I received many thankyou emails this time last year from people who…
1. entered their (Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Outlook.com, Hotmail, MSN, Windows Live, or iCloud) email into unroll.me *
2. quickly scanned the list of their emailed newsletters and hit ‘unsubscribe’ next to those they no longer needed
unroll.me is a fast, easy service and January is purge time, especially the newsletters you plan to read though never get to. It’s time to unsubscribe.
Be ruthless and keep in mind that if you miss any newsletters in the future you’ll be motivated to re-subscribe and read they arrive.
* Note added in 2018 – please look into the use of your data by unroll. Make sure you’re comfortable with their described use of your data.
Great tunes.
Since Rdio closed a couple of years ago I’ve tried free and premium music services (including Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and others) and found them time consuming – the design and functionality didn’t come easily to me and I spent too much time pressing thumbs up or down, skipping tracks or searching for music I’d liked in the past so I could start a radio station around it.
What I appreciated about Rdio and now Soundcloud is that if I listen to a style of music or start a radio from a track I like, Soundcloud keeps playing great music. Rarely I skip a track and when I do the quality increases. Plus, to try out new styles and tracks, there’s “More of what you like”, “Artists you should know” and “The Upload – Newly posted tracks. Just for you”.
Thanks to Fred Wilson’s post for the inspiration to try Soundcloud again after 6 years.
Favourite reads & listens
This one‘s a ripper: three stories that dominated the macro tech environment in 2017 from the Carlota Perez technology surge cycle chart to “The Beginning Of The End Of White Male Dominance” followed by Fred’s 2018 predictions. What are you predicting for 2018?
Fascinating: Jack Jones teaches about installing sanitation systems in a refugee camp in northern Kenya.
These are the best podcasts and audiobooks I’ve found for top performance, emerging technology, and business trends from listening to hundreds of podcasts and a couple of years worth of audiobooks.
Best Podcasts for Top Performance
1. Anatomy of Next
One of the things I love about online content at the moment is greater access to the ‘good news stories’. The Anatomy of Next is a treat. It showcases current, upcoming and longer-term technology and the effects on humanity through storyline and interviews with world experts in genetics, tech, and beyond. What’s rad about it is that it’s dispelling many of the dystopian/destruction future storylines often in Hollywood blockbuster movies (think: Terminator). It’s useful in seeing the future brightly.
A wonderful conversation between James and Gary Vaynerchuk on the realities of working hard and becoming an entrepreneur, hustling and gaining freedom in life.
Tim Ferriss podcasts are interviews with people who are operating at best-in-the-world level. Learn from the best! Enjoy their wise and calm perspectives. Tim is the author of the ‘Four Hour’ books that are really useful for developing your mindset to identify greater productivity, performance and to be globally-aware. Access podcasts through searching for Tim Ferriss in the Podcasts app on your smartphone or head here. These are my favourite interviews with top performers across various professions in suggested listening order:
Bryan Johnson Naval Ravikant Kevin Kelly (#164) – AI, Virtual Reality and The Inevitable Joshua Waitzkin (all episodes) Tara Brach Caroline Paul Maria Popova (especially useful if you do Social Media production) Charles Poliquin Derek Sivers Wim Hof Chris Sacca Ryan Holiday James Altucher Ramit Sethi Pavel Tsatsouline Peter Diamandis Noah Kagan Seth Godin Phil Libin Joshua Skenes Tony Robbins Walter O’Brien BJ Miller Marc Andreessen (#163)
If you’re interested in productivity and gaining increased focus, Tim Ferriss also provides insight beyond his book (which is a great introduction) through these podcasts where he shares his personal experiments and what has worked:
Episode 13: “Productivity” Tricks for the Neurotic, Manic-Depressive, and Crazy (Like Me) Magic of Mindfulness: Complain Less, Appreciate More, and Live a Better Life Episode 6: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm Episode 9:The 9 Habits to Stop Now – the Not-To-Do List Episode 17: The Power of Negative Visualization Lazy: A Manifesto How to Earn Your Freedom How to Practice Poverty and Reduce Fear How to 10X Your Results, One Tiny Tweak at a Time How to Avoid the Busy Trap (And Other Misuses of Your Time)
6. Arianna Huffington
Get up to speed on why 8 hour sleep a day helps productivity.
7. Voices of VR
“VR” stands for Virtual Reality = Next big thing. Get on it: the Voices of VR podcast 🙂
8. The Future of the Internet
This Freakonomics podcast investigates “Is the Internet Being Ruined”. Interesting analysis of the big players such as Facebook and aspects of privacy, as well as potential solutions. Well worth a listen.
9. No Such Thing as a Fish
“The QI researchers (known as ‘elves’) host a weekly podcast to half a million subscribers, where they discuss the most interesting facts they’ve unearthed that week.”
Fascinating, witty and good fun. Really diverse topics, you’re sure to learn something new. This episode (iTunes Ep 127 here) covers objects left on the moon, the earthquake-proof bed, men-only flights and comic sans font.
Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman help creatives, consultants, small business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers grow their online presence, business and set up their online marketing systems to attract relevant leads by first finding a niche group of customers and deeply researching and analysing their needs.
1 – How Pat Maddox went from 0 subscribers to over $3k MRR in 10 days
EP12 – “I’m shipping ebombs, now what?” – From Pain to Product with Nick Piegari
EP13 – Justin Weiss’s shift from side projects to successful product launches
EP18 – Our Profitable Mess (and how we’re cleaning it up)
EP19 – A Swift Kick in the Ass (The Game of Business)
EP20 – A Swift Kick in the Ass (Accountability)
EP 22 – How to make an offer they can’t refuse (Outreach Masterclass with Kai Davis)
Favourite Audiobooks
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success by Cal Newport. Develop this marketable skill, it’ll be worth it. Exceptional book with practical tips that repeatedly (and usefully) popped into my head weeks after reading. Unique.
Cal’s “Be So Good they Can’t Ignore You” is fabulous too. “He debunks the passion hypothesis (that you need to follow your passions to find work you love) and courage culture (that you need to be emotionally brave too) and instead highlights people who have developed their experience and skills (career capital) prior to using it for greater autonomy, income, flexibility and more.” Although the audiobook is repetitive, its concise length and clearly presented arguments make it well worth the listen.
“The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance” by master Josh Waitzkin is a peaceful, kind offering of clever learning and high performance tools, including insightful stories from Josh’s life in uncovering top human performance. Enjoy this one.
Kevin Kelly’s “The Inevitable” – within 6 hours of listening you’ll be up to date with the 12 tech forces that are shaping our future. I found listening to this at 1.25 speed worked well and the 6 hours took me about 3 week in amongst listening to other media.
“Ready Player One” immerses you in a VR future – great for strategists and future thinkers to better imagine aspects of what could come to be. Have a bit of fun!
Love yourself like your life depends on it by Kamal Ravikant (Kamal’s brother Naval mentioned above) is soothing (well done Kamal!) and basic and strengthening. Kamal and Naval are successful entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley’s investors.
Grit by Angela Duckworth hones in on attributes and activities that can build perseverance.
Pop over here for favourite blockchain and cryptocurrency audiobooks.
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Listening Tips
I download a few at a time to my iPhone so I can listen whether or not I’m connected to the internet.
Oh! And I’m a fan of Jaybird headphones and Apple Airpods so learning can happen quickly, anywhere. Clever earphones have had me learning many more hours a week for a while now.
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Have a favourite? Let us know so this list continues to be alive with useful tips.
