Amir Salihefendic's 11-App Remote-First Stack

CEO and founder of Doist, the company behind Todoist and Twist. Built a fully remote, async-first company starting back in 2007 - way before remote work became trendy during 2020.

Amir runs a team of 80+ people spread across 35+ countries without requiring synchronous communication or timezone overlap. The Amir Salihefendic tools below reflect this async-first philosophy - everything chosen to support deep work and thoughtful communication over instant replies and constant meetings.

His approach to productivity is well-documented in Doist's blog. Focus on sustainable work, async communication, and removing unnecessary meetings. The company practices what it preaches - Todoist for task management, Twist for team communication, minimal real-time coordination.

The 11 apps below run a global company, manage products used by millions, and support a completely distributed team. Nothing here requires being in the same timezone or answering immediately.

Todoist is obviously the core of his system. The CEO of Todoist using Todoist for over 15 years means the product development is literally eating his own dogfood daily.

His setup: projects for different life areas (work, personal, learning), labels for contexts (@computer, @calls, @waiting), filters for custom views (today's priorities, waiting on others, next actions). The natural language input gets used constantly - 'review Q4 goals every Friday' just works.

Company OKRs live in Todoist projects. Break down quarterly goals into weekly actions. Track progress with completed tasks. Links Todoist tasks to relevant Notion docs for full context.

Raycast replaced Spotlight and Alfred. Window management, clipboard history, quick calculations, emoji search - all keyboard-driven. Extensions connect directly to Todoist, GitHub, and other tools for fast task creation without context switching.

Honestly, Raycast is one of those tools that doesn't seem essential until you use it for a week. Then going back to using your mouse for everything feels painfully slow.

Google Calendar manages the schedule, but meeting load stays intentionally low. Most coordination happens async in Twist. Calendar mainly tracks deep work blocks and the few essential sync meetings.

Twist is Doist's own async communication tool. Built specifically to avoid the chaos of real-time chat like Slack where messages fly by and context gets lost.

Organized into threads by topic. Conversations stay grouped together instead of fragmenting across channels and time. Team members across 35+ timezones can participate without being online simultaneously.

No read receipts, no typing indicators, no pressure to respond instantly. Write thoughtful replies when you have time and mental space. Search actually works because conversations stay organized by thread, not scattered across date ranges.

Amir has written extensively about why async communication matters. Allows deep work without constant interruptions. Respects different timezones and work schedules. Creates better documentation because discussions stay organized.

Superhuman handles email with ruthless efficiency. Inbox zero daily using keyboard shortcuts and triage workflows. Split inbox separates important from newsletters. Scheduled sends respect recipient timezones - write at midnight, send at 9am their time.

Running a global company means email comes from all timezones. Superhuman's shortcuts let you process 100 emails in 15 minutes. The speed matters when you're trying to maintain inbox zero across multiple inboxes.

Notion serves as the company wiki. Onboarding guides, product roadmaps, team documentation - everything lives in connected databases that make information findable.

For a fully remote team, documentation quality matters. You can't just tap someone on the shoulder to ask a question. Notion databases link projects to people to goals, so context is always available.

Templates standardize recurring docs. New feature spec, company update, meeting notes - templates ensure nothing important gets missed. Relational databases connect information without duplication.

Google Docs handles collaborative writing. Company strategy, product specs, blog posts - anything requiring real-time collaboration and version history.

Commenting and suggestion mode enable async feedback. Team members across timezones leave comments and suggestions, writer addresses them later. No need for synchronous editing sessions.

Claude assists with research and writing. Drafts first versions of blog posts, summarizes long documents, helps think through complex decisions with conversation.

Uses it as a thinking partner for strategic work. Feed Claude context about a product decision, discuss trade-offs back and forth, get different perspectives. Not replacing human judgment, just augmenting the thinking process.

Figma handles product design and feedback. Even as CEO, Amir stays involved in design decisions. Leaves comments on Figma files instead of scheduling design review meetings.

Async design review works across timezones. Designer posts updates, team leaves feedback when they have time to think thoughtfully. Better than quick reactions in real-time meetings where groupthink takes over.

Cursor is his code editor despite running a company. Still writes code for prototypes, scripts, and understanding technical constraints. Cursor's AI completions speed up the actual coding without replacing the thinking.

Built on VS Code so extensions and workflows transfer. AI suggestions handle boilerplate and repetitive patterns. Lets him prototype ideas fast without getting stuck on syntax.

The whole Amir Salihefendic tech stack reflects Doist's values. Async-first communication, deep work focus, sustainable productivity. Tools chosen to support those principles, not fight them. Remote work isn't about Zoom calls in pajamas - it's about thoughtful async coordination that respects time and focus.