Hardware, software, and small workflow choices I've settled on after a few years of shipping CRM and ERP work from Abu Dhabi. Updated whenever something genuinely changes — not when a sponsor pays me to say so.
What sits on the desk every morning before the first commit.
16-inch · 16 GB · 512 GB
Vertical orientation for code + horizontal for chat
Most clients message me here.
Gaming buttons, 2 device pairing
Brown switches, low-profile for long Lumen sessions
Where the work actually happens.
Primary editor — Composer + Tab autocomplete
Powerlevel10k prompt, shared aliases via dotfiles
MySQL + Postgres + Redis in one window
API testing across Lumen + 3rd-party CRM webhooks
Local DB instances per project, no Docker bloat
Dual approach — desktop for diffs, gh for PRs
Background noise budget.
ANC for the deep-work blocks
Default soundtrack for deploys
When lo-fi gets stale
Apps that catch the work between commits.
Personal knowledge base + project roadmaps
Issue tracking — fast and out of the way
WhatsApp for clients and teams in UAE
Booking link for consults — saves 5 emails per call
Gmail for inbox, Apple Mail for unified search
Where everything lives in production.
Laravel + Next.js on the same Ubuntu box for now
Production CRM workloads
DNS + WAF + caching for rustylopez.dev
CI/CD — lint, build, deploy on push to main
Error tracking on both frontend + backend
The non-tech tech that keeps things running.
Most days · simple, fast, washable
Honest beans, easy to find in AD
30 min standing every 2 hours
The other inputs that show up in how I work.
PPL split, 4 days. Big believer in 'compound lifts > everything'.
Frieren, Vinland Saga S2, Dandadan most recently.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications + The Pragmatic Programmer on rotation.
Lex Fridman, Indie Hackers, Software Engineering Daily.
Last updated · April 2026
