A reader recently reached out to ask how I use my pocket notebooks so I thought I'd share some of my favorite use cases that help me stay off my phone, reach my goals, and think on the go to hopefully inspire some new ideas for you to try out. 1) Capture I used to rely on my phone to capture notes, ideas, reminders, and tasks whenever they popped in my head. This would've been fine if that's all I did when I pulled out my phone but, that's not what I was doing. A quick note would lead to an...
8 days ago • 4 min read
As I was leaving the cafe this morning I noticed the man sitting behind my wife was tapping his leg excessively. He was having a casual business discussion with another man who had an array of documents and paperwork in front of him. The leg-thumper was wearing running shorts and his frantic tapping was pushing his phone up and out of his pockets revealing to me a familiar red, square button that signals your phone to stop recording. I realized that the man in shorts was secretly recording...
15 days ago • 2 min read
I was 33-years-old the first time I experienced living in a home without a tv. Three stories up an old brick apartment, I entered an AirBNB in Florence, Italy that my wife and I were about to live for the next four days. It was the second leg of our honeymoon and we were excited to explore the birthplace of the Renaissance. The wood floors creaked with each step as I explored the studio. A built-in bookshelf stocked with Italian novels and hefty art books lined one of the walls. The pull-out...
22 days ago • 3 min read
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...
29 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 2 months 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 2 months 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...
2 months ago • 3 min read