers like vertical tabs, ad blocking, and support for chrome, safari and firefox extensions
• obsidian
• figma
• ungoogled chromium: because for webdev you sometimes want to use a chromium-based browser for the devtools, v8 and blink, but don't want to have to deal with google's bullshit

Utilities:

• shottr: best screenshotting tool for macOS when you want to do more than just take a screenshot, e.g. annotate, crop, blur
• rectangle: neat window snapping
• karabiner elements: I need certain key remappings to be productive or else I get frustrated by inefficiency
• linearmouse: configure mouse things
• orbstack: docker-desktop replacement that is a lot more comfortable to use
• tailscale: automated wireguard setup of your dreams. it just works and discovering new features and reading the docs was a joy as the level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail was great to see
• timer: sadly unmaintained, but still the simplest and most useful timer app I've ever found for macOS