Tools of the Trade. I’m a big believer in optimising my workflow. These are the hardware, software, and everyday essentials I use on a daily basis to stay productive, write clean code, and keep my sanity.
Hardware
Apple Macbook (M4 Pro 48GB)
I do everything on this machine and it goes most places I go. I have no performance issues with it, when I need it to do some heavy lifting, it will absolutely do it. It’s also the machine I use to play World of Tanks.
Donerton 2026 Wireless Earbuds
Having being stung for the 3rd time with Apple Airpods that eventually make me sound like I’m underwater, I decided to try and find a fantastic budget set of Earphones that make music sound good and have a decent mic too. I’m currently using the Donerton 2026 Wireless Earbuds for work and play, and so far I’ve had zero issues.
My only gripe is when I want to switch from my phone to laptop (or vice versa), I do have to manually disconnect from the paired device before pairing it with the other device.
Development
Cursor
I have officially migrated to Cursor as my primary editor and no longer open PhpStorm. While I haven’t quite plucked up the courage to completely hit delete on PhpStorm yet, it’s safe to say I’m fully converted.
I spend my entire workday inside Cursor, completely shifting my workflow from writing line-by-line boilerplate to acting as a director. I heavily utilise cursor agents to scour codebases, refactor multi-file Laravel components, write robust Pest tests, and handle the heavy lifting while I focus on architecture and logic. It has fundamentally changed how fast I can ship open-source tools and production code alike.
Terminal
I use the default terminal on MacOS for any CLI based tasks I need to do. I know there’s alternatives out there but I’ve never really needed what they offer, MacOS terminal just works for me 🤷♂️
Postman
I work with a lot of APIs, and work with them frequently so Postman allows me to work with them effortlessly.
SequelAce / SequelPro / TablePlus
I use these three programs for whenever I need to do something in a database. SequelPro is used for databases that are MySQL8 and SequelAce is used for anything lower than that. I use TablePlus for if I ever need to interact with a Postgres database, for example. Really I should just use one program for all of them 😆
Colima / Herd
Depending on what application I’m working on, I either have it running in Laravel Herd or have it running in Colima. I much prefer Laravel Herd though as that requires a lot less faffing around to get an application up and running.
DBngin
This is the tool I use to create local databases. It’s got a really nice interface and allows you to create local Postgres, MySQL and Redis instances. It pairs really well with Laravel Herd.
Productivity
Google Workspace
I use Google Workspace for Email, Chat, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, Slides and much more. I’m really productive using it because it’s all in one place and it syncs nicely with my phone too.
Dashlane
I uses Dashlane as my password manager and I also store various keys and secrets in there using their “Secure Notes” feature. I have the Dashlane iOS app on my phone and I’ve swapped the native password manager on the device to Dashlane, so I have access to my passwords on each device I need.
Spotify
I use Spotify religiously for most of the day. Whether it be for music or podcasts. I’ve really started getting back in to Podcasts and I’m currently making my way through some of the older Laravel Podcast episodes.
Design
Canva
It’s rare that I ever actually need to design something, but I have a Canva subscription for those times that I do. It does everything I need it to do and probably a lot more stuff I don’t really need it to do!
Figma
I’m definitely not a designer, but I use Figma heavily. My workflow consists of pulling UI designs from Figma, feeding them directly into Cursor, and letting the AI generate a baseline layout. From there, I iterate back and forth with the agent until the frontend matches the design perfectly.