Directives

The following is a list of personal directives that, when followed, have improved my life. Inspired by Derek Sivers. Again, these are personal—none of this should necessarily be considered advice for you.

Health

• It’s easier to not buy junk food than it is to have it in your house and leave it be.
• Limit carbohydrate intake. Try a ketogenic diet (less than 20g total carbs minus fiber daily) if you don’t have a known medical reason not to.
• Track your diet (I use Cronometer) to make sure you’re eating right. You won’t really know what you’re consuming until you track it.
• Protect sleep.
  • Don’t stay up past your bedtime unless it’s an emergency.
  • Don’t eat before bed.
  • Don’t drink before bed.
  • Sleep in the dark, in a slightly cool room.
  • Don’t spend time on screens for a few hours before bed.
• Go for walks in lovely places.
• Lift heavy weights with proper form. Form is more important than speed or volume.
• Figure out which climate suits you best and live there.

Wealth

• Acquire rare and valuable skills to maximize your earning potential.
• Treat people well. Be kind, be honest, and be someone they’ll want to work with again in the future.
• Invest in your retirement as much as you can. Max your 401(k) up to the match from your employer, then max your IRA, then completely max your 401(k).
• Use a barbell investing strategy: put the vast majority (90%+) in safe-ish things like a no-load index fund, and use the rest for speculative things (crypto, stock picking, whatever).
• When you want (not need, but want) to buy something, wait. If you still want it in a month, OK. Otherwise you probably forgot about it and saved money.
• Use a password manager.
• Learn to work proactively rather than reactively.

Happiness

• Have deep relationships with good people.
• Cut relationships with bad people.
• Get a dog if your living situation permits it. Even when they destroy your house, you can’t help feeling good when you see those cute puppy eyes.
• Design your environment. Add things that bring you joy, remove things that irritate you.
• Get enough sunlight.
• Always learn new things. (I mean things like advanced math or ancient history, not “research” from conspiracy theory YouTube.)
• Listen to fiction audiobooks read by actors, and non-fiction audiobooks read by the author. The reverse often disappoints.