today is my 35th birthday, so here are 35 things I’d recommend to anyone: - Take less melatonin. The actual effective dose is closer to 0.5mg, not the 5mg that some pills advertise. - Do 6 cycles of 4-7-8 breathing before you speak in public to bring your heart rate down by ~10 bpm. - Buy little chocolates for your house. When you have people visiting overnight, put the chocolates on their pillows. Tiny money spent, gets a big smile every time. - Use text replacement shortcuts (e.g. $ph for your phone number, $em for your email, $ad for your address, $pass for your passport, etc). Takes 5 min to set up and saves so much hassle. - Take Lactaid. You are probably at least a little lactose intolerant. Try it for a week and see what happens to your stomach. - Buy fewer clothes, but get them tailored to you. A $50 shirt with $10 worth of tailoring beats a $150 shirt most of the time. - Buy expensive socks and underwear. Costs basically nothing over the course of a year. - Do 50 little jumps right when you wake up. I don’t know why this works. But it does. Try it for a week and tell me it doesn’t. - Don’t overthink it. Especially if you’re below 30 years old, you’re probably overthinking it. Just do it. - When you meet a child under 3 years old, give them an exploding high five and you will become best friends every time. - Rent, don’t buy. Buying a home is dramatically overrated in your 20s and 30s when location flexibility is one of your biggest advantages. - Never sell bitcoin. - When you travel to a new city, pick one song and play it on repeat. For the rest of your life, that song will teleport you back to that time and place. - Drink Tequila or Mezcal for reduced hangovers. - Learn how to take a compliment (it’s surprisingly hard!). My usual response: “that’s kind of you to say”. - Buy a good pair of compression socks, they make a meaningful difference for jet lag on overnight flights. - Use the Pomodoro Technique for more productivity. 25 minutes on, 5 min off. - Play padel tennis. Much more fun than pickleball. - Learn to write clearly. It’s the most underrated cheat code for your career. You spend all day writing messages, docs, etc - it pays to get good at it. - Use Letterboxd to track movies you watch and find movie reviews (more helpful than rotten tomatoes most of the time) - Get a water flosser. It's as good as they say it is. - Configure your Focus Modes on your phone. Takes 6 minutes and will make your phone roughly 56% more enjoyable to own. - Use the Airalo app for eSims when traveling. Only fools use roaming data. - Get married. The compounding benefits of a relationship are strangely overlooked by ambitious people. - Meditate every day. This has fallen out of the culture as a recommendation. It shouldn’t have. Waking Up remains a good place to start. - Take 3-5g of creatine monohydrate every day. It’s the most studied supplement on earth, and the studies are glowing. - Read "Man’s Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. - Wait to have kids until you have some money, if you can. Kids are great whenever you have them, but all things being equal parenthood is much much much easier when you have some financial comfort. - Whenever you are missing someone, text them and tell them. Everyone wants to be missed. - Writing, if only for yourself. Journaling, gratitude or otherwise, will change the way you see your own life and give you actual main character energy. - Sweat 5 times a week. Saunas and steam rooms remain underrated. Working out also great, of course. - Have at least 5% of your net worth in crypto. Do not have more than 75% of your net worth in crypto. - Use Readwise to surface highlights from books and articles. Helps dramatically to actually remember the things you learn. - Play bullet chess. It is the most fun and addictive hobby that actually makes you smarter. Learn the Danish Gambit for double the fun. - Just use Jupiter