Life Style

There are a lot of ways I trick myself into meeting my goals, like coming up with various rewards and punishments for myself or outsourcing my progress tracking to apps. In general, I'm a deeply goal-oriented person and I am, for better or worse, obsessed with "winning"—which I always thought made me a perfect candidate for complicated productivity techniques like detailed to-do lists full of tasks in order of priority. While I do love a good technique, I decided to switch things up last year when I got worried that maybe I was spending so much time prioritizing and planning that I wasn't spending enough time doing. So I just focused on the doing—and it worked. Here's what I mean and how my bright idea helped me crush last year's resolutions. Adopting a "do it now" mindsetI've covered a lo...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Clicks, the company behind those physical keyboard cases for your smartphone, has announced a new device, but it'll look pretty familiar to anyone who's used a Blackberry before. It's called the Clicks Communicator, and it's a pocketable little handset that's perfect for anyone who misses having physical buttons on their phone. It comes with a full, old-school style QWERTY keyboard and runs Android 16, and while you can pump it full of apps and use it standalone, Clicks says it expects many of its customers will prefer to use it as a minimalistic companion to a primary smartphone. In that way, this device is designed to be your secondary smartphone, where you only load it with the apps you need at a moments notice and ...

If you've ever looked into trading in your smartphone for a dumbphone, you might have stumbled across Punkt. The German-based company's MP01 and MP02 phone were purposely not "smart;" rather, they were minimalist slabs of plastic, sporting a tiny display and an array of large, physical buttons. The point of owning one of these Punkt devices isn't to sit scrolling on your smartphone for hours on end; it's to use your phone when you need to—privately, at that. The MC03 looks like any other smartphone at firstThe company's MC0 line flips the script a bit, and that doesn't change with the latest: MC03. While there's still a focus on privacy and minimalism, this newest device is virtually indistinguishable from other Android smartphones on the market—at least, in outward appearance. Gone are th...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. There's something extra satisfying about starting a new year with an upgrade that actually makes a difference in your daily routine. After years of relying on my traditional percussive massage guns, I've made the switch to the Rally Orbital Massager. And one by one, my friends have started following in my footsteps to make the same move. Hey, there's something validating about watching people you trust independently come to the same conclusion. Why I love the Rally Orbital MassagerDon't get me wrong—my Theragun still serves me well. It's been a reliable companion after workouts, helping ease tension and speed up recovery. But with the Rally, the orbital motion technology sets it apart immediately. Instead of the percus...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds take a sharp turn from the brand’s usual noise-canceling dominance. Instead of sealing you off from the world, they sit outside your ears, letting in ambient sound while still delivering rich, detailed audio. Priced at $199 (down from its original $299), this is their lowest price yet (according to price trackers), and they cater to people who prefer awareness over isolation. Think cyclists, runners, or anyone who doesn’t want to miss the honk of a car while listening to music. The fit takes a minute to figure out. The silicone band adds just enough tension to keep them in place, but how you clip them chan...

I’m sure you’ve heard it everywhere: Check with a doctor before beginning any exercise program. This is the standard disclaimer on fitness advice of any sort, which most of us probably ignore. But should you? Not necessarily, it turns out.Why are you supposed to check with a doctor before exercising?The concern underlying this oft-repeated statement is that there are rare cases where a person can die suddenly during exercise. When this happens, it’s usually in a person who (a) had some kind of underlying medical issue; (b) was not used to exercising; and (c) did very intense exercise that they were unprepared for. For a long time, there was a sense among many medical and fitness professionals that the best way to handle the issue was to focus on the first part: the people who had an underl...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve been doing any kind of work around any kind of house for a while, you probably have a few trusty old-school C-Clamps on hand. The C-Clamp has been in use for thousands of years. It’s one of those dead-simple tools that just works. It’s also one of those tools you tend to collect multiple examples of, in different sizes.Typically, you use a C-Clamp to, uh, clamp stuff together, like two pieces of wood, or to clamp something into place while you work on it (I use them a lot to cut lumber so I can have both hands on the saw, as I am allergic to emergency rooms.) But the C-Clamp is actually a very versatile tool that can be deployed in a number of creative—but useful!—ways. Here are some of my favorite ways to re...

Rewarding yourself can backfire. If you tell yourself, “I’ll only listen to my favorite podcast while I’m at the gym,” it takes just one moment of weakness to realize you can cheat and listen to it any time you want. Instead, try this: Reward yourself with something that has no enjoyment value whatsoever. Like a checkmark on your calendar. I first heard this tip from writer Tim Clare’s podcast. If you want to stay motivated, he says, the reward has to be so crappy that you’re not actually working for the reward. He said that he puts a checkmark on his calendar every day he writes, and at the end of the week enough checkmarks earn a gold star. The same approach has worked for me and for others. I have to admit: Buying myself a pack of stickers is embarrassingly motivating. Why stickers work...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A healthy dose of cardio is an important part of your exercise routine, and for a lot of us, "zone 2" cardio is going to make up a big chunk of that. Low-intensity cardio—sometimes called LISS or “zone 2”—used to be an underrated form of exercise. It's super trendy now, after spending years on the sidelines while HIIT and lifting-only routines ran the field. But what is zone 2 cardio, exactly? How can you make sure you're doing it right? And is it really so bad if your heart rate drifts into zone 3? What is zone 2 training?Zone 2 training is cardio done at a steady, low intensity. It has benefits for aerobic training (so you can run faster), anaerobic training (helping you to recover faster between reps and sets, or be...