The Setup

I have a rather strange, stalkerish obsession with reading about the tools that people use to get work done. Lifehacker’s How I Work series and The Setup enable this obsession by letting me geek out about what computers and gadgets and knickknacks people (mostly in tech) are using to do stuff.

Someday, the fine people at Lifehacker or The Setup will care about my favorite apps, but for now, here’s my version of The Setup.

1. Who are you, and what do you do?

I’m Bethany Lang, and I’m an Implementation & Training Consultant at Z2 Systems, makers of the NeonCRM. Before this, I was a fundraiser for Christopher House and Chicago Children’s Museum. I’m also working on a Masters in Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

2. What hardware are you using?

My iPhone 5 is my best friend. I have a Toshiba Satellite P850 and a Dell ST2220L monitor at work. This is the first job where I’ve used a second monitor, and I’m not sure how I survived without one. When I redid my home office setup recently, I made sure to get a very similar Dell monitor. I recently switched from a 2008 Macbook to a Macbook Air, which is amazing. I debated between the Air and a Macbook Pro because I didn’t think I needed a portable machine, but I was wrong. I love taking my Air with me everywhere. I also have an iPad (the one before the Air), which I use mostly for the Twitter and Kindle apps.

I still feel the need to write on paper, especially when making to-do lists. I came across Whitelines notebooks at Blick one day and I’ve been a believer ever since, but in a pinch, a good Rhodia notebook will also do. After years of searching for the perfect pen, I think I’ve come close with the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner.

I’m always upgrading the things that I carry with me on a daily basis. I recently got a Zojirushi Stainless Vacuum Bottle for my coffee and tea and it has changed my life; my tea stays warm literally all day. I have three different Timbuk2 bags (a Eula, a Swig, and a Classic Messenger) that I swap out based up on how much stuff I have with me on any given day.

3. And what software?

Evernote and Dropbox have saved my life more times than I can count. I keep notes about all of my clients in Evernote, and my office uses Evernote Business to share notes. I’ve managed to get a ton of space on Dropbox through referrals, and I use it to keep all of my photos, school assignments, and data for consulting. I use Gmail for my personal email and business email, and I’ve been trying to find a decent client for it for my PC.

Most of my day-to-day work is done in Excel (no, I’m not linking that). I’ve been trying to learn more tricks and tools with it to help improve my ability to easily manipulate and organize data. I recently learned about VLOOKUP, and it is wonderful.

For web browsing, I’m a huge Chrome fan. The extensions that I can’t live without are TweetDeck and LastPass, which helps me use room in my brain that was formerly used for memorizing wacky passwords for more important things.

On my iPhone, my #1 most-used app is Pocket. I use it to store all of the articles I find on Twitter and elsewhere, and I love the sharing features. The problem is that it’s apt to get out of control, because I save every article that I find remotely interesting. I use Twitterific, Spotify, and Transit Stop daily. I use Sleep Cycle every night because I love the gentle alarm, but it’s also nice to see how I’ve been sleeping.

I do a lot of my work on my Mac in cloud-based apps like Evernote, but I really like iAWriter for note-taking in class. I absolutely loathe the bulleting and formatting in Evernote, but if they fix that someday, I’ll probably take all of my notes there.

I’ve tried to move my reading from tons of RSS feeds to picking up links from Twitter. I miss some things here and there, but by and large, I like this method better. I use Feedly for RSS, but I miss Google Reader every day.

4. What would be your dream setup?

For the first time in my adult life, I now have a home office, and it’s pretty damn close to my dream setup. The one major thing I miss is a chair for heavy reading. I had an awesome one at my old place that I didn’t have room for in the current apartment. I miss sinking into it with a cup of tea and a big book.