---
title: "Three Small Tools I Use Almost Every Day"
description: "None of these are productivity hacks, and I'm slightly embarrassed by how much I use them — a clipboard manager, a Markdown scratchpad, and a weather widget from 2004."
category: Notes
publishDate: 2026-05-15T00:00:00.000Z
---
None of these are productivity hacks, and I'm slightly embarrassed by how much I use them. A single-keystroke clipboard manager. A Markdown scratchpad that never gets saved. And a weather widget so plain it could have been built in 2004 — which, in fact, it was.

## 1. Maccy

Maccy is a clipboard history app for macOS. It is exactly what it sounds like and nothing else. ⌘⇧V pops up the last fifty things I've copied. I use it dozens of times a day and I forget it exists.

## 2. A Markdown scratchpad

I keep a single untitled Markdown file open in iA Writer at all times. I don't save it, I don't name it, and I don't try to organize it. It is the closest thing I have to thinking with my hands.

## 3. A weather widget from 2004

There is a weather site called Forecast Advisor that hasn't been redesigned since the mid-2000s. It looks like it was built in FrontPage. It is also more accurate than any weather app I've ever used. I bookmark it on every new device.

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The pattern I notice in all three: they do one thing, they don't try to be a platform, and they don't ask for my attention when I'm not using them. I would not be the first person to point out that this used to be how all software worked.