Why I’m meditating 300 hours

May 16, 2025

I’ve now made it an explicit goal to meditate 300 hours in 2025. I’m halfway there. I’ve meditated 150 hours: An hour a day for 146 straight days, plus 4 additional hours.

You might think I’m on some kind of sabbatical, but I consider my one-hour meditation session a part of my workday. Spending so much time meditating actually makes me more productive. keep on reading »

New email course: 100-Word Writing Habit

February 09, 2021

One of the best things I’ve done for myself was start a writing habit. I used to wait for inspiration. Months would pass between blog posts. keep on reading »

My new book, Mind Management, Not Time Management

October 27, 2020

TL;DR: Buy Mind Management, Not Time Management right now »

It’s surreal. Ten years ago I started writing my first book. That was when I ran into a problem. keep on reading »

Introducing Summer of Starting

May 10, 2019

Have you been putting off a creative dream? Maybe it’s a novel or an album or a business.

Or maybe you have this burning feeling that you have something to offer the world, but you aren’t yet sure what it is.

I’m launching a new email course. Summer of Starting is a series of journal prompts designed to help you stop procrastinating, and start creating. keep on reading »

What I learned about productivity while reinventing Google Calendar

January 23, 2017

You may have noticed that Google Calendar has been adding new features lately. You can find time for your goals, and set reminders, for example.

I played a very small part in these features, but I learned a lot about my own productivity in the process.

keep on reading »

Week of Want: I killed my to-do list, then Google bought my ideas

October 26, 2015

The email seemed as urgent as it was hastily written.

Subject: “IMMEDIATE Action Reqeusted [sic]”

Attached to the email was [redacted], [redacted], and another [redacted]. keep on reading »

The AlphaSmart: This $19 portable word processor is a writer’s secret weapon

June 23, 2015

UPDATE (8/31/2015): I loved the form factor so much, I upgraded to an Alphasmart NEO, which has a much nicer keyboard feel, and (regrettably) displays slightly more type 😉

Technology has made a lot of things about writing easier. You can save little scraps of information in Evernote, write and edit with ease, and you don’t have to go to the library to do research. keep on reading »

Fancy Hands Review: How I Stopped Struggling, & Started Scaling my Business

March 26, 2014

Productivity is all about mind management, not time management. If you want to be really effective at what you do best, it really helps to offload as many as unimportant details as you can. I’ve struggled with delegation, while watching my friends scale their impact, and their businesses, thanks to their delegation skills. In this Fancy Hands review, I’ll show you how Fancy Hands helps me scale my business with limited hassle. keep on reading »

I’ve been stealthily advising Timeful, & the likes of Dan Ariely & Ashton Kutcher are involved

March 18, 2014

It seems like everyone wants to have more time. In a recent open-ended survey of folks on my email list, time was the second most talked about thing. keep on reading »

This split keyboard may be the biggest thing since your standing desk

February 11, 2014

UPDATE, December 9, 2020: My UltraErgo had a nice life, but since it’s discontinued, I couldn’t replace it. I’m currently enjoying my Mistel BAROCCO MD770, with Cherry MX switches. (I went with the extra-clicky blue.)

UPDATE, September 2, 2017: For the past couple of years, I’ve had readers asking if there’s an alternative to the UltraErgo Wireless Split Keyboard that I now love. Apparently it’s discontinued. The answer is still that I know of no better “truly split” alternative than the Kinesis. Happy to hear other suggestions in the comments.

UPDATE, March 10, 2016: A few months ago, I switched to the UltraErgo Wireless Split Keyboard (thanks to commenters stcorbett and cfc).

Here’s the UltraErgo (left, with its tiny USB dongle), next to the Kinesis (right).

The UltraErgo is objectively better than the Kinesis Freestyle2 on nearly every dimension that matters to me.

It’s significantly smaller, making it much easier to travel with.
It has built-in “feet” that flip up and put the keyboard on a tilt.
It’s wireless (NOT Bluetooth – there is a USB dongle), the primary benefit being that it reduces its size and weight when loading into my backpack.
I experienced a strange phenomenon with my Kinesis where sometimes keys would register in a different order than I had typed them. I emailed with their engineers, who seemed confident that this wasn’t possible, but still I experienced it both with their wired and Bluetooth versions. I haven’t had this problem with the UltraErgo.

The UltraErgo is not without compromises, though. A few potential “cons:”

It’s primarily made for Windows, but I use it fine on my Mac. So, there’s a “Windows” key, which I have used Keyboard Preferences to designate as “alt/option.” I have the “Alt” key set to function as the “Command” key.
Where the left “Command” key would generally be, there is instead a backslash key \ which I still hit accidentally.
There is no way I know of to change the volume with the Function keys. I can change the brightness with the “Scroll Lock” and “Pause Break” keys, but there is nothing graphically to indicate that on the keyboard.
The biggest, scariest “con” is that it relies on a tiny USB dongle that has to be in the computer for the keyboard to communicate “wirelessly.” I live in fear that I will someday lose this dongle, and wonder how hard it would be to replace. I simply leave it in my USB port all of the time in the hopes that will prevent my losing it.

Since portability is a huge factor for me, this keyboard is a clear winner for me, but if you’d prefer a keyboard built for a Mac, you may prefer the Kinesis.

Here is the UltraErgo as I use it. There are two “slant” settings, and I prefer it on the lowest one. Notice that there are “battery” indicators on the UltraErgo. The keyboard comes with a mini-USB (?) cable for charging (?) the keyboard. I never had to use this, but I did it anyway, and that was months ago. The keyboard came with no instructions nor manual.

Here is the UltraErgo ready to be put in my backpack (I just keep the tiny dongle in my USB port), next to my Kinesis. You can see the flaps that deploy to slant the UltraErgo. The difference in size and weight is night-and-day in a backpack.

Now, back to the original post:

Standing desks are everywhere these days. More and more office workers are switching over to standing desks, to prevent the health problems associated with sitting. keep on reading »