These are some Atomic Habits-style things that have worked for me.

Food

• It's much better to think about getting the correct macros than hitting some calorie target
  • If you get the correct macros and exercise / sleep enough, your weight will basically be correct
• Factor is the best meal kit service out there
  • I have tried a lot of them, this one is hands-down the best
  • If you want to try it, please email me for a referral code
• CalAI is essentially a random number generator for macros and is not worth the subscription

Exercise

• Join a running or biking club that meets at a regular time, for accountability
• Biking is lower friction than running, so I find the best cadance is to alternate running, biking and gym
• It's much easier to exercise regularly if you're sleeping and eating well
  • Food and exercise are downstream from getting enough sleep, so it's important to prioritize sleep above all else
  • Top AI researchers are more likely than the general public to get 9 hours of sleep per night
• BodBot is decent for recommending workouts for gym days, but ChatGPT is getting there as well

Sleep

• Equipment that works:
  • Eight Sleep: Expensive, worth the cost
    • The killer app is that it can vibrate one side of the bed to wake you up without waking your partner up, or vice versa
  • Eye mask: Anything works, basically
  • Earplugs: I have a jar of disposable earplugs
• If you're religious about it for 2-3 weeks, it becomes way easier to maintain good sleeping habits, because you get sleepy
  • I thought I had insomnia for a lot of my adult life but it turns out I was just computer-brained
• Kindle beside bed replaces phone / laptop / television
  • Book genre matters, your brain needs to want to read it instead of scrolling on your phone but it needs to not be so engaging that you don't want to sleep
  • Biographies about failed tech companies seem to be the sweet spot for me, personally (e.g., the SBF biography and the Theranos biography)

Work

• Print scientific papers to read and allocate some amount of time every day to read them
• Spend a meaningful amount of time pair programming or working closely with other people, to be able to observe what kinds of habits they have that make them effective
• Separate work space from non-work space
• Get glasses for using the computer, even if your eyes are only mildly bad
• Software is essentially free now, so it's easy to make your own software, particularly Mac apps
  • For example, here is an app that I made to ensure that I go to sleep on time, and this is an app which acts as a site blocker with the particular customizations that I prefer.
• Have a separate work computer and fun computer. Don't use your gaming computer for work, and don't make it easy to switch from one to the other. It's important that your brain gets used to doing work in a particular environment.

Psychology

• Waking Up is the only meditation app that seems to take mindfulness seriously
  • Commuting to work is a good time to practice this
• Some things which have provided very interesting framings and influenced a lot about my worldview:
  • A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels So Weird
  • Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now?
  • David Foster Wallace - The Problem with Irony
  • Daniel Gross – How to Win (Startups)
• A lot of startup friends use ChatGPT as a therapist
  • If you do this it's probably important to add a user prompt asking ChatGPT to be scientific, data-driven, and reference peer-reviewed literature

Things I'm Curious About

• Peptides
• Regular blood tests
  • Testosterone
• I'm exploring ways to keep my brain active now that I'm doing a lot less coding
  • I've started doing more competitive programming problems for fun
  • Playing some more mentally challenging video games in my free time (Baba Is You, Balatro)
  • I've also thought about getting into "quant-style" games
• If you have any suggestions, please send them to me