This month’s Gear Not Stuff is a holiday gift guide.
Housekeeping:
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Today’s post is the first annual 2% Gear Not Stuff holiday gift guide. It features—wait for it—gear, not stuff you can give to others or request from others. We’re featuring six categories: health, fitness, travel, nutrition, adventure, and, naturally, requisite 2% gear mentions.
The rules:
Each item’s description must be no more than 75 words.
Each item must be something I’ve used or had recommended to me by someone I trust. No filler, all killer type stuff.
Items under $100 are highlighted with an asterisk.
The orange Get it text at the bottom of each item’s description links out to the product.
Happy holidays. Let’s roll …
Requisite 2% Gear Mentions
Scarcity Brain and/or The Comfort Crisis custom-inscribed copies*
A unique gift for your family members. I’ll write whatever you want—the stranger, the better. (One woman had me draw a cat in her book … here’s how it turned out.)
Price: $35
2% Trucker*
This hat, the world’s greatest hat, is on my head right now. They’ll probably bury me in it (hopefully not too soon).
Price: from $31
Health
FitBit Inspire 3*
Activity trackers are best for tracking general activity rather than workouts. More on that here. This tracker captures useful metrics like steps and heart rate and has a long-lasting battery life, so you’ll actually remember to wear it. Its price makes it a winner.
Price: $80
Waking Up App Subscription
Waking Up is the mindfulness app created by the sage Sam Harris. Think of it as the Harvard University of mindfulness apps—it ditches all the pop meditation crap and gets to the heart and science of what it is to be conscious. P.S. I recently created a course for the app. More on that next week.
Price: $130/year
Mack’s Slim Fit Soft Foam Earplugs*
Humans have increased the world’s loudness fourfold. More than 100 million Americans live in noise levels louder than what you’d hear standing next to a working washing machine or dishwasher. That’s 70 decibels. All this noise, research shows, sucks our focus and productivity and even hurts our health. To learn more on this, read The Comfort Crisis. Hence, I use these earplugs while working and traveling.
Price: $13 for 50 pairs