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A few weeks ago, I shared a gift guide with my newsletter subscribers after being encouraged by a friend to put one together. The exact text message exchange went something like this:

We’re getting down to the wire, but for you procrastinators out there (who aren’t yet subscribed to my newsletter), here are a few gift ideas for the nerd in your life (or for yourself – no judgment here):

•  Hidrate Spark Pro Water Bottle  – This Bluetooth-enabled water bottle has a built-in LED ring at the bottom that flashes when you get behind on your hydration goals. I’ve used this for about 3 years now, and it’s successfully helped me drink more water (which has had a significant impact on my overall energy and health).
•  Storyworth  – This is a service you can gift to someone to help facilitate conversations and connect with your loved ones. Learn more about the people that matter to you and preserve their stories for generations.
•  Ugmonk Analog  – A simple productivity system built to protect your focus in a digital age. Absolutely beautiful in its simplicity and design. I bought this myself when it came out, and actually just gifted it to all of our team members at the day job.
•  The Laws of Creativity by Joey Cofone  – An absolutely essential guide to creativity. If you have ever wished that you were more creative, you need to read this. I wish this book had existed 10 years ago.
•  Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman  – A great book about the limited time we all have here on Spaceship Earth. I was surprised that I enjoyed this one as much as I did. A great book that forces you to deal with your own limitations and confront the reality of our cosmic insignificance.
•  30 Lessons for Living by Karl Pillemer  – What if you could interview thousands of people at the end of their life and condense all their answers down into 30 small lessons to help future generations live happy, meaningful lives? That’s exactly what the author has done with this book.
•  Magic Puzzles 3-Pack  – The Magic Puzzle Company has created some phenomenal puzzles that include a “Magic Shift” mechanic to produce a surprise ending. You put the main puzzle together, then there’s another envelope with a sub-puzzle that you position after sliding the other pieces of the puzzle around. These are a ton of fun.
•  Sovereign Chess  – A fun twist on standard chess where you can make a move as another non-player color when you land on certain squares of the board.
•  Parks Board Game  – A fun and chill board game where players collect resources to “visit” national parks and collect points. What makes this game is its unique art style. One of our favorites.
•  Root Board Game  – There is no board game that we play more than Root. It’s an asymmetric war game with unique factions that all play differently. The cutest little war game you’ll ever see, and a ton of fun to play.
•  Klask  – Think of this as magnetic table-top air hockey. The main difference is that you control your piece via a magnet that you hold under the playing surface. A fast-moving game that is easy to learn and difficult to master.
•  Cafflano Klassic  – This is a portable pour-over coffee system in a container the size of a standard thermos. It includes everything you need to make delicious coffee except the hot water – the grinder, the dripper, the lid even functions as a mini gooseneck kettle. I bring this with me whenever I travel.
•  Ratio Six Coffee Maker  – If you like the taste of fussy pour-over coffee but don’t want the hassle of making it by hand, the Ratio Six is for you. It simulates the pour-over process to make a great cup of joe, but you can just turn it on and come back when it’s ready (like a standard brew pot).
•  Throwboy Classic Mac Pillows  – For the Apple nerd in your life. These throw pillows started life on Kickstarter as a set shaped like classic Macs, but you can now purchase them individually and there’s quite a variety to choose from.
•  Ember Smart Coffee Mug  – If you never seem to get around to drinking your coffee while it’s hot, this mug is for you. You can set a temperature via the app and this Bluetooth-enabled mug will hold the temperature for up to 3 hours.
•  Spark Mini Guitar Amp  – A little pricey, but this battery-powered Bluetooth guitar amp sounds pretty great for its size and gives you access to a bunch of digital amp models and effects via the companion iOS app. A great little practice amp.
•  Glocusent Reading Light  – If you prefer to read physical books but don’t want to keep your parter awake in bed, check out this handy little battery-powered reading light that wraps around your neck.
•  Keychron K2 Pro Mechanical Keyboard  – WARNING! Mechanical keyboards are rabbit hole. But if you want a solid starter keyboard with hot-swappable switches so you can upgrade it later, the Keychron K2 Pro is a great place to start.
•  Spoke Roady Pen  – A great little pocket pen. It feels great, writes smooth, and is made extremely well. I’ve gifted this pen more than any other, and everyone is always impressed with its weight and feel.
•  Gravity Blanket  – Weighted blankets are amazing. If you haven’t tried one, you should. They can help significantly improve the quality of your sleep. The Gravity Blanket is one of the originals, and the best one I’ve come across.
•  2023 Focused NeuYear Calendar  – Some shameless self-promotion… I helped design this NeuYear calendar, and have sold these for the last couple of years. But I’ve been using a NeuYear calendar for far longer than that. These are great dry-erase calendars that let you see the whole year at once.

I have personal experience with everything on this list, and am confident there is something here for even the pickiest of nerds.

(BTW, if you want to join the newsletter and never miss an update like this, you can do so below. And if you want to see some of the previous newsletters before you sign up, you can do so here.)

In this episode of Focused, David & I talk about the different ways we track our time, what tools we use, and we share the focus & productivity benefits we glean from the process.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

• Spox: The best story wins. Get 25% off when you mention this show.
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My sermon sketchnotes from March 28, 2021. Enjoy!

My sermon sketchnotes from January 31st, 2021. Enjoy!

At the beginning of the year, there’s a lot of optimism that this year will be better than the last one.

But fear will do everything in its power to make sure that nothing changes.

Fear is the belief that what you can’t see will come to pass. It reminds you of all the times that you’ve tried before and failed. It point out every flaw, every shortcoming, and magnifies it. Fear will give you a million reasons why things won’t work. It will always tell you that you’re too young, too old, or completely unqualified for whatever you’re attempting to do.

The opposite of fear is faith. Faith, like fear, is the belief that what we can’t see will come to pass. Fear focuses on and attracts the negative, faith focuses on and attracts the positive.

The difference is subtle, but it could not have a bigger impact on your future.

Fear says you can’t, faith says you can. Fear will keep your world small, but faith helps you to think bigger. Fear will give you a million reasons not to try, but faith will inspire you to do something and see what’s possible. Fear tries to immobilize you, while faith inspires action.

The difference between faith and fear is found in your perspective.

Your perspective will either propel you by faith or paralyze you by fear.

Make 2021 the year you stop listening to fear and try. Fear has lied to you long enough. Step out there and see what you’re really capable of.

You might just surprise yourself.

If you’ve been procrastinating on getting a gift for the nerd in your life, here are a couple of ideas.

Disclosure: Where applicable, I use affiliate links.

Office

• The Focused NeuYear Calendar – Shameless plug: I love the NeuYear calendar and have been using some version of it for many years. In addition to giving you the full year at a glance, the Focused version is shaded for 12 Week Year planning and includes a key at the bottom for theming or habit tracking. And this year, it’s available in dray erase – just in case, you know, something like a global pandemic changes your plans.
• Ugmonk Heirloom Journal – This disc-bound journal runs my life at this point. It’s the heart of my hybrid productivity system and I use it for time blocking and note capture every single day. It’s super high quality, and compatible with other disc-bound system (like the Levenger Circa system) if you want to things to it or punch your own paper.
• Keychron K2 Tenkeyless Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard – I backed this as a Kickstarter when I saw it had hotswappable switches (meaning you don’t have to solder them if you want to change them out). While I’ve made modifications to mine, the stock keyboard is pretty decent and available with a couple different switch options ( prefer the tactile browns).
• Capisco Desk Chair – It’s stupidly expensive, but it’s also the best chair I’ve ever used. I had some pretty serious back issues earlier this year, and this chair has been an important part of helping me solve them.

Books

• Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg – Atomic Habits by James Clear is really good, but IMHO Tiny Habits is even better. BJ Fogg did a bunch of the research that James Clear uses in his book, and presents it in a very clear and entertaining way.
• Daily Rituals by Mason Currey – This might be my favorite book that I read this year, but it’s very different. Basically it’s a collection of short profiles of prolific creators and thinkers, offering a glimpse into their daily routines. A very easy entertaining read.
• Make Time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky – A productivity book for people who don’t like productivity books. Written by two ex-Google employees, it offers a bunch of tactics that you can use to focus on what’s really important.
• Bookworm Yearly Membership – Selfless plug for the Bookworm Club, where I post all the notes from books that I read. Plus you support the Bookworm podcast I do with Joe Buhlig.

Tech

• Hidrate Steel Bluetooth Water Bottle – I’ve always struggled to drink enough water, and this water bottle flashes a visual reminder periodically to take a drink when I fall behind. Not cheap, but high quality and fixes several issues from the previous Hidrate Spark bottles (like offering a rechargeable puck that screws into the bottom).
• Spark Guitar Amp – This tiny little Bluetooth guitar amp offers an incredible selection of amp simulation and tone, and is surprisingly loud for the size. But the killer feature is the chord detection via the companion app and the Smart Jam feature that lets you practice with other virtual musicians from home.
• Satechi 7-Port USB Charging Dock – I got this as a place where we could park all our electronics for the night outside of the bedroom, and it works great. If you too want to keep phones of out of the bedroom, check this out.

Other Stuff

• Remix Double Chain Disc Golf Basket – We bought a couple of these this year so we could practice our putting in the yard. They are surprisingly high quality, and have 24 chains which make it feel like a professional basket.
• Spikeball – This game is amazing. It takes quite a bit of coordination to get good at it, but if you have a group of fairly athletic kids or friends to play with, this is a good one.
• visnfa Bike Phone Mount – I biked a ton this summer, and this cheap but sturdy phone mount held up well.
• Outward Hound Hide-a-Squirrel Squeaky Puzzle – If you have a pooch, get them this fun dog toy and watch them try to figure out how to get the squirrels out of the plush log. Hilarity will ensue.

Last week I had the privilege of being the first webinar guest for my friend Joe Buhlig for his community, Analog Joe. It was a lot of fun, and we got to dive deep on my hybrid productivity system. Joe has graciously allowed me to post the webinar replay here in case you missed it:

If you like this kind of thing, I recommend you go check out Analog Joe. It’s a fun group with an obvious bias towards analog tools, so if that’s your thing, definitely check it out.

4 years ago today, Joe Buhlig and I published the first episode of Bookworm. Fun fact: we hadn’t met each other yet when we started the podcast (we met later that month in person at Macstock). We originally started the podcast because we both wanted to read more and need a little help to do it consistently. The accountability and positive peer pressure of having to show up and talk about a book every two weeks has helped me firmly establish a reading habit, so mission accomplished.

A lot has happened over the last four years. We’ve both been through some rough times, and there where periods where we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to keep it going. Life happens. There have been times when we’ve missed our scheduled publish dates due to job changes, health issues, and the like. I’m grateful to my co-host Joe Buhlig for sticking with it, and for all of the listeners who have shown their support for the show. I’ve grown a ton because of the podcast over the last four years, and believe I am a better person today because of it.

Personally, I get a lot out of making the podcast and would probably do it even if nobody listened. But I’m proud of and inspired by the community that has sprung up around this little side project and extremely thankful that folks continue to show up. And a special thanks to the Premium Club members who are willing to give us a couple bucks a month to help keep the lights on – you all rock!

Last week, I shared a video walking through my thought process from the notes I took during my pastor’s sermon. People seemed to like it, so I decided to do the same thing again this week.

Here’s the image of the sketchnote if you just want to see that with no explanation.