The serial entrepreneur loves simple tools, audiobooks, and voice-first software.

Niklas Jansen is the co-founder of Superlist and a founding partner at Interface Capital, an early-stage venture fund. He previously cofounded Blinkist and lives in Berlin. You can follow him on X, LinkedIn, and Substack.

The productivity tools I use every day are Superlist for note-taking and organizing my tasks and my team, Superhuman for emails, and Notion Calendar to keep track of my day. Zoom, Slack, and WhatsApp for daily communication. I also use ChatGPT and Perplexity every day.

My favorite AI tool is Fixkey. I'm terrible at typing (I never learned the 10-finger technique), and with Fixkey, I can type and fix my typing errors with one click instead of having to fix all of them manually. It also has a built-in speech-to-text feature, which I use to dictate emails and messages. It seriously helps me write three times faster.

I couldn’t do my job without Endel. Their generative background sounds help me to focus. 

One AI workflow that I rely on daily is my ChatGPT workflow to plan my day. I’ve set up a project in ChatGPT with custom instructions. I ramble into ChatGPT every morning with everything that’s on my mind, and ChatGPT gives me a summary of all tasks for the day and creates drafts for all messages.

The last tool I bought and loved was Screen Studio. It allows me to create quick product explainer videos and is just fun to use.

My favorite book about productivity is Essentialism. It has changed how I think about productivity. Instead of doing more, I now try to do less but better. Not always easy for an entrepreneurial mind, but there’s beauty in finding the few things that matter and cutting out the rest. 

The product I recommend the most is Superwhisper (besides Superlist, obviously). I do believe that in the future we’ll talk more to our computers instead of writing and clicking, and Superwhisper gives a glimpse of this future and can make everyone more productive. 

To learn new things, I usually listen to podcasts on Pocket Casts and audiobooks on Audible – I’m a big fan of biographies and history books, and love learning through other people’s experiences. 

My one productivity habit is to work more like a lion and plan my day by energy level, not by the clock. Create when you are energized. Rest and recharge when you feel tired (or do less demanding logistical-style tasks). Create when you feel re-energized.

The best bit of advice I ever received was from a mentor of mine: "A problem is a problem when it is a problem". We spend so much time thinking and talking about things that might go wrong, but true performance requires being laser-focused on the things that matter right now.

Stacks is a weekly series about people's tool stack and productivity habits.