Hiya! My name is Jacob Evans and I’m a technologist with many interests. Most notably, team building, the science of productivity, software development, astronomy, and travel. Over the last twenty years, I have had the privilege of leading and building high-performing software development teams.

I reside in the western United States (Salt Lake City, Utah to be exact) with my lovely wife Monira—to whom I’ve been married since 2006—and our daughter Zuri who joined us in 2019.

The Evans Family, February 2022

Projects

I started this site to write about the things I find interesting and to share insights I’ve learned bringing professional and personal endeavors to life. While it is still in its infancy, here’s a list of the projects I intend to write about and develop further in the open:

  • Personal productivity & related systems. Since I started using Kinkless GTD in 2005 I’ve been on a seemingly never-ending spirit quest to improve my personal productivity. Lately, I’ve been focused on building systems and personal habits that help ensure I’m spending the bulk of my time working on the right things and have low-friction systems in place to track everything else.
  • Amateur astronomy. I love astronomy and I’m lucky to live in a state that offers pretty dark skies. I’ve been exploring how to make my observing sessions more meaningful by better planning my time under the stars and recording the objects I’ve observed in a structured way.
  • Working remotely. I love to travel, especially internationally. However, when I’m on a trip, I often need to work sparadically. I’ve been on a mission to pack the minimum amount of technology to be maximally productive.
  • Home automation. Once you start, you can’t stop. I have had all kinds of untold fun automating our home (well, actually, I am going to tell you about all the fun I've had). It continues to surprise and delight.

The Setup

Most of my computing is performd on a 2022 Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and 64GB of RAM. I use a Studio Display as my primary monitor and an LG 24" UntraFine 4K as my secondary reference monitor, which is setup in portrait mode. Prior to this setup, I used a mid-2012, "cheese grater" Mac Pro for nearly a decade. Here's hoping the Mac Studio serves me well for the next decade.

When working remotely, I’m usually using my trusty 11" 2021 iPad Pro, which has become my favorite computing device—especially since attaching it to the iPad Magic Keyboard. In the rare instances when my work on the road requires a Mac, you’ll find me using a 2020 M1 MacBook Air.

This site is hosted on Linode and is powered by Ghost. Its theme is of my own design (but influenced by the sensibilities of Shawn Blanc and John Gruber) and produces valid HTML and CSS—it's also mostly free of Javascript.

Contact

Please don’t hesitate to ping me on Twitter or email me at hello@jacobevans.net.

I read every email I get, but I often don’t respond in a timely manner. Please don’t be offended if I don’t write back immediately or at all.