Some things I recommend
I’ve been alive for like thirty years and here are some things that have made my life better.
TravelPro suitcase
I got my international-carry-on-sized TravelPro in 2018, before flying to Germany to meet my boyfriend’s family. Since then I’ve been on probably twenty trips with it, including living out of it for months at a time.
Once, flying back from London with way too much stuff, I managed to close the suitcase by jumping on it. There were weird bulges, but the zipper held. Then I got to the top of an infinitely tall stone staircase in the Tube station, and I was sick and had been traveling for two long months, and I just fucking threw my suitcase down those stairs, bulging zipper and all.
That was three years ago, and the little guy is still in perfect working order. When I’m in the airport, if I’m rolling it beside me and take my hands off of it for a few seconds to do something else, it keeps perfect pace with me. It is my best friend.
The Art of Gathering
Sometimes a person just really knows what they’re talking about, and they write it down in a way that’s actually useful.
I read this book, and then ran a five-day retreat for fifty event organizers that I still regard as a masterpiece: it began with a full day of seminars, then became less and less structured until on the final day, the attendees were fully in charge of what happened. That retreat changed many lives. I sent all the attendees home with The Art of Gathering.
If you ever want to run events or gather people together for any reason, you should read this book. Even reading just the table of contents might benefit you. Honestly you could even just buy it and never read it, because the cover is really pretty.
Knowing five chords on the guitar
The return on learning just a little bit of guitar can be crazy high. There are guitars everywhere, and often knowing a few chords will make you the hero of the hour when everyone wants to have a singalong and no one else can play the guitar.
In order, here are the first five chords you should learn: Em, D, G, C, Am.
After that, you can learn the cheater’s F, which is like 80% as good as a real F. (Don’t bother with barre chords, fuck barre chords, no one wants that.) Then A, because A is easy.
But more important than learning more chords is being able to switch between them quickly. Just practice your G-D-Em-C over and over again until it’s smooth and fast.
Miele canister vacuum cleaners
When I see professional house cleaners toting their things around, they always have a Miele. When I do serious cleaning at my job, I bring my Miele. Why? Because using my employer’s battery-powered stick vacuum would take twice as long and not even work and I would explode in rage.
The Miele C1 is a work of genius, a joy to use. The rod extension mechanism? Be still my heart! How did someone engineer something so smooth and intuitive and perfect!
A vacuum cleaner can last for decades. Do right by yourself and get a good one.
Breathing in through your nose
I read a whole book on breathing and 90% of it was crazy but I did become convinced that breathing in through your nose is actually probably good and important. Also you should breathe in for 5.5 seconds and out for 5.5 seconds. And contract your diaphragm when you breathe in so that you can fully expand your lungs. And now you have all of the actual insights from Breath by James Nestor and you don’t have to read the crazy parts.
Digital Minimalism
Look fuckers, this is still a digital minimalism blog. Read the book.
(Please. I just want you to spend your time on things you actually want to spend it on, and not lose so much of your precious life to compulsive behavior. I try so hard not to sound preachy but that’s difficult when I care so much.)
Going outside
This is actually plagiarism because it’s recommended in Digital Minimalism too. I don’t even have anything to say about this, going outside is just good. Once I didn’t do it for several months and that was very bad.
Go outside.