Minaal Backpack
All of my minimums are things that help me be mobile. I travel a couple times a month for work but I believe that the more I’m able to do while “on the go” the more productive I will be when I’m not. I don’t have an office, I don’t have a desk at home, I work in a different place every day and I love it. So whether I’m travelling across an ocean, or just across town, this backpack holds it all in an organized fashion. Everything I need to work and plenty of room for clothes.
Uzi Pen
My brother in law Felix gave me this because of my passion for Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art. The pen is made from the same hard steel that the weapons are made from and has a pointed tip on the back which can be used for self defense or even breaking a door down. It writes pretty well too. As much as I love technology there are still many situations where I prefer pen and paper. Everytime I pick up this pen I get a flash of the Ultimate Warriors episode where an Israeli army officer had to run on a treadmill under heat lamps before completing an optical course and that makes me more productive.
Speck Wallet Case
I haven’t carried a wallet in over five years. If you decide to make that restriction on yourself than you get creative. I carry just three cards in my Speck Wallet case, my personal American Express card, my debit card, and my drivers license. All of my other credit cards and loyalty cards are in Apple Pay. For items like my insurance card, my real estate brokers license, and my pilots license, I’ve taken pictures and added them to the Evernote app on my phone.
Karma WiFi
This is a basic wifi hotspot with a social twist. It’s an open hotspot and everyone who signs on to your Karma gets a free 100mb of data and you also get rewarded with 100mb of data. I love keeping it on in my backpack even when I’m not connected to it. If I’m sitting at a coffee shop, 4 people might connect while I’m there and then I’ve got free data for a few weeks.
Spare one phone
When you have kids, being out of touch is just not an option. These phones run on a single AA battery and includes a tool to pop out your iPhone sim card so that you can continue making and receiving calls in an emergency situation even when your iPhone battery dies at a 47% charge.
Buy Now$21macbook pro
I really am nomadic when it comes to working, one day I might be at a client’s office, the next at my co-founders apartment, and sometimes I’ll use the Croissant app to pop into a coworking space for a few hours or a Breather room if I need some privacy. The change of scenery energizes me and keeps me more productive. My Macbook has some instant polaroid stickers of my kids that we printed out.
Aftershokz Bone Conducting Headset
There are days where I’ll have headphones on for a good six hours at a stretch. In-earbuds are simply torture after that amount of time and even over ear headphones get uncomfortable for me. These bone conducting headphones sit right in front of your ears and transmit crystal clear sound through, you guessed it, your bones. Because the ears aren’t covered you maintain awareness and can still have conversations with people. Plus they are super comfortable.
Oura ring
Ever since my journey overcoming Crohn’s disease I have been into biohacking. I love experimenting with anything I can to improve my biological performance. The Oura Ring is the most advanced health tracker I have ever used. The pulse strenght is much stronger on the finger than on the wrist so it’s able to get more, increasingly accurate data. You can get information on your sleep, activity levels, and your “readiness” as measured by heart rate variability.
h1 zoom audio recorded
A lot of what I do focuses on content creation. We have two podcasts and often times when I travel to a conference or some other event, I meet someone and the timing is right to sit down and interview them right then and there. The Zoom recorder has two mics and picks up the audio really well so the quality is similar to what you’d get from a studio mic. It can also record for an extremely long time so we’ve used it to record an entire days workshop to share with our community.
Human Charger from Valkee
When I travel, I try to minimize the time away from my family even if that means a double red eye in and out of Los Angeles from NYC. One week I was in 5 countries in Europe in 4 days. The Human Charger looks like an Mp3 player but it shines extremely bright lights into your ears to combat jet lag. I know it sounds crazy but you just pull up the accompanying app, enter your flight, and it will tell you each time you need to run another 12 minute cycle. This device has COMPLETELY eliminated jet lag for me.
Chaga Mushroom Powder
Everyone dreads getting sick when they travel. Chaga Mushroom is an incredibly powerful immune booster. These packs are meant to be stirred into hot water for tea. I take the hardcore route and pour the pouch directly in my mouth. It’s a level of bitterness that’s hard to describe but by swirling it around your mouth for about a minute you get maximum absorption sublingually. I do one each time I take a flight and haven’t gotten sick since.
Buy Now$30My Books
My two most notable books are The Art of Less Doing and more recently Idea to Execution which I wrote with my Leverage Co-Founder Nick Sonnenberg. Previously I wrote a book called Less Doing, More Living which explained the productivity system I created to help people optimize, automate, and outsource everything. That book has been translated into multiple other languages including Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese. I carry these with me sometimes to remind me about the global mission we are on to show people a new way of getting things done and the intrinsic inspiration that brings us.
