I use all of the tools below very frequently. And for each tool, I've tried out other tools in the space ultimately picked this one as my favorite.

Software

Chrome Plugins

OneTab. “Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once.”
Pocket. “The easiest, fastest way to capture articles, videos, and more”
AdBlock. Block ads as your surf the web.
Minimal Twitter. Remove Trending and Newsfeed sections
Crackbook Revival. Add a delay to distracting websites to prevent mindless reading
Newsfeed Aggregator. Block newsfeeds on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites
Distraction Free YouTube. Eliminates recommended videos to prevent mindless surfing
Redirector. I use this to redirect the Youtube homepage to my Youtube Watch Later list
Sci-Hub. Gives you links to academic papers when they’re not on Google.

YouTube Premium. Eliminates all ads, allows you to listen to videos on audio-only on mobile, and provides a music app with unlimited songs.
Castro (podcasts). Allows you to queue podcasts in order of importance rather than always watching newest first.
Gmail Priority Inbox. Makes it easy to focus on your most important emails and takes everything else out of site.

Sci-Hub.
Google Scholar. Easiest and fastest to use.
Microsoft Academic. Better for going down rabbit holes. It reveals adjacent concepts (authors, keywords, topics)

Microphone (Shure) with x2u USB Adapter. As a teacher and podcaster, I went for a very high-quality version.
Webcam (Logitech Brio). Same as above.
Noise-cancelling headphones (AirPods Max). If you’re considering getting high-end noise-cancelling headphones, which I highly recommend you do, I would very, very highly recommend the AirPods Max if you have Apple devices. I’ve had four different high-end headphones and the AirPods Max is by far the best in my opinion.