The 3-Tool Minimum Stack: If I Had to Start Over

If I lost access to my current stack tomorrow and had to rebuild from scratch, I would start with three tools. Only three, for the first 90 days. Here is which three and the specific reasoning for each.

Tool 1: Notion (Free tier)

Notion free handles notes, a simple task list, and a basic wiki. It costs nothing. It has enough structure to track a meaningful amount of work without becoming a maintenance burden at the free tier. The free tier is the starting point because you should validate that you need the paid features before paying for them.

What Notion handles on its own: meeting notes, project documentation, personal knowledge base, and simple task tracking. This is 70% of what most individual contributors need from their entire productivity stack.

Tool 2: Linear (See Sean's full review →) (Free tier for individuals)

Linear's free tier handles project issues and cycles for individuals. If you do any work that benefits from issue tracking — engineering, product, anything with repeating work cycles — Linear's free tier is better than the paid tier of most alternatives. The interface is the reason. Nothing is faster.

Tool 3: Claude Pro ($20/month)

The one paid tool in the minimum stack, because it earns its $20 every day. Long-form thinking, code review, document analysis, first drafts — Claude Pro handles the cognitive tasks that would otherwise require either specialized tools at higher cost or manual effort at higher time cost.

What's Missing

Communication (Slack), video (Loom), and automation (Zapier). I'd add these when the minimum stack was stable — probably at month three. Not before. The minimum stack does real work. Adding tools before the minimum is stable creates complexity before the foundation is solid.

Priya would tell me the minimum stack is still one tool too many. She is not wrong from within her own reference frame.