I saw the Liqi Community Project a long time ago. I learned a lot from everyone’s sharing. As stated in the beginning: “Tools and inspiration are both Liqi. When tools and inspiration from different fields collide with each other, more possibilities will emerge.“ Below are my simple answers to the 6 questions from the Liqi Community Project. I hope this can help everyone in some way.
Historical tool list (reviewed October 2026): This records my devices, software, and work experience in 2019. Those personal choices remain historical, rather than current buying recommendations. Significant service and technical changes are noted below.
Introduce Yourself and Your Work?
I am an Android system development engineer, working in the system R&D department of a certain phone manufacturer. My work mainly involves Android system-related tasks, such as performance, power consumption, stability, framework maintenance, etc. It’s a bit of everything—basically, I’m the odd-jobs person.
Basketball, running, gaming—the usual programmer skills, naturally. I also make time for the supposedly artsy stuff: reading, cats, and tea. In my spare time I browse Bilibili and YouTube, or try to finish an article I’ve left hanging. Right now I’m mostly occupied with losing weight, locked in battle with my belly.
What Hardware Are You Using?
Computers: I mainly have three computers. One MacBook Pro for writing, developing my small apps, and processing photos; one company-configured desktop, Ubuntu system, mainly used for work, essential for compiling Android source code; one self-configured desktop, mainly used for gaming and compiling AOSP code.
Phones: I have three phones. My main device is iPhone X, and I’m satisfied with everything except the battery life. My backup device is a OnePlus 6, an Android flagship - as an Android engineer, I still need to have one usable Android machine. Another one is a Pixel, mainly used to run the AOSP code I compiled myself - useful for studying the framework in my own time.
Other Hardware: Apple family’s Watch, iPad Pro, AirPods; Sony wireless headphones—yes, I’m a fan (listed as MX-1000 in the original; the exact model is unconfirmed); Kindle Voyage, dedicated for reading e-books.
AOSP version note: Writing apps on the Mac is separate from building the full OS. Current AOSP requirements use 64-bit x86 Linux; building the Android OS on macOS is unsupported from Android 11. My old Pixel used a matching historical branch. Check the exact device, build target, and vendor binaries before assuming a newer branch works.
What About Software?
- Things3: Mainly used for arranging daily work and recording things to do
- MWeb: Dedicated to writing articles; this article was written in MWeb.
- Keep: I follow some of the workouts, but mainly use it to keep track. Having a goal makes it easier for me to stick with exercise, especially running.
- 海豚记账本 (Dolphin Ledger): An accounting app, basically necessary.
- Kindle && WeChat Reading: Reading apps. The two book libraries can complement each other. E-books are quite convenient, especially when reading on iPad Pro.
- YouTube && Bilibili: Learning and entertainment, basically rely on them.
- ShadowSocks && Wingy: At the time I used ShadowSocks on Android and Mac, and Wingy on my phone and iPad. The little widget was handy for switching it back on if the app got killed.
- Geek Time && Dedao: Paid learning apps. There’s always someone I can learn from. Hearing what others are doing, what they’ve done, and how they did it helps me avoid a few wrong turns.
- Google Photos: Basically all my photos are here. I’m really afraid that one day I won’t be able to access them. I’d be devastated…
- Reeder: I maintained a developer feed list and used Reeder 3 in 2019. October 2026: New Reeder syncs a timeline position; Reeder Classic keeps a traditional RSS approach. These are different models, not features to assume in Reeder 3.
- Android Studio && VS Code: Productivity software. One is used to view Framework Java code, one is used to view C\C++ code.
- RescueTime: I used it to review computer time; seeing ten-plus hours could be discouraging. Usage time is not work output. October 2026: Official support no longer lists Linux. iOS 17+ tracking requires a paid plan and Screen Time permission; that activity stays on-device, separate from desktop statistics. The old view-only iOS description is outdated.
- Shimo Docs: For daily reports, weekly reports, and research notes. Synchronization between the devices I used was convenient, collaboration was efficient, and I preferred the web client.
- Nutstore (Jianguoyun): The sync drive I used at the time. Having an Ubuntu client felt like someone had remembered us programmers. Choose the Linux client for your distribution, architecture, and desktop environment. Uploading is not a guarantee against loss: deletions can propagate. Keep independent copies of important files.
- Yinxiang Notes: Previously used for recording, now more used as a collection center. When I encounter good articles, I usually record them here, then organize and review them later. Daily work recording is all handed over to Shimo Docs now.
Reading and photo services (October 2026): Amazon’s closure notice, reproduced in full by The Paper set June 30, 2023 for the Chinese Kindle store’s sales closure and June 30, 2024 for purchased-content downloads. Downloaded books remained readable; this was not a worldwide Kindle closure.
Keep independent photo copies: Google Photos deletions can propagate to devices with backup enabled. Google Takeout can export existing data for a separate, checked copy; it cannot recover permanently deleted photos.
What’s Your Ideal Work Environment?
The ideal work environment is Work Life Balance, just like what the recently popular 996 project describes. My current work situation is about the same, so I hope my work environment is what’s described in the 955.WLB project: work-life balance.
The greatest pressure 996 gives people is having no time of their own to improve themselves. They’re busy until 10 or 11 PM every day. Going back to take a shower and go to sleep. There’s simply no time for fitness, reading, learning, etc. As this article The most subtle way to destroy a person is to keep them so busy they have no time to grow says:
If a person only learns from the work process, then this single learning method will inevitably lead to its marginal contribution to growth becoming increasingly low.
You must make yourself have time to grow every day. Actually, this is to let you expand other growth methods beyond work. The more diversified your learning methods are, the higher the marginal contribution to growth will be. The faster you will grow.
A person must have continuous incremental growth in their career.
To sum up, my ideal work environment: having colleagues who share the same aspirations, having work that I love, having space and time for my own growth.
What Are Your Ways to Get Work Inspiration?
One is reading, extracting the essence from others’ thoughts to see if they can be used by me or improved or carried forward; the other is thinking and recording, drawing flow diagrams while thinking, recording the spark of certain thoughts.
Neither approach has worked all that well for me, though. When things get busy, I barely have time to read or think. If you’ve figured this out, I’d love some advice.
Recommend a Life Liqi to Everyone?
What I most want to recommend to everyone is not a certain hardware or software, but a learning method: Record-Summarize-Output. These three links form a loop:
Recording: A note is more reliable than my memory, especially with so much information coming in. To-dos, odd ideas, problems and their solutions, good articles, posts I want to write, YouTube tutorials—I need somewhere to put them all. Keeping a record helps me stay organized.
Summarizing: This brings scattered thoughts and bits of knowledge together so I can see how they fit. Looking back over a project can help me avoid the same mistakes next time; writing up a topic helps me connect the details and remember it better.
Outputting: Private notes, blog posts, videos—all of these count. Explaining something makes me learn it properly first, and the discussion afterward helps me understand it better. It can help others and build my reputation too. If I’m good at something, I need to let people see it.
Finally
I recently went to Japan, catching the cherry blossom season. Let me end with a photo of cherry blossoms.
This article participated in the Liqi Community Plan. Its historical page showed a title and navigation, but no full program text, when checked in October 2026.
About Me && Blog
Below is a personal introduction and related links. I look forward to communicating with colleagues in the same field. When three walk together, there must be my teacher!
- Blogger Personal Introduction: Inside are personal WeChat and WeChat group links.
- Blog Content Navigation: A navigation of personal blog content.
- Personally Organized and Collected Excellent Blog Articles - Android Performance Optimization Must Know: Everyone is welcome to self-recommend and recommend (private WeChat chat is fine).
- Android Performance Optimization Knowledge Planet: Historical project; paid operations ended in 2026 and new paid members are no longer accepted.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
