A look at the smartphone of the founder of 5AM

In the series “Homescreen!” we present the home screens of people from the social media, marketing, media and tech industries – including app recommendations. Today: Ole Besendahl, founder and managing director of the design and tech studio 5AM.

Ole Besendahl: Three home screens for …

Ole Besendahl: Efficiency is very important to me – that's why I have three home screens for different situations: work, private and sleep. The home screens are set up using the iPhone's focus modes so that they automatically adapt to my life based on the time and location.

Right there is just the dock, which contains the most important apps in my life: WhatsApp (for Android), the email app Superhuman (for Android), the Notion Calendar (for Android) and the browser Arc (for Android).

Work: Focus on efficiency

For me, tools and apps are a means to an end in order to be efficient. Since we work a lot with Notion at 5AM, the Notion Calendar is our calendar tool of choice. I always have the app to hand and with the current view at the top. However, I often find Notion as an app too slow on the iPhone, so I use Apple Reminders for quick notes. I use Slack (for Android) in the form of a widget so that I can easily edit messages while on the go.

Practically speaking, I use Stripe for billing (for Android) as we have automated all invoices at 5AM through it, Qonto for my business account (for Android) and controlling expenses, and GitHub (for Android) to track the code in our projects. As the CEO of a design and tech studio, LinkedIn (for Android) is essential to keep in touch with my network.

A particularly useful tool for me is Caya (for Android). Since I travel a lot, I have my mail digitized and Caya shows me the scanned documents directly. And not to forget: ChatGPT (for Android) – although I love the Arc AI functions for quick AI queries.

Private: Organization in everyday life

In my private life, I also want to get to the topics that are important to me quickly. But I use other apps for that: I've been using Whoop (for Android) for over a year. It's important to me to keep an eye on myself and my body. I use Reminders to write down my thoughts after work, and Apple Mail is sufficient for my private life. I use Files to access documents quickly – sometimes spontaneously “on the fly” and to quickly scan documents such as receipts.

During the day I often don't have time to read, so I use Instapaper (for Android) to save articles that I come across. I then catch up on them in the evening. For in-between times and to relax, I have Spotify (for Android) and podcasts. And Notion? Yes, I really do use that privately too, for example for all my important data (tax number, etc.), a wishlist with all the items that I find, new project ideas, vacation plans, etc.

Sleep: Focus on rest and relaxation

At bedtime, I want to avoid distractions, so I'm super minimalist: Audible (for Android) is one of my main apps for listening to audiobooks or relaxing content in the evening. For meditation exercises in the evening, I use Open (https://open.com).

The Whoop and fitness apps help me reflect on how the day went and how much rest or sleep I still need. I particularly appreciate the wake-up-sleep function, which shows me directly when my alarm is set and how long I can still sleep to get the new day off to a good start.

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