7 tools that quietly improved my life

0:00 After testing over six figures worth of analog tools and tech products to improve my life, there are only a few that have stuck around and that I actually continue to use. In this video, I'm going to share seven of them. These tools have completely transformed the way that I work and operate. In many cases, it's reduced my clutter up to 90% and others have been small quality of life improvements that have really gone a long way. The most expensive item on this list is $150, but the cheapest one is actually only $3. So, if you're thinking of buying any of these things, make sure to watch until the end of the video. The first tool helped me eliminate the chaos of constantly checking my calendar and having multiple apps manage that. As far as the calendar goes, whenever I've tried out different apps and widgets, they tend to just cause more distraction. But this device solved it in a super elegant way and it's this e- in display. So this e- in

0:45 display is called Tremol and it's created by this entrepreneur called Ryan Culp who I actually met before and he's super talented. It's basically just an e display that you can use to display anything that you want and it's completely open source and there's a lot of plugins for it. I've been using this for a few months now and it's one of those devices that really just make a lot of sense. There's no touchcreen so there's nothing to fiddle with. There's no buttons really on this device at all. You set it up once and then it refreshes a couple times a day with whatever information that you want. For me, I just have my calendar which I think is really nice and I just have this at my desk. But you can also have other things like for example if you sell stuff on Shopify you can display your analytics or your YouTube analytics and even your sleep score from eight asleep. The main benefit of having my calendar like this is that I don't need to constantly have

1:31 my calendar open to see what I have going on next. I just have this at my desk and I can quickly glance and see what I have coming up for the next hour or the next week. Another benefit of this is that my girlfriend can just look at my calendar because it's just on my desk and see when I'm free and when I'm busy. There's zero subscription fee and there's absolutely nothing to mess with once you actually set it up. I think the form factor and build quality is super nice. I have this clear case one which I think looks super sick and they just came out with a few different colors. This product has been so naturally ingrained in my workspace that I even forgot to mention it or make a video about it in the past few months after I set this up. It's really transformed the way that I work in that I can always see my calendar and follow it without having to fiddle with any more technology. So, this tool fixed my calendar. But the next tool fixed another problem in my

2:18 life, which was knowing where my money was going, and it's this app, Copilot. This tool has single-handedly saved me thousands of dollars by knowing where my money is going and also increasing my income. In college, for a while, I used a manual spreadsheet where I tracked every single expense that I had and every single piece of income that I had, which although kind of worked, it was super clunky and it took a long time to actually maintain that and set that up. So, eventually I stopped doing it. I've also tried out other budgeting and finance apps created by big banks like Mint and other ones like that, but they were all kind of antiquated and not that easy to use. It wasn't until about a year ago that I was recommended this app because of how easy to use and how beautiful the design was. So, this Copilot and what it is is that it's a all-in-one finance and budgeting app. I mentioned this app in my what's on my

3:03 iPhone mini and iPad video before. So, I actually got in contact with the company and they agreed to sponsor this video. I was able to get you guys an exclusive promotion for this channel, which is a two-month free trial. So, you can try it out and see if you can actually save more money or make enough money to pay for the app after 2 months. So, in terms of how the app works, you basically just log into your banking platforms and investment platforms. And then it aggregates all that information and tells you what your assets are, what your income is, and what your expenses are. The pages that have been super helpful for me is one tracking my recurring subscriptions. So, I found a lot of subscriptions that I forgot I was still paying for and some they even charged me with even though I canceled it and so I was able to find that and cancel that through using Copilot. With investing, I also think that they have a better UI than most investing platforms

3:49 which are kind of old and antiquated. They've made it so that you can really easily see your cost bases which is really nice and you can also compare your performance with the market. So, if you're not outperforming the market, you can just invest in the market. They just announced a new major feature which is a savings goal. So you can set an amount that you want to save for by a certain date and it'll set up automation so you can guarantee that you reach that. So this is what the goals look like. You can set a new goal like a new car and you can see how much further you have to go to get to that place. One thing I really like about Cold Pilot, even though they are a subscription model, is that their values and pricing is super clear on their website. They don't have any hidden fees. There's no upsells and it ends up costing less than two cups of coffee a month if you live in LA like me. So, for me, this has been a totally worthwhile investment because I've just saved way more than I'm actually paying them. This next tool has helped me go

4:35 from completely wasting entire days to having total control over my time and attention. It's helped me eliminate procrastination and make sure that I'm actually progressing towards the things that I care about. This started about 2 years ago when I was listening to Rob Derick on this podcast called My First Million. So, he's basically this super successful entrepreneur. He sold his company for $300 million and he's actually the founder of Momentous Supplements, which you might have heard of before on Andrew Herman's podcast. What really stood out to me with Rob Zardc is that even though he had a lot of different projects going on, he had total control and balance in his life and he had the data to prove it. He basically tracked his time meticulously every minute of the day so that he knows exactly how much time he's spending at his work, how much time he's spending with his family, how much time he's spending developing himself and his health. because he does this religiously. He has the data to prove that he is in control of his time and

5:22 attention. In the podcast, he says, "I am human optimization." And that really stuck with me. I am human optimization. Since then, I also started to do something similar. And the way that I've done that is with this app called Timelines. I don't do it to such a high degree of accuracy as he does. But how I do it is that I start a timer whenever I'm working on something that I actually want my attention to go to. So, if I'm working on YouTube, I'll start a timer and it'll start counting YouTube. And the same for socializing, hanging out with a girlfriend, or reading books. The reason why this is really important is because there's almost always a discrepancy between what we want to focus on and what we actually spend our time on. And by tracking our time, it makes it really clear to us. Out of all the apps that I tried, this is my favorite one because it has some automations that you can set up. So, for example, you can link it to your calendar and automatically track certain

6:09 events. Or if you use a sleep tracker, you can also connect that and it'll automatically track the number of hours that you slept. What you get after doing this is that you get a total breakdown of how you spend your time over a week or a month. And so this picture, this pie chart is essentially a representation of how your attention was spent. Personally, this has been super useful for me because I can reflect on every single month and see whether or not my attention was actually directed in the way that I wanted it to. Ideally, the way that this has helped me beat procrastination is by becoming super aware of how much time I was actually wasting. You can't track what you can't manage. And once you start tracking your time and your attention, you realize how much more hours there are in the day and how much time you actually waste, not spending in the way that you want at all. Even though I do use my calendar

6:55 for calls and different events. What I've learned over time is that the only thing that you can manage is not your time on your calendar, but your attention. And the way that you can manage your attention is by tracking how much of your attention is actually allocated to the things that you care about. Even though apps are really amazing for tracking specific metrics, it's not really that effective for fleeting thoughts and ideas. And that's where this next tool has helped me. And it's this pocket journal. If you've seen some videos on my channel, then you've definitely already seen me mention this before. But the reason I wanted to include this is because the price to benefit ratio is still so overpowered. A pocket notebook is the single best way to track your fleeting thoughts, ideas, and even to-dos. Getting a pocket notebook is kind of like the gateway drug to using a main notebook where you can actually write down long form ideas and thoughts. So, if you're thinking of starting to journal, I highly recommend

7:41 getting a pocket notebook and trying that out first. Think of how many times you're on the go and you have a thought or idea or you're having a conversation with somebody and they tell you something that you want to actually write down. This could be a future business idea. This could be some book or movie that you want to look into later. There's just so much friction to having to get your phone like figure out what app you want to open up and writing it down somewhere. And secondly, it might be weeks or months before you actually go back to your Apple notes and see that thing that you wrote down. I think this is one of those times where our phones are actually not enough for our ideas because the ways that your ideas can express themselves are so dynamic. They could be an illustration, they could be numbers, they could be just a scribble. And the best way to capture that is with a pocket notebook. So, the one that I use is the Field Notes Hard Cover, which I think has the best build and portability. I have this

8:28 pen that fits right here. I'll link in the description if you want that. And I've also made a few modifications. So, I put a Maxi ring, which just makes it useful if I want to put on a stand. And I also got a smart tracker in case I lose it. So, it's pretty thin. I just taped to the back. And so, in case I lose it, I can still find it. One of you guys also reached out to me and recommended me this tip, which was to rip out the corners after I'm done with the page, and it makes it really easy to find the current page I want. So, I also recommend doing that. If you're curious about how I actually use my pocket notebook, you can check out the video that I made. I think when you start carrying a pocket notebook, you really start to see the world in a different way. When you have conversations with people, you can write it down. When you're bored in line or on a train, instead of pulling out your phone, you can write down some idea or journal out something really quickly on your

9:13 notebook. One person I really look up to in history is Leonardo da Vinci. If you're not familiar with him, he's a super legendary artist, engineer, and inventor. And he's really famous for his notebooks. Like some of them have been sold for $30 million. In the book that I read about him, he told the student to always carry around a pocket notebook wherever they go. The reason for that is because he always uses his pocket notebook to sketch down different things he saw, study things that he saw in real life, and to write down different ideas to look into later. So yeah, I would recommend getting a pocket notebook and creating something like that for yourself. This next tool has been a super essential add-on as someone who uses a MacBook Pro as their main computer. So one major issue that you might not realize with using a laptop as your main computer is that the form factor is actually extremely not ergonomic. Because the monitor is below

9:59 your eyline, you're always going to be looking down and this creates a lot of bad posture and neck strain, which has happened to me. This posture can really add up and cause a lot of major neck issues later down the line. The way they have solved this is with this attachment that props your laptop up. This is a laptop stand by the company Magix and it attaches to the back of your MacBook or any laptop. It's made of metal, so it's super high quality compared to some of the ones that you might see on Amazon. And unlike a laptop stand that you have to, you know, pack up and put in your backpack, this just attaches to the back of it so you always have it. If you have a dedicated keyboard mouse, it makes it really ergonomic if you're working in a coffee shop or at a table. The ideal height that you want your monitor to be at is for the top to be at your eye level. So, with this laptop stand, it's really easy to do, and there's a bunch of different angles that you can adjust, too. Compared to the different ones that

10:45 I've tested and tried, I think this one is pretty aesthetic, and it also is super sturdy. So, yeah, I would recommend this laptop stand. The next item has helped me reduce a ton of distraction on my phone, and it's this iPod Nano. It's not the iPod Nano specifically, but rather a dedicated MP3 player. This model has actually been discontinued for a while, but it still has a super modern design and works really well. One really useful tip that I found to consistently drop into a flow state is to set up your work environment to be as similar as possible each time. And so the way that I've done that is that when I'm working, I like to listen to either white noise, brown noise, or some lowfi beats. And rather than go on Spotify or YouTube to find the best white noise or best lofi, I just have a few of them loaded up on my iPod and I can just plug in my earphones and start working immediately. But along with a

11:32 playlist for working, I also have my favorite songs. I have my favorite audio books and even videos that I can listen to when I'm working out or going for a walk. I found that using this device is just way more intentional than having an infinite scrolling feed on your phone because you have to actually choose what songs, what videos, and what audiobooks that you want on this device. And when you're actually working out or you're going for a walk with this, you can't be sucked into different rabbit holes because it just has the different books that you actually want to get to. Even though the iPod Nano is discontinued, you can pretty easily find one on eBay. But you can also get a MP3 player like this, which I've used for a while, and it's a $20 one from Amazon. The last one is one of my favorite tools, and it's actually the cheapest one at $3. If you've ever gone down this path of

12:17 trying out a new routine or new diet, but you find yourself falling off. A lot of times, it's not actually because of a discipline issue. Most of the time, it's just because you got busy and then you forgot that you were following this plan or that this was your goal for this year. So that's why in previous videos I recommended putting your goals on your phone or somewhere obviously you can see it. And this tool really helps with that. So there are these whiteboard stickers. It's pretty self-explanatory, but you can just stick this in your room or in your kitchen wherever you'll see it and write down different reminders that could be relevant to that area or relevant to whatever routine that you're trying to follow. And this is the best method that I found to really achieve and make progress in any goal is to keep your goal top of mind. That's really the battle that you have to fight. Even though having a pocket notebook and

13:02 journal is really good for being aware of your goals, the whiteboard sticker adds another layer, which is a spatial awareness. For example, you could put a whiteboard sticker in your kitchen that reminds you what your diet plan is and what you're going to eat and what you're not going to eat. So, every time you reach for the fridge, you see that. You could use it for different habits or rules that you want to follow. Like, for example, no social media until 12:00 p.m. every day. And putting those reminders in places that you'll have to look at and see every day. But even beyond habits and goals, it's also really useful for checklists in different parts of your office or home. So, for example, I have a checklist behind my video of the things I need to do when I upload a video. It's pretty much a standardized procedure in Japan to have a checklist and to have employees follow that when they are doing something every single time. And this is what leads a really high standard of excellence that you see in Japanese-made products and companies.

13:48 And so, you can also do that for yourself with a simple whiteboard sticker. The last thing I'll say is that even though some people might say you don't need tools to be productive, what I've personally found is that tools can help you be more productive by spending less time on the things that don't matter. Spending an hour on email might feel productive, but it's not actually using your time wisely. And so that's really the goal of the tools that I've laid out here. Benjamin Franklin famously once said, "The best investments are the tools of your own trade." If you like the video, subscribe and I'll make more of these videos. I'll see you next video. Let's get it.