The most cherished journal I own is the one that contains my travel logs from my honeymoon a few years ago. My wife and I spent two weeks travelling across Europe where I recorded everything we did in a list format. The entries were simple: one or two lines for each activity we did with as much detail as I felt necessary to trigger my memory. The result was a few pages that continue to act as a time machine whenever I revisit that notebook. It never took me more than a few minutes a day to...
9 days ago • 2 min read
Today marks the 128th Tuesday in a row that I've sent out this newsletter. It's a positive habit that I want to keep alive for as many years as I can but that doesn't mean it's always easy. I've had health scares and emergencies come up, vacations and periods of distraction where I didn't want to show up to write. There's been last minute scheduling changes and work obligations that have threatened to derail hitting my self-imposed deadline. But through it all I've kept my writing habit alive...
16 days ago • 2 min read
Everyone I know wishes they spent less time on their phone. When I tell these same people that I only spend an average of 10 minutes a day on my phone they think I must be living off the grid or something. But I'm writing to you on a laptop that's connected to the internet, I publish videos on YouTube, and I use my smartphone to text my wife every day. The real secret to reducing my screen time has been a series of tiny experiments and habits that have proven to be sustainable for me. Here...
23 days ago • 4 min read
One of the most powerful journaling exercises I've done for the last 400 days helps me remember more of my life and trains my ability to see the world with fresh eyes. That exercise is called Homework for Life taken from Matthew Dicks' book Storyworth. Every night I take one minute to record a single sentence that captures the most story worthy moment from the day. "What is the thing about today that has made it different from any previous day?" That's it. It's a very simple but extremely...
30 days ago • 2 min read
Earlier this week I came across an interesting Peter McKinnon video titled Tracking your ENTIRE LIFE in a notebook about how he and other creators use notebooks during their creative process. The first creator he speaks with is the YouTube legend Casey Neistat who is most famous for uploading a daily vlog for a year straight back in 2015. Before Neistat documented his life on video he was an avid oberserver of life on the page filling dozens of notebooks that now line the bookshelfs of his...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Back in December, I recommitted myself to conducting a weekly review every Monday morning. I felt like I needed these weekly check-ins to stay on track with my goals, learn from my experiences, and avoid common pitfalls like too spending too much time on my phone. After 6 months of showing up every week I've noticed a few things that I think are worth sharing because they highlight both the benefits and trappings of attempting to spend our time wisely. #1) Focus on the Gain, not the Gap. In...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Before I discovered the power of thinking on paper, I discovered the power of Notion. I needed a homebase for tasks, notes, and creative projects I was working on so I ran a quick YouTube search and every so-called productivity expert claimed Notion was the best tool for the job. Notion is a "productivity" platform that allows you to build custom workflows using a modular system of connected databases and multiple views to display the data contained within them. As it turned out, it was...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I recently came across an interesting trend called the "Analog Bag" that was making the rounds on TikTok. Influencers, mostly female, would display their bag along with all of the "analog" paraphernalia they carry in it to stay offline instead of scroll on their phone. At first I was happy to hear that getting offline is gaining traction on shortform platforms, but my hopes were shortlived. It turns out most of these videos are focused on the aesthetic of the offline lifestyle, not the...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Recently a reader (thanks Havier!) had three great questions for me that you may find relevant as well: How do you know which journaling method is right for you? How do you avoid making journaling a chore? How do you practically use journaling as an alternative to screen time? The first two questions point to the ancient philosophical distinction of means and ends. The third question is easier to answer once this difference is understood. My introduction to journaling was completely...
2 months ago • 6 min read