Over the years, I’ve been experimenting with finding the best brands for different scenarios. I tend to focus on brands that produce natural cosmetics and for clothing those that focus on natural materials like merino wool.

This exercise is important for me because once I know which are my favorite brands I can reduce my options and know that whatever I buy from these brands will fit me well and feel good. Having many options to choose from is a huge time sink for me and one of my main enemies in the quest for high productivity.

Here’s a list of the clothing brands I love and typically stick to.

Underwear

• Icebreaker
• Polo boxers (for sleeping in)
• Under Armour
• Smartwool
• Lacoste
• Odlo, Puma, Under Armour for Tennis and Padel

Sportswear

• Nike
• Icebreaker
• Salomon
• Gore
• The North Face

Jackets

• The North Face

Footwear

• Asics & Wilson – Tennis and Padel
• Nike – casual shoes, football
• Xpand laces
• Salomon – hiking shoes
• Timberland – winter boots
• Lacoste

Socks

• Smartwool
• Icebreaker
• Falke
• Vitalsox
• Vincere for Beach Tennis

Cosmetics

Using the right products around the house and for personal hygiene and care is very important. So you can say that every product I own has been carefully selected to make sure there are no harmful chemicals present and that it does what it says. I’ve honed this process over many years, so I wanted to document my process in a few lines here.

I use the following apps and websites for research into ingredients:

• INCI Decoder – tells you what ingredients do in layman form
• EWG Skin Deep – ingredient and product research
• Skin Carisma
• Skin Safe

These are some of my favorite brands:

• Weleda
• L’Occitane
• La Roche Posay
• ISDIN
• Sebamed
• Satin Naturel
• Procoal
• Lush
• Golden Beards – beard care
• Mr Natty
• Suavecito
  Hanz de Fuko
• Cellar Door
• L’Occitaine – most daily care products

This PDF is worth a look at for understanding the basics on product safety and how to pick better products.

Essential Oils

I like using essential oils or blends of them in diffusers while I work. The world of aromatherapy and oils is quite an interesting one, although it can also be quite scammy in terms of claims and products.

When buying essential oils you need to make sure you’re buying the right quality, which means products that are 100% natural. If the price looks too good and it comes from suspicious vendors (looking at the Chinese ones on Amazon especially here) you should look away.

In the United States, companies like Doterra have quite a bad reputation due to their MLM-type structure and outlandish health claims, so be aware of things that are too good to be true.

In Spain, I’ve encountered a few reputable brands:

• Essenciales – only available from their online store
• Sisen – high-end brand with excellent info about each oil
• Phytofrance – very good French brand
• Pranarom – French brand found in many local shops
• Terpenic – a Spanish brand

In Barcelona a good shop for essential oils is Arke.

Electric Vehicles and Toys

• Brompton
• Other brands found on this site

Further reading

• Best Merino Wool brands
• Best outdoor brands

For several months I’ve been struggling with a general sense of unease while working in my home office. I knew that I preferred working in a place with a nice view or with some movement or people around me, but I had never been this uncomfortable in an office.

As an aside, when I talk about places with a view or with movement, some examples of idyllic locations for me would be:

• a high floor office with glass windows overlooking a busy city (E.g. New York, Bangkok etc)
• an office with a view overlooking a beach
• a comfy and plush cafeteria or hotel lobby with background noise of people chatting but no extreme loud noises

I already had all the ergonomics covered, so that wasn’t the problem. I kept trying new things until I finally figured out it was a light issue.

The Color Temperature Solution

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I found the best working light temperature for my productivity and comfort to be anywhere between 4500K and 5600K, depending on other light (e.g. window) and time of day. Light really makes a big difference in my mood, so it’s important for me to get this right in my set up.

There are three basic light colors to choose from:

Warm White

This type of light (typically around 2700K) creates a calm, cozy, inviting, and intimate mood and feel of the whole room. Lights that have a warm white color temperature are ideal to be used in living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, and certain bathrooms. It’s also the best choice for restaurant ambient lighting as well as for decorative outdoor lighting. It’s the type of light I had installed in my office, and it was the main culprit of my unease and lack of productivity. Clearly it’s not a great choice for an office.

Cool White

Cool White ranges between 3100 to 5500 Kelvin. Lights that belong in this temperature range produces a more balanced white light and can often include a slight blue tint.

Light bulbs or lamps with a cool white color temperature can create a bright and vibrant ambiance to a room. This type of light are best suited for basements, garages, and even for bathrooms – or most open areas in a contemporary home. Cool white lights also work well when used in task lighting and in work environments such as in reading areas.

It’s also my favorite light as it is neither too yellowish neither too bluish.

Daylight

That commonly called as daylight is produced by lights and lamps which range above 5500 Kelvin. Daylight temperature can produce a blue-white light that is basically what a natural daytime looks like.

Light bulbs and lamps above 5500 Kelvin can create a crisp and invigorating mood and ambiance for a room. This type of lighting is best used for zones that need ample illumination such as in garages and display areas. This kind of light is also clear, making it ideal to be used in task lighting and security lighting.

Choosing a light at 5000 Kelvin to 6000 Kelvin can replicate the midday sunlight which is a very cool light and often creates a glare.

Finding Your Favorite Color Temperature

The easiest way I found to discover what temperature works best is to use a portable LED light such as the Aputure MC light and just vary the temperature from the iOS app until I found the range that makes me feel best.

Following that, you can buy Philips Hue lights to setup an environment that is easily controllable. The BenQ e-reading desk lamp or Phive desk lamp also have fairly customizable temperatures and can be a good candidate for a desk light, as I haven’t found any decent Philips Hue models yet.

Here’s a list of newsletters that I am subscribed to. I save most of the articles I receive into Pocket and then read the best of those during any downtime I have during the day. Apart from these newsletters, I also consume a lot of content through podcasts and through RSS aggregation websites such as Euro Finance Blogs.

Spirituality / Deeper Thinking

• Sloww
• Farnam Street Brain Food
• Raptitude
• Motherfucking Monday

Investments

• Collaborative Fund
• CryptoCompare’s Crypto Roundup
• Spanish Property Insight
• Bitwise Monthly Newsletter

Health & Sport

• Healthline Nutrition

Parenthood

• Daily Dad

General Knowledge

• ThoughtCo’s What I Learnt About Today
• The Loop
• 3-2-1 Thursday
• 5 Bullet Friday

WordPress

• Post Status

If you are launching a business in Spain and don’t intend to expand beyond this country, it would be a very good idea to get the .es domain suffix as Google and other search engines give preference to such domains in geolocated searches.

That means that with all other things being equal, if a user searches from Spain, Google will give more prominence to mydomain.es than to mydomain.com.

Registering a .es domain is quite straightforward.

You can go to the government’s own website that handles registrations, however, I would not recommend it as it’s a hassle to register there and it’s not that user-friendly.

I would instead recommend any of the following registrars:

• Namecheap
• Siteground

The Registrant, Technical and Billing Contacts of an .ES domain name may either be a natural person/individual or a company. The Admin Contact must be a natural person/individual only.

While registering a .ES domain, you need to provide an identification number (DNI/NIE/passport), and if registering as a business, the VAT number.

The cost of .es domains is usually between 10 and 15 Euro depending on the registrar, and it is renewed every year.

Buy a .es domain