Choosing holiday gifts that are mindful, meaningful, and joyful is a challenge every year- and by a challenge, I mean a “good burden.” Giving good advice about joyful gift-giving is especially challenging when you have a strong message of avoiding the perils of materialism and embracing the joy of missing out.

Yes, many gifts are “things,” but giving someone such a gift doesn’t mean that you’re celebrating the mere acquisition of goods and passing that materialistic motive on to your friend.

A joyful gift is an expression of love, chosen mindfully for the specific person to whom it’s given, with the goal of enhancing their success or well-being by giving it to them.

Joyful gift giving is serious business. It calls upon us to know the person well, to make the effort to consider what serves them uniquely. Will your gift help someone reach a goal- or inspire them to set one? Will it address a challenge they’ve told you about, directly or indirectly? Will it give them an ongoing source of joy- a way to refer back to a happy memory, or engage a new pastime that they’ll love?

The selection of items I’ve gathered for this year’s recommendations are all ones that meet the core values of The JOMO Method: they’re joyful, meant to be used mindfully, and have something to offer just about anyone looking for ways to enhance their success and well-being and give themselves the tools to do so.

This year, those of us giving gifts in North America are also facing the challenges of an unprecedented supply chain issue. I’ve made sure that all the things I recommend here are actually available.

The Light Phone II
Pre-order for late November

I’ve followed the creation and growth of the Light Phone from the beginning- founder Joe Hollier was one of the very first guests on the JOMO(cast).

It’s a beautiful, minimalist phone stripped of all the distracting, life-taking "features" of conventional smartphones. Light Phones call and text, and that's it- apart from a small handful of proprietary features that reflect the sort of basic utility most people expect from their phone, like Bluetooth connection to audio devices and playing music.

To further entice folks who were excited by the "no distractions" simplicity of the light phone but didn't want to give up Google Maps (*raises hand* 🙋‍♀️) they've launched their Directions tool.

I simply cannot recommend these beautiful, mindful devices enough. Taking the leap to a Light Phone is a tremendous cutting-away of portable distractions that can wait until you're at your desk.

4K Weeks Poster - Life's too short to live on autopilot 💭⁠

The average (optimistic) life span is about 4576 weeks. How many do you have left? When it comes to staying focussed and mindful, being aware of our own mortality can be a really GOOD thing!⁠

In medieval times, the theory and practice of reflecting on the transient nature of earthly life were known as "memento mori": a Latin phrase translating to "remember that you must die". ... By creating a dialogue investigating the ephemeral nature of life, the awareness of impermanence heightens appreciation of the present.⁠

This is exactly the purpose of the 4K Weeks Poster: to remind you that life is a precious and limited resource that should be filled with meaning and joy- and otherwise tragically wasted.⁠

This poster is a lovely example of the power of analog: it’s made to be visible, occupies the room you put it in, is tangible and (optionally) beautifully framed in hardwood, and fulfills a single, vital function: to allow you to track how much of your life has been spent, and about how much more you have left to do the things that matter to you. Each week, fill in one of the remaining boxes: that’s it.

The Best Books to Beat Binge-Watching

Books, books, and more books! Here are my top gift-giving picks for 2021. I’m especially a big fan of Alain de Bottom’s The School of Life.

Signed Books for the Holidays

I will be doing personalized notes again for the holidays.

Here's our remote way to do it: You get the book from your local indie bookstore, or any of these online places. Then fill out this form, and I will send a signed sticker made out to the person of your choice that you can place right where I would sign in person. Easy breezy.

Don’t forget! I’d love to join your book club for a virtual visit. Book a FREE 15-minute slot for the new year.

Freedom App

Freedom is one of the standout members of a growing class of “productivity” apps, providing ways to restrict access to distracting, time-wasting apps or web browsing (or access to the Internet in general!) for scheduled periods of productivity.

Freedom rises to the head of the pack, however, with its richness of features and control and its warm, friendly user interface. Among those rich features are two things I’ve come to love: Focus Sounds, an ambient music/sound effect player for productivity periods (I use the Lux soundtrack!), and the Session tracking functions that give me long-term metrics on how frequently- and consistently- I’ve completed distraction-free productive sessions.

Pigeon Posted
pigeonposted.com

John Morse-Brown, whose JOMO(cast) interview is available here, came up with the idea of Pigeon after falling out of love with social media.

For all of the frenetic activity he and his friends were putting in, he felt wasn’t fostering any genuine sense of connection. There was something about it that left him feeling hollow and empty. So, he took the plunge and closed his social media accounts. But then a good friend of his moved from Britain to the USA. Until then, apart from trips to the pub (which were no longer possible), they’d only really communicated on Facebook, which meant John needed a new way of keeping in touch with his friend. That made him think about letters.

And that got him thinking: I’m a graphic designer with an engineering background, and I happen to love origami. I want to find a way of making letter writing fun, new, beautiful, and easy.

Pigeon is the result.

The envelope is integral to the letter, and the space to write in is not too daunting. I sometimes say it’s like Twitter, but with a pen. Once you get a correspondence going, you’ll always have your friend’s address to hand inside their latest letter. Pigeons are also the perfect size to hold a Polaroid photo, so you can slip in a selfie. And the design means each Pigeon is a small object of beauty.

If you don’t normally write letters, you’re in for an unexpected treat – the completely irrational joy of not receiving an instant reply to your message… It sounds perverse in our day and age, that having to wait can feel good. But it really does. Trust me. I’ve discovered first hand that there’s a real pleasure in knowing that, in the next day or two, a friend will receive a completely personal note from you - just from you, and that you might get a hand-written reply sometime after that. Delayed gratification is good for the soul.

The JOMO Method Course

The JOMO Method™ is a 4 module, self-paced online course that teaches you how to align your screen time with your most ambitious goals.

You’ll learn how to develop digital immunity, digitally houseclean all of your devices, and build daily, weekly and monthly digital habits to keep your tech use focused ONLY on what matters most to you.

Doors are opening soon for my signature program. Join the waitlist now and get started in time for the new year! Gift options available.

Happy gift-giving!