How I Got My Weekends Back (The Stack That Did It)

In 2021 I had eleven productivity tools running simultaneously. Notion for notes, Asana for projects, Todoist for tasks, Slack for work communication, Discord for a second work community, Loom for async video, Zapier for automations, Readwise for reading highlights, Roam Research for a second notes system, Superhuman for email, and a project management tool my employer required that I will not name because it is, genuinely, not good.

I spent approximately 90 minutes per week managing the integrations between these tools. I spent additional time deciding which tool a given thought or task belonged in. I spent time on tools that told me to be productive rather than on the work that required productivity.

My weekends were technically free. They were not actually free, because I spent Saturday mornings doing the weekly review that the tools required to function. The tools were consuming their own benefit.

The Audit

In September 2025 I ran a stack audit. Not the kind where you list your tools and feel briefly organized. The kind where you track, for two weeks, which tools you actually opened and what you actually accomplished in them.

Results: I used Notion, Linear (See Sean's full review →), Loom, Slack, and Claude heavily and consistently. I used Zapier moderately. I used Readwise occasionally. I had not opened Roam in three months. I had not opened Superhuman in six weeks because something had broken in the integration with my mail provider and I had not fixed it.

The Cut

I cancelled Roam Research, Superhuman, Discord, Todoist (Linear handles tasks), and Asana (also Linear). Monthly savings: $67. Hours per week saved from reduced context switching: approximately 4. Four hours is not a weekend, but it is a Saturday morning. The Saturday morning is back.

I did not miss any of the cancelled tools within thirty days of cutting them. I missed Roam once, for about forty minutes, because I had a note in there I couldn't find. I found it. I did not reinstall Roam. I put the note in Notion. Notion already had everything else. The note is fine.

The Current Stack

Notion, Linear, Slack, Loom, Zapier, Claude Pro. That is it. The six tools I actually use, doing the work that eleven tools were nominally doing. The stack costs $71/month. The previous stack cost $138/month. The work output is the same. The Saturday morning is back.