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Adam's 5 Finds: Touching Interview | Best Podcast App | Deeper Sleep | Back Pain Killer

Adam's 5 Finds: Touching Interview | Best Podcast App | Deeper Sleep | Back Pain Killer
By Adam Egger • Issue #5 • View online

One of Most Touching Podcast Episodes
This is one of the most emotional podcast episodes I’ve listened to. Please, please listen to this Tim Ferriss’ interview with Debbie Millmann. It’s touching and you’ll learn a lot. Especially enjoy the “Your Ten-Year Plan for a Remarkable Life” exercise.
Here’s just one quote from this interview: “In order to take that first step, you need courage and that’s much more important than confidence. So for all you who are waiting for that confidence to show up, take that first step in that moment of courage, even it’s abhorrent courage.” 
“Hard decisions are only hard when you’re in the process of making them.” - Debbie Millman For some of you, this may be most important podcast episode you ever listen to. I don’t say that lightly.
fourhourworkweek.com  •  Share
My Favorite Podcast App
I am addicted to podcasts. With every podcast episode a new door of opportunity opens for me. Recently a friend introduced me to Pocket Casts and I was sold. A few features I love:
- Great interface: simple and intuitive coupled with an easy to browse podcast directory.
- Everything in Sync: your subscriptions, filters and episode progress are saved to the cloud. New device? Just sign in and you’re ready to go.
- Smart audio features: adjust audio speed (.5 to 3x), trim silence, and volume boost. 
Those audio features are the reason I bought this app. Huge time savers!
Available here for: iOS ($5.99), Android ($3.99), Windows Phone ($3.99) 
Limit the Number of Daily Decisions
Our brain can only make a limited number of decisions per day (see “Why you should limit your number of daily decisions”). 
Here is a tip I’ve heard recently and live by since: 
Set a decision limit for buying things to let’s say $5 and never think about prices below your limit. $4 Cappuccino!!? Just buy it. A yogurt for $1? Just buy it. Beer 10 cents more expensive than last week!? Should I buy it? Yes! Don’t even think about it. Set your limit to whatever fits you (I have my at 10€) and laugh about people complaining about 10 cents. 
This will reduce the number of non-critical decisions dramatically. 
5 Tips to Sleep Much Better
Sleep is absolutely essential to functioning at your best. That doesn’t mean you need a lot of it as long as you focus on sleeping better, not longer. Sleep is critical for tissue repair, detox, brain growth, and hormonal production. 
Get most out of your sleep with these biohacks:
  1. Black out your bedroom. I mean really make it as dark as possible. For better sleep tonight, cover your windows and all sources of light like LEDs so your bedroom is completely dark. 
  2. Stop drinking coffee by 2pm. Caffeine has an average half-life of 5.7h in adults, meaning that if your last coffee was at 2pm, half of the caffeine from it is still circulating in your body around 8pm and a quarter at 1am!
  3. No glowing screens 2h before bed, or use an app that remove blue light like Twilight on Android (my choice on all our smartphones), f.lux on Mac, Win, iOS or Iris on many platforms (Iris is always running on all my PCs). 
  4. Don’t exercise 2h before you go to bed. 
  5. The magic one: this one will make you fall asleep and wake up much better: have glowing light in front of your eyes for just 5 minutes directly AFTER waking up (sun or put a wake-up light on your nose!). When you wake up in the dark your body does not shift from melatonin to serotonin excretion in the morning and back to melatonin at night!
Creativity Boost - Watch crazy stair designs
Since watching creative ideas makes creative, here are some crazy stair designs: minimalistic, floating, alternate, spiral. 
Creativity task: Which one surprises you? Think about how getting this surprising idea could still work for you. 
10 Crazy Stair Design – desket.
10 Crazy Stair Design – desket.
The last thing you want to have taking up precious square footage in your small space is a big bulky staircase. 
desket.co  •  Share
One Stretch to Reduce the Lower Back Pain
People often plan the perfect routine and don’t follow it. I rather try to do it the other way around: do something imperfect, minimalistic but on a daily basis. So here’s the one exercise that will undo the damage of years of sitting: couch stretch. Perform just this one exercise, daily. 
‘It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.’ - Confucius
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Adam Egger

This easily-digestible weekly blog will help you to grow personally and professionally. Like a plant that flourishes from short but frequent watering, you will discover new ways of thinking and working that will leave you feeling more focused, productive, and happy.

I'm Adam Egger - innovation and creativity coach - teaching people all over the world how to become more innovative, more creative, and more successful.

The Simply Good Life newsletter is about personal success and happiness. I additionally write a newsletter about success at work with simple ways to become the most creative and innovative person around:
https://101innovationhacks.substack.com/welcome
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Adam

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