My Productivity Apps for 2026

I took some time off around Christmas and New Year's and during that time I automated my productivity apps and workflow and I just kind of came up with a couple of new apps and systems that I think are really working for me. Now these aren't just limited to the iPad, I am going to be covering some iPhone and Mac app stuff as well in this video. This video is sponsored by Recall, let's get into it. I've never really been a huge fan of third-party web browsers on the iPad due to Apple's app store rules. In the U.S. here it kind of gets weird when you get outside of the U.S. especially like in the EU and stuff like that but in the U.S. they are required to use WebKit as the engine so basically every web browser that is on the app store including Chrome is just Safari with a different theme on top of it and then there's things like they're not able to use extensions and stuff like that so really on the iPad and the iPhone there's really no reason to use another browser outside of Safari. Until now. I've been using this app Beam. This is ARC but for the iPad and it's really good. This has the typical ARC sidebar, spaces and profiles so that way you can switch between different modes that you're working for and different accounts that you are signed into. You can pin tab so you can set spaces up for work and personal stuff so that way you can have all of your work stuff in a certain profile and then all of your personal stuff in another profile. I've set up spaces for 3D printing and network management so that way I can keep my setups a little bit cleaner. Plus I don't have a bajillion tabs open at the top where I just lose track of what I had open. Everything is organized into these different spaces. I can just jump through them and I really really like this. This is a much more organized way of dealing with a web browser especially in 2026. I just don't think the classic tab situation where all your tabs live at the top no matter if you're doing work stuff or if you're doing personal stuff or if you're researching a hobby or something like that. I just don't think that works anymore. I think the web is too important and tabs need a better way of being organized and I really like this sidebar. The other thing that Beam has from ARC is the command bar. So you use this for opening up new web pages or new tabs so you would just type in youtube.com and if you already have youtube.com opened in another space it'll actually just jump to that so that way it's keeping your spaces organized. So say I'm in my 3D printing space but I want to go over to a keyboard website I could just type in that keyboard website and if I have it open in my keyboard space it'll just jump me over to that space. You can also move tabs to different spaces so say you open up a new tab in your personal space but this is a work thing. You can use the command bar to move that tab over to your workspace. There's also features like summarize the page with the on-device apple intelligence model which is interesting if you use that kind of stuff. There's a bunch of other features in here that can use the on-device model as well when regarding the web page you can browse through these and check them out. So a big test for me whenever it comes to web browsers is how well does it work with Airtable. I'm not using Airtable at the moment for anything but I do have a pretty big database in Airtable of my old video projects and stuff like that and I was actually really impressed with how well Beams worked with it. It treated it like a web app and I was just able to move things around I was able to browse through it it didn't lag or stutter or get hung up on anything. I was able to work with like the drag and drop system the tab system the menu system all that stuff in Airtable worked just fine. I've actually been using this as my default browser if you don't know you can go into settings apps and you can change your default browser right there in the settings app to be a third-party browser if you want it doesn't have to be Safari so when you tap on link it'll open in this browser. Now Beam has been in beta but by the time this video is out Beam should be out already so I will link to that and everything else in the description below of course. And I think this has been really interesting like I said there are a lot of limitations when using a third-party browser with the iPad for right now this is sticking with me and I hope it does stick with me but there is a possibility I do get frustrated and go back to Safari stuff like extensions are super important to me and not having those in Beam is a bummer. I have been using the app QuickNote for dictating notes quickly on my iPhone now this is developed by my co-host on Comfort Zone Matt Birchler this is his new iPhone app and he just uses this as a quick way to dictate notes and I think this is kind of interesting what's special about this app is what you can do with your notes after you're done dictating them so there's this auto cleanup feature in here that takes out the ums the ahs the pauses and stuff like that it just makes the dictation more readable and a more kind of a proper note without all that extra bits in there that you get when you dictate stuff now you can go into the settings of this app and turn this on to run automatically or you can run it manually after you dictate the note either way it runs really fast how I've been using this app is I'll you know come up with an idea I'll dictate a note like the other day what I did is I was using it like putting together a grocery list I was just going through our kitchen being like okay I need this this this this this and this and put it all in there did the auto cleanup feature and then I used the ability to export the note right out of quick note and I sent it to my folder in obsidian but I've been using this app for a few different things like I said I used it to put together a grocery list but I also use this to just kind of like riff on some ideas especially over like my holiday break period I was just kind of coming up with video ideas and just like things I want to do this year and I was just riffing with this and this is like the perfect tool for that because I didn't want to sit there and type it all out I was just kind of thinking out loud and this was a great tool to kind of just come up with some ideas for that you don't have to save anything to an app like obsidian your notes can just stay right in quick note if you want to use it that way you absolutely can now I set this up to run from my action cat shortcut which is assigned to the action button on my iphone so I just run the shortcut and there's an option to basically just start dictating a quick note now what you could do if you don't want to do this is you could set up the open app action in control center so that way you can just tap it and jump right into quick note okay speaking of obsidian I'm still doing all my long form writing all my note taking just pretty much almost all of the text I write goes in obsidian and I did a whole video about my obsidian setup I'm not going to rehash all that I will link that video in the description below it's it's worthwhile watching if you're interested in obsidian but a couple of things have changed with how I'm using obsidian going forward I am embracing the daily note feature just even more I was kind of using it already I talked about it in that video but I am just doing even more in that now I updated my template with a place where I can track the stuff I publish for that day just kind of like an interesting experiment for me to do I also added a place where I can write a script for my daily short daily short might be the wrong name for this but what I'm going to try and do is a couple of times a week basically do a vlog style video but in short form I don't want it to take away from these long form videos at all but it's more of a behind the scenes look at like what I'm doing maybe some products that I buy or something that just don't fit in a long form video or maybe some apps that just don't make sense in a long form video I can cover that stuff here so I've updated my template so that I just have a place to write this because I didn't want two daily notes I didn't want a separate one for this this way I can just look back and be like oh hey that's what I worked on that day and the whole idea of these shorts is they shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to produce from script to upload there they should be incredibly straightforward super simple the long form videos are the polished content of the channel the short form stuff is the more behind the scenes stuff and that's kind of my idea for this year obsidian even got an update recently to add control center toggles so I put in a control center toggle that I can just jump right into my daily note anywhere in the system it's super handy to have so the next app that I've gotten really into in the past couple of months is the sponsor of this video and that is recall at its core recall is a place to save links articles youtube videos podcasts pdfs or google docs and more saving something to recall is super easy if you're using a desktop browser like chrome you can use the browser extension and just save to recall right from the browser extension or on the iphone and ipad where I primarily work you can just use the share sheet and they have a share sheet extension right there it'll take that link and add it right to recall when you save something to recall two things happen one the content gets summarized two the content gets automatically tagged and organized I love this I get a good summary of what this thing is about and it automatically gets organized for me I use recall as my read later and bookmarking app anything I come across on the web I save here from youtube videos I want to watch to gear I want to check out to 3d prints I want to make everything gets saved here plus there is an updated graph view so you can see how everything connects together the graph view connects everything automatically you can move through the graph by clicking on each node seeing how they connect this will show you the path of how your notes and information are saved and connected you can also customize it so that any links you may not want in this graph view are removed or you can manually make your own connections recall was recently updated with a notion style editor so if you want to write a note about what you saved maybe a reminder for why you saved it or what it's for you can type the forward slash and get a list of commands you can do in recall this includes things like double brackets to link to other notes drag and drop base blocks tables to-do lists and even code blocks there's also a chat interface so you can ask questions about the content you saved it pulls information from both the content and your notes I found this to be extremely handy when I was researching camera stuff recently I would ask questions about the different specs of cameras that I was looking at it was a really great way for me being able to compare features without having to jump between a bunch of different websites recall is the perfect service to bridge the gap between the web and my note-taking app plus it has AI tools that I actually find useful recall is growing quickly and often check out recall today I'm gonna put a link in the description below use my code chris25 to get 25% off recall my thanks to recall for sponsoring this video I am using the drafts app again but I am using it as like my sticky notes app you know you see those people with like sticky notes covered all over their desk that would be me but I don't like having physical notes like that because they get lost and misplaced and stuff like that that is what drafts is for for me this is a place where I write down things like phone numbers or addresses things I need to look into paste a website link that I need to send to somebody or just save all that kind of stuff I also use it for things that people use like text edit or notepad for on mac or windows uh stuff like I need to convert this rich text to plain text or I just I just need this like url to see the plain text to kind of like see if it's fishy or something like that that kind of thing you know you open up text edit for a lot of different weird swiss army knife stuff that's what drafts at is for me I'm also using it to write like all my posts and stuff like that like this way I just can write it all here because everything has to go to a million different platforms now it's frustrating I know but I write it all here spell and grammar check it and then you know send it off to its various places this is the kind of stuff I do multiple times throughout a day but I don't want to make obsidian messy with this stuff this isn't stuff that I need to hold on to and reference in six months this is stuff that I need for five minutes or ten minutes or maybe half a day but it's not stuff I like look back and be like oh man where was that oh I need that piece of text it's it's not stuff like that that I'm using drafts for drafts has a million different use cases and every user out there has a different use case for it I just I love drafts I think it's an extremely well put together app and it's just perfect to kind of like not quite be a note-taking app but not quite just be like uh you know a piece of paper that I can crumple up and throw away it's it's that perfect middle ground Claude has become my AI chatbot of choice for a couple of reasons first the Claude CEO just came out and blatantly said doesn't like generative AI stuff doesn't like those you know generating images or videos of people without consent or like you know taking art away from artists and stuff like that I cannot stand that part of AI I do not like that part also Claude code is very good like it is extremely good like I've been working on a couple of things in the background that I'm not ready to announce or anything but Claude code is awesome and MCP which should be its own video like actually it probably will be its own video because it's very complex but MCP I'm convinced is the future of automation I'm even more convinced that I could see Apple abandoning app intents and going with MCP with the latest news that they're going to be using Gemini as their foundation models I don't think Claude's web search is as good as something like chat GPTs I'm not willing to pay for a bunch of different chatbots I'm only if I'm and Claude's is good enough like I feel like it does a good job of doing research my only complaint is that I wish it would put the sources in line with the information like chat GPT does instead it has all of its sources down at the bottom I'm a big fan of like if you're going to scrape the internet and get information put the source of that information right next to that text that to me is really important Claude's iPhone and iPad app is also really good you can do things like upload images and screenshots for example this is actually perfect when I was moving from Safari to Beam I wasn't able to get the bookmark importer to work I think it might have been a beta bug I'm not entirely sure so what I did is I took a screenshot of all my bookmarks in Safari I uploaded it to Claude and told it to export it in a markdown plain text format it did exactly that and I was just able to add it right into Beam I didn't have to manually retype any of those bookmarks I didn't have to do anything it it handled it perfectly Claude also does a really good job of projects projects are chats that have a pre-determined set of instructions so like I'm gonna upload this file and I want you to do this this and this to it so I have one that is I'm gonna upload contracts to you I am Christopher Lally I am the YouTuber influencer blah blah blah whatever and I want you to give me the key points and look for these red flags and look for this this this and this and while I read every line of every contract I get having a second set of eyes kind of go through and be like oh hey you might want to look out for this thing or oh hey maybe suggest this in the contract is really really handy plus I also have projects that run spelling and grammar checks for me which are a lot better than the built-in apple intelligence proofread feature which I had high hopes for but has kind of let me down and on top of all of that it has a memory feature so if you choose to enable this what this does is it kind of remembers stuff from your previous chats so for example I've been getting really into 3d printing and I have so in a couple of chats I told it hey I have the bamboo labs a1 I'm trying to do this for with it and it's gotten to the point it remembers I have the bamboo labs a1 so if I ask a question about 3d printing it knows I have the bamboo labs a1 so it's going to look for stuff specific to that I really like that feature for me AI chatbots are tools they're a way to assist me in repetitive tasks that frankly I don't want to do all the time and they will never ever ever replace the creative workflow for me they are an assistant they are not a collaborator but I am a one-man shop and how I spend my time is important I only have so much time in the day time is my most precious commodity so if I can have a tool that helps me with that I'm all for that and Claude has been extremely helpful. I recently made a video all about my task management setup I talked about how it's one of my key pillars to the way I work I will link that video in the description below but basically I'm using Todoist as my task manager now I'm not going to rehash that whole video but Todoist is my main task and project manager nothing has changed there but I've started using the app BusyCal again BusyCal is a calendar app and there's a few key things that I like about it one it's just a paid up front app there is no subscription to it so I bought it a while ago just redownloaded it it's not as nice looking as something as Fantastical I still think Fantastical is the gold standard for like calendar design good looking app but BusyCal has pretty much all the functionality I would use out of Fantastical it has natural language input it has the ability to sign into both my Google Calendar and my Todoist so I can see both my calendar stuff and the tasks that I need to do for that day in line next to each other which is key really love that feature mostly so I don't double book myself like with an appointment while I need to do something else at a certain time it's just it's really nice but the thing that won me over is their extra large widget this shows a three-day view so today tomorrow and the next day and this shows all of your calendar appointments and tasks in line together of when you need to do them so this way I just have one spot I need to check for my day I don't need to go into a bunch of different apps I have one spot right there on my home screen I can see okay this is the things I need to do today and these are the things I need to do in the next two days do I need to like order something or prep something ahead of time so I can accomplish those tasks now so handy BusyCal just bridges that gap between task and calendar for me it just like kind of puts it in one bucket I'm still opening the Todoist app to like manage projects and tasks and stuff like that but BusyCal is kind of like I can see a quick summary of my day so this way I don't need to see the full fire hose of everything I can see the garden hose of it I mentioned Brick in my favorite tech of the year video and I wanted to bring it back in this video as well because I really do think it's a really nice utility uh like I talked about in that video basically what Brick is is a little NFC magnet I stuck it on my refrigerator I can scan it with the app and it locks down my phone I set up apps that I don't want to be able to access in there and it blocks those apps while Brick is enabled when to disable it I have to go all the way back to my refrigerator and scan it the refrigerator is on the opposite side of the house from my studio so it's that barrier is just enough so that I don't go and unscan it all the time and like goof off and then enable it and disable it and all that stuff for me this has been a really handy utility of just putting the distracting stuff away and getting focused on the work I want to do more this year again over so original somebody in January saying they want to do more this year and I know but I am actually really committed to doing more this year than I have the last couple of years I'm redoing a lot of my whole workflow a lot of my whole setup as you can all tell and Brick has been very helpful on like let's put the distracting stuff away but still having access to the creative tools on my phone now there are other apps and devices that do this Brick will just happen to be the Instagram ad that came across my device the thing I don't like about the just pure app version of it is that you can just open the app on your phone and turn it off there's no barrier there I like having that physical device that I have to go out and scan to create that that barrier and then the last step I want to talk about is focus friend this is another one I have mentioned in another video but again I just think it's such a great utility and there are other apps that do the same thing on the app store you don't have to just use this one I like this one because of the art style I think it's very fun and whimsical and I like the idea of focus friend how it kind of rewards you so let me back up let me explain what it does so with focus friend you're able to set a timer and it's it's an ADHD timer kind of thing so you set a timer for a half hour or 20 minutes or an hour or whatever how long you want to work and then you do that and then it ends and you can set a break timer so you can goof off for 10 minutes and then you start a work timer and you you keep that flow going well while you have a work timer going there's a bean character which I've upgraded to be a dog because who doesn't love a dog uh it it knits things and you're rewarded with scarves and socks afterwards and when you collect enough scarves and socks you exchange it for furniture so you can decorate an office a living room or a kitchen and it's been really fun just do in fact when I got my new iPad I didn't even restore the backup for that app I started fresh because I wanted to rebuild it all I pretty much maxed it out and then they added some more rooms but um yeah I started fresh with it it's it's been fun just going again you can also use focus friend to block apps while the timer is running you can actually set up a block or allow list however which way you want to go um I just set it up to block again the distracting apps stuff that I do need on my device in order to do stuff but I don't need it while I'm working so while the timer is running those apps are blocked and what's really cool about focus friend is if you cancel the timer so if you stop it before the timer finishes for whatever time period you set so say an hour if you stop it at 45 minutes you don't get any scarves or socks so you don't get any of those rewards that you can exchange for furniture and stuff like that there's no micro transactions but there is a subscription if you want to get access to the block or allow list and then there is things like cosmetic stuff that you can buy but you can't absolutely 100% just use this app as a free tier app so that's it those are the productivity apps I'm using in the new year this is kind of like the core of my productivity setup for this year I'm kind of really happy with the balance that I found it I don't feel like it's too much but I also found like really specific tools that are really good at the job they need to do but I want to hear from you all what does your productivity setup look like this year let me know in the comments below my thanks to recall for sponsoring this video if you like the video hit the thumbs up button subscribe if you haven't already and have a great day