INTRO

Welcome to Maker Stacks, a new newsletter from the Product Hunt team where we interview a maker about their stack.

In today’s edition, we have productivity content creator Francesco D’Alessio to walk us through the tools he uses to stay productive and build his business.

Enjoying this newsletter? Don’t forget to forward it to your friends!

MEET THE MAKER

Francesco D'Alessio

👋 I’m Francesco.

For 10+ years, I've been helping people find their perfect productivity apps and software. Starting on YouTube with KeepProductive and now with ToolFinder.

We have over 400K subscribers on YouTube, and over 100,000+ people find productivity tools monthly on Tool Finder. We're on a big mission to help people choose the tools and apps for work & life. 

Francesco’s Stack

• Notion (planning) 

• Todoist (tasks) 

• Endel (music productivity) 

• reMarkable (offline ideas) 

• Superhuman (email) 

• WHOOP (health tracking)

How does your productivity system work?

My core productivity system is mainly two apps. Tasks (Todoist) and planning/ideas (Notion, reMarkable) - everything else is accessed when needed. They don't work connected. They just live nearby, and people normally think I'm some robot with 40 productivity tools, but I'm not. I keep things simple despite seeing probably 10-15 new tools a week, more if I check in on Product Hunt ;).

Superhuman is common in productivity stacks these days. What sets it apart for you?

Superhuman is one of those apps that is like butter. The build quality combined with the speediness compared to apps like Gmail is just second to none. Once you learn to use it and use it for more than a week, and you handle lots of emails, it is worth it.

Is there any tool or trend that has caught your eye recently that you want to explore?

One recent trend that caught my eye is how spatial computing will change the landscape of productivity tools. I predict that voice AI and spatial computing will make tools head toward a JARVIS-like setup, focusing less on what the tool looks like and more on what powers it can bring. A big one that will shape the next chapter of tools.

Do you have any Notion pro tips for beginners? 

One of the biggest gems that some people don't do with Notion is step back before they build. Grab a pen and paper and visualize what you want it to look like. For a tool like Notion, this will probe your build before you start.

A hardware productivity tool can be a hard sell. What makes reMarkable worth it?

reMarkable is a paper tablet with an e-ink display for reading, sketching, writing, and note-taking. When I first got it, I wasn't sure I'd like it, but for me, it means grabbing time away from the screen, in a coffee shop, maybe with some carrot cake, and just zooming out of the business with a pen and paper.