Danny McClelland

An unsorted collection of thoughts and technical insights.

The Endless Hunt for Productivity Nirvana

・5 min read
I’ve been chasing the perfect productivity setup for longer than I care to admit. The signs are all there: a Downloads folder cluttered with productivity apps, browser bookmarks organised by system acronyms, and that familiar feeling of starting fresh with yet another note-taking tool, convinced that this time will be different. My digital graveyard is extensive. NotePlan, Microsoft OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep, Notion, Airtable, Logseq, Google Docs, Obsidian, Simple Notes — I’ve installed them all, configured them meticulously, and abandoned them with the same predictable rhythm. Read more...

    2025 Privacy Reboot: Six Month Check-In

    ・3 min read FEATURED
    Six months ago, I wrote about my privacy reboot — a gradual shift toward tools that take both privacy and security seriously. It was never about perfection or digital purity, but about intentionality. About understanding which tools serve me, rather than the other way around. Here’s how it’s actually gone. The Wins Ente continues to impress. The family photo migration is complete, and the service has been rock solid. The facial recognition quirks I mentioned on Android have largely sorted themselves out, and the peace of mind knowing our family memories aren’t feeding Google’s advertising machine feels worth the subscription cost. Read more...

      Focus

      ・4 min read
      We’ve all seen them: those productivity YouTubers with perfectly lit home offices explaining how they maintain “deep work” for 12+ hours a day. They sit there, looking impossibly serene, selling us a vision of superhuman concentration that I’ve come to believe is complete nonsense. I used to buy into this. I’d feel like a failure when my brain checked out after three solid hours of work. I’d push myself to match these claimed productivity marathons, only to end up exhausted and wondering what was wrong with me. Read more...

        Trust

        ・3 min read
        We like to believe we’re in control. That privacy is something we can protect if we just check the right boxes, read the fine print, toggle the right settings. But that belief is crumbling. In 2025, privacy isn’t something we manage — it’s something we quietly surrender, one tap, click, and scroll at a time. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much I rely on Google. Not in an abstract way, but in a daily, tangible, everything-I-do-is-somehow-Google-enabled kind of way. Read more...

          Balance

          ・1 min read FEATURED
          Tucked away in a parenting book I read nearly two decades ago — title and author long lost to time — was a metaphor that lodged itself in my brain and never left. “Life is a balance, or rather, a juggle of balls. Some are glass. Some are plastic." The idea is simple but enduring: drop a plastic ball, and it bounces. Drop a glass one, and it shatters. The trick — the real tightrope act — is knowing which is which. Read more...