Tell us about yourself and what you do.

My name is Zhou Liang, a '95-born kid. Never went to college, so my formal education is on the lower end. I love tinkering with things and I’m an extreme app enthusiast. Right now I’m working as a UI designer at a little-known startup, while honing my product sense and transitioning toward product management. I enjoy jotting down my thoughts from time to time, and occasionally indulge in a bit of ranting.

What hardware do you use?

iPhone 6 (128GB, Space Gray): If design is my passion, then the iPhone is the very reason I fell in love with UI design. I went with 128GB because my previous iPhone 5 couldn’t hold all my apps. As for Space Gray — it’s the only color I find acceptable among the three options.

13’’ MacBook Pro: A 2012 model, still sporting an optical drive. Due to financial constraints, I haven’t been able to upgrade. Most of my work has been produced on this machine. It still gets the job done for me, though it struggles with heavier software — sometimes to the point of being unusable. Now that I’ve started working, I hope to save up for a new Mac.

Apple Magic Mouse: Lets me switch between desktops without lifting my hand, and it’s incredibly convenient for scrolling around canvases in PS or Sketch.

Kindle Paperwhite: Back in school, this companion kept me company through many a late night.

Ziiiro Celeste: Simply put, it’s a watch. I wear a watch for two reasons: to know the time, and to remind myself to manage it well.

What about software?

Frequently used apps on OS X:

Sketch: My go-to design tool. The best decision I made in 2014 was switching to Sketch 3 for design work — I rarely open Photoshop anymore. Paired with Sketch Toolbox for installing various plugins, it becomes even more powerful.

Pixate + Framer Studio: There are simply too many tools for motion design and prototyping. After trying numerous options, I settled on Pixate for simpler motion effects, and Framer Studio for more complex animations or cases where I need to provide code references for developers.

InVision: Another interactive prototyping tool I use regularly. Combined with InVision Sync, I can sync my Sketch designs directly to InVision — very handy.

IconJar: An icon asset management tool for quickly finding the icons I need. Supports SVG, PNG, and GIF formats.

RightFont: An excellent font management tool, already integrated with both Photoshop and Sketch.

Ember / Inboard: Image asset management tools. I use Ember for iOS heavily to store all my app screenshots, synced via Dropbox. The latter I picked up in the past six months, mainly for syncing Dribbble likes and saving collected design screenshots.

Paste: A clipboard manager that records everything you’ve ever copied — images, text, files — and lets you recall them with a single keystroke. Since I started using it, my efficiency in organizing materials and working on designs has improved noticeably.

Moom: A window layout utility — always comes in handy.

MinNode / XMind: Mind mapping tools. I prefer the former, and I use it frequently on iOS as well.

Ulysses: My writing app of choice on Mac. Everything you’re reading right now was drafted in it.

xScope: A measurement tool I reach for regularly.

Alfred: For quickly launching apps, plus I’ve set up quite a few custom workflows.

Alternote: A lightweight Evernote client with Markdown support.

Dropbox: Rock-solid cloud sync — all my design files live here.

Droplr: Quick file sharing with short link generation.

Wunderlist: My GTD app. I used OmniFocus for quite a while, but it was too heavy-handed for my needs. Wunderlist was my final pick. The only downside is the lack of a list archiving feature — once you delete something, it’s gone for good.

1Password: All my passwords live here.

Pinbox: A lightweight Pinboard client made by a Chinese developer.

PopClip: A text-selection popup tool with a rich library of extension plugins.

TextExpander: The ultimate shortcut typing tool.

Pushbullet: A bidirectional file transfer tool.

Frequently used apps on iOS:

Calendars 5: My most-used calendar app. It provides a month view on iPhone, letting me see at a glance how events are distributed throughout the month.

Tweetbot: The best third-party Twitter client, hands down.

Moke: The best third-party Weibo client. I use its share-to-Evernote feature for read-later and bookmarking of Weibo content.

Drafts: Write first, decide where it goes later. Most of my text output on iOS flows through this app.

Castro: For listening to podcasts — I love its interaction design.

Reeder / Unread: Two RSS readers I use regularly. These days I mainly use Unread — its typography is incredibly comfortable. Reeder edges ahead in folder organization.

Mailbox: An email app driven entirely by gestures. Inbox is also one of my go-to email clients, though its categorization can be unreliable at times, and push notifications are practically unusable. (I haven’t found a satisfactory email client for Mac, so I’ve been using Gmail’s web interface.)

Sketch Mirror: For previewing Sketch designs on my phone.

NetEase Money: I previously used DailyCost and MoneyWiz 2. The former focused on transaction logging, the latter on managing multiple accounts — but it was too cumbersome. I ultimately chose NetEase Money, which is the best of both worlds. And it looks great too.

Screeny / Purrge: The former quickly deletes iOS screenshots; the latter lets you rapidly multi-select photos for deletion.

Day One: The best journaling app — I’ve developed the habit of writing diary entries on my phone.

Pinswift: In my opinion, the best Pinboard client for iOS.

iA Writer Pro: My go-to Markdown editor on iPhone — all my longer pieces are written with it.

Grid Diary: For morning journals and Q&A diaries. I use it to jot things down when I wake up and before I go to sleep. After keeping this up for a while, I can genuinely feel a noticeable change in myself.

Qdaily: Content aside, just using this app is a pleasure in itself.

DXY Doctor / Medication Assistant: Minor ailments pop up in everyday life — this is not something to take lightly.

WALKUP: The most beautiful and most fun pedometer app I’ve ever encountered.

Jike: A minimalist interest-based information push tool.

Surge: A web development and proxy tool on iOS. Can be paired with Shadowsocks for getting past the Great Firewall.

Other apps I use regularly include Xiami Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Memoir, Simplenote, Spectrum, and more. I previously wrote an article about productivity-boosting iOS apps, most of which I still use daily. If you’re interested, you can read it here.

How do you find inspiration for your work?

Conversations: Beyond sharpening my communication skills, chatting with people lets me absorb a wealth of information and helps me organize my own knowledge.

Podcasts: My regulars include Bit Voice, IT Gonglun, Kernel Panic, Pop Dispatch, Bear Talk, and more.

NEXT: For discovering new products — my favorite section is “Product Collections.” They recently launched “Maker,” and NEXT does a fantastic job with the details and user experience.

Mindstore.io: I love their “MindTalk” sessions, where you can see other people’s perspectives on a given product.

Looking: I frequently browse and save works on Dribbble / Pinterest / Behance. The things I look at are wildly varied — developing taste is something that takes time to accumulate.

Reading: Medium, Jianshu, RSS feeds, horror and suspense novels, and all manner of miscellaneous books and publications.

Writing: The main purpose is to calm my mind.

Playing with all kinds of apps: I check what apps the people around me have on their phones. I’m always hunting for excellent apps — everyone defines “excellent” differently, but in my eyes, “beautifully designed” or “genuinely useful in real-life scenarios” qualifies. Liqi (the platform hosting this very article) is also a great channel for this. I discovered Fog of World through Liqi, along with similar finds from Home Screen (a WeChat public account). Here’s an article I wrote sharing my methods for discovering great iOS apps (written a year ago — if you know better ones, I’d love to hear about them).

What’s your ideal work environment?

A space that doesn’t feel oppressive, with a large wooden desk, fresh air, and a chair with proper back support. The internet needs to be fast. And if there’s a wall behind my monitor, all the better (that last part is a joke, of course).

Recommend one everyday tool to everyone.

Morning journals / bedtime diaries: Journaling is a process of self-examination. Morning journaling and Q&A-style diary entries are a wonderful way to reflect and plan. After keeping it up for a while, you can genuinely feel yourself changing.

This article is part of the “Liqi Community Plan.” Discover more creators and their tools: http://liqi.io/community/