A Book to FIRE You Up!

Reading this newsletter at work after a sweet 3-day weekend and wishing you'd slept in instead? Maybe you need some FIRE in your life. (It stands for financial independence, early retirement.)

My buddy Scott made a documentary (Playing with FIRE) that releases soon, and he also launched a book by the same title. I read an advance copy and think it's an insightful look at the FIRE rationale.

The book follows Scott and his wife Taylor on their journey from spending every dollar they made to dialing back to focus on an empowered lifestyle where money doesn't dictate all their decisions. Check it out!

Don't want to read a full book? I think Mr. Money Mustache's article How Much Do I Need for Retirement should be mandatory reading for all high school and college students. Forget trigonometry! (Oh, right, we all have...)

A Close Shave With Masculinity

If you missed it, this advertisement from Gillette is blowing up the internet. What I find fascinating is how strong the outcry is.

To me, the ad basically says be nice and don't raise men who want to beat each other up or harass women. It doesn't say we can't be strong, wear muscle shirts and ride bikes off big jumps, or that we shouldn't play basketball or join the wrestling team. 

I didn't walk away thinking, "damn you P&G, stop trying to smash masculinity," but a lot of people did. (The Youtube video has 350k comments!) If you interpreted it that way, I'd love to hear your thoughts and why it feels threatening. Can't we be badass, masculine guys and have the qualities in the ad? Watch it here!

Save Time with Gmail Shortcuts

I'm a huge Gmail fan and have used it for both personal and business for over a decade. At one point, I was sending over 5,000 emails/month for work and receiving almost as many. (I tracked it using Email Meter. Why? As part of my 80/20 analysis for my business years ago.)

I don't send or receive nearly as many emails these days. Still, I know we ALL spend time emailing. And if we can save a minute here, 5 there... It adds up! Enter Gmail keyboard shortcuts, which I use all.the.time. 

My favorite simple ones:
u - return to inbox
e - archive
m - mute a reply-all thread that you're sick of
! (shift+3) - delete an email

Go through the entire list and see how it fits into your email work flow. I guarantee it'll save you time! Now if only there was a shortcut for writing responses to tough emails...

Revisiting What Counts

Wait But Why is one of my favorite sites, full of long-form, hilarious, thoughtful content. Plus lots of stick figures...

I revisited the article The Tail End this week and was again reminded how precious our time with family and dear friends is. This visual representation of it is powerful. If you dig it, I recommend reading the post he links to at the top of the article as well!

If you don't have time to read the article (juuuust go read it, the visuals are fun), his three takeaways at the end are excellent:

1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.

3) Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

Here's to clear priorities! Have a radtastic week, y'all.