Hopefully, by now you’ve read the book Relax And Unwind By Spencer Coffman. If so, you know what you need to do to start organizing and decluttering your life so you can get what you want out of it. Life is known for constantly piling things up one after another. Until you can break that pattern, and get back sometime and space, you’re going to be constantly reacting to things that happen to you rather making things happen. You can only react so long before you tire out. Then you will be broken. Use the principles you learned in the book to be proactive and make things happen rather than waiting for them to happen to you.
Getting to this point is hard though, especially when you are already so buried with responsibilities, tasks, and commitments. Consider looking into some of the resources described here in the Relax And Unwind Resource Cheat Sheet. They will help you to learn how you can start clearing your schedule and getting back on top of the things in your life.
Resources
A Guide to Meditation for the Rest of Us
Lifehacker is always a great resource. In fact, if I do a Google search and Lifehacker comes up, it is my first click. They are always very accurate and reliable. This introduction to meditation is no different. Here you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with mindfulness, transcendental, and other forms of meditation.
Kaizen
This is a great guide to ‘kaizen’. This isn’t a topic we covered in the book, but it’s something that is very worth researching and learning about. Kaizen essentially is the process of introducing small, basic, changes that, over time, can add up to offer BIG benefits for your health and well-being.
CBT Self-Help Guide
CBT is called short for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and is a form of psychotherapeutic intervention used by some psychologists. It incorporates aspects of meditation and is a great way to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
Four Hour Workweek Blog
Tim Ferriss provides a lot of very useful articles for those who want to get back in control. Tim is perhaps best known for his book The Four Hour Workweek, where he detailed a number of different methods he used to make more time for himself. This includes everything from reducing ‘communication overhead’ to strategically turning of the phone.
Flow States
An in-depth guide to flow-states. Here you can learn how to improve your brain and performance by becoming completely engaged with what you’re doing at any given moment.
Bookend Your Day: The Power of Morning and Evening Routines
A fantastic tool for getting on top of things is to start using morning and evening routines. This way you will be starting a habit of forming routines. If you start and end your day with a routine, it won’t be long before you are using a routine for your entire day.
Three Reasons To Keep A Journal
Journaling is a great way to reflect on your life and to give yourself some quiet downtime at the end of your day. It is also a great reference that you can use to chart your progress or even for future generations to read!
Tools and Products
The 4-Hour Workweek Tools
This is a list of tools from Tim. Many of these are very helpful for enhancing calm and focus.
Headspace
The headspace app is available for Apple iOS Devices and Android Devices. It is worth checking out if you want to get started with meditation. It includes a number of short little introductory sessions for free. You’ll have to pay for the more advanced stages, but there’s nothing stopping you from using the first few then quitting.
Guided Meditation for Detachment From Over-Thinking
There is no shortage of videos on YouTube that can help you to practice meditation. This is simply one of many. However, it’s a very good one, and a good place to start. This is a 40-minute meditation that can help you to understand the benefits of meditation and leave behind some of those unnecessary worries.
Hand Dynamometer
A hand dynamometer (Roughly $30 on Amazon) is a device you can use to test your hand/grip strength. This is an interesting metric in its own right, but what’s more impressive is that you can use this to test your recovery rate (see how here). That’s because grip strength roughly correlates with your testosterone:cortisol ratio first thing in the morning. However, a less expensive, yet still effective, option is to simply test your grip on a digital bathroom floor scale. Simply pick up the scale and squeeze to see how much weight your grip produces.
Juicer
A juicer is something you should definitely consider investing in if you want to boost your health and mood. We’ve discussed in the book how you can improve your mood by getting more of the right nutrition, and a juicer is a fantastic way to do that. There are many juicers out there and you could always simply use a blender. A Magic Bullet is better. However, the best option is the Nutri Ninja. This juicer blends in a matter of seconds. and is completely versatile for food processing, drinks, smoothies, you name it!
Heart rate Monitor
There are numerous benefits to having a heart rate monitor. One thing that is particularly useful about one of these is that you can use it to monitor stress as a form of ‘biofeedback’. You can also use it to monitor your recovery rate (see how here). Heart rate monitors vary in price. Check them out on Amazon to find one that works for you.
MindWave from NeuroSky
This is an ‘EEG’ headset. The idea of this is to allow you to use your brainwaves to power apps and also to measure your own concentration, focus, and calm. An EEG, or electroencephalograph, is a tool that GP’s and psychologists can use to measure brainwaves. Now it is available commercially, for the first time, and is definitely worth looking into. They are roughly $80 on Amazon.
Lumie Clock
Lumie is an alarm clock that will wake you with natural light instead of an annoying alarm. This way you will feel more refreshed after waking up. In addition, you will be more apt to wake up because your body will be more sensitive to light than a sound, to which you can become accustomed. Lumie clocks are not cheap, average of $100 on Amazon. However, if you are always tired, it would be worth the investment.
Books
The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
This is a great guide to ‘lifestyle design’. It’s all about getting what you want from life instead of being dictated by others.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A Simple, Effective Way to Banish Clutter Forever by Marie Kondo
Tidy and declutter your home to tidy and declutter your mind. This is currently the biggest book on that subject, and it contains tons of excellent tips.
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Performance by Steven Kotler
This book explains how to tap into ‘flow states’ for enhanced calm and superhuman performance!
How to Save an Hour a Day by Michael Heppell
This is a great book that details how you can save yourself an hour every day. This works by helping you shave a few seconds off all kinds of tasks, many of which will help you automate your workflow and become a tidier, more efficient, person.
