A hundred things,
in the order they matter.
Ten domains. One hundred actions each. Every one of them short enough to start today, and drawn from a bibliography of 190+ peer-reviewed sources published in full at /research.
Inside every domain the order is the point. The heaviest interventions come first, ranked by how large and how well replicated the effect is, not by how interesting they are to read. The last lines in a domain are worth doing. The first ones are worth doing before anything else.
You are not meant to do all hundred. You are meant to find the few you are not doing. Read the domain that describes your worst week, take the highest line you are not already doing, and start there.
[ OPEN THE HUNDRED ]
All ten domains, a hundred ranked actions, and the sources behind them. Your name and one email, and it opens on this device for good.
Free, and it stays free. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
[ THE TEN DOMAINS ]
Sleep
- Sleep seven to nine hours. Nothing else in this chapter beats getting enough.
- Pick a wake time and hold it seven days a week, including Saturday.
- Get outside within an hour of waking. Ten minutes, no sunglasses.
- Stop caffeine eight hours before bed, not two.
- Last alcohol three hours before bed. It sedates, it does not deepen sleep.
- Get snoring assessed if you wake unrefreshed after eight hours.
- Move the phone charger out of the bedroom tonight.
- Blackout the room. Cover every standby light.
- Dim the house lights an hour before bed. Lamps, not ceilings.
- Keep the bedroom at 18–19°C. Cool rooms fall asleep faster.
Movement
- Move most days, even a little. Going from nothing to something is the biggest step here.
- Get 150 minutes of moderate movement a week, in whatever shape fits.
- Add one session a week where talking is hard. That is where VO2 max moves.
- Lift something heavy twice a week.
- Walk after every meal you can. Ten minutes beats a supplement.
- Train legs even in weeks you would rather not. Falls decide the last decade.
- Learn to hinge, squat, push, pull and carry. That is the whole gym.
- Start at the level you can hold on your worst week, not your best.
- Book training in the calendar like a meeting, with a location.
- Stand up every 45 minutes. Sitting is not the enemy. Stillness is.
Food
- Eat 30 grams of fibre a day. Most people manage half.
- Put protein in every meal. Start with the first one.
- Keep alcohol occasional. Count one honest week before you decide anything.
- Buy the single-ingredient version when there is one.
- Eat the vegetables first when you are eating out.
- Do not drink your calories unless you meant to.
- Cook the same four dinners on repeat. Novelty is not a nutrient.
- Shop the list, not the aisle. Decide at home, once.
- Stop at comfortably satisfied. Okinawa calls it hara hachi bu.
- Judge a diet by month twelve, never by week two.
Nervous system
- Learn the physiological sigh. Two inhales through the nose, one long exhale.
- Make the exhale longer than the inhale whenever you need to settle.
- Put both feet on the floor before a hard conversation.
- Name the feeling in one word. Labelling lowers the volume.
- Take the meeting outside when it does not need a screen.
- Get cold water on your face when the spiral starts.
- Notice the jaw. Unclench it. Then the shoulders.
- Build a five-minute gap between meetings and defend it.
- Stop checking the phone in the first thirty minutes of the day.
- Do one thing daily with no second screen.
Attention
- Put the phone in another room for the first block of work.
- Turn off every notification that is not a person you would answer at 2am.
- Batch messages into two windows a day and say so in your signature.
- Work in 90-minute blocks. Protect the first one.
- Close the tabs. Open ones are open loops.
- Decide the first task the night before so morning has no decision in it.
- Do the deep work before the inbox, always.
- Keep one browser profile with no logins for real work.
- Write the thing before you read about the thing.
- Put a physical note on the desk with the one outcome for today.
Habits
- Change the environment before you change the intention.
- Make the good thing visible and the bad thing two steps away.
- Start smaller than feels serious. Two minutes counts.
- Attach the new habit to one that already happens without you.
- Do it at the same time, in the same place, until it stops needing a decision.
- Never miss twice. One miss is noise, two is a new default.
- Put the gym clothes out the night before.
- Delete the app rather than promising to use it less.
- Keep a visible streak somewhere you already look.
- Reward the showing up, not the outcome.
Purpose
- Write the reason you got up today. One sentence, no audience.
- Separate what you are good at from what you are for.
- Notice the work you lose time inside. Do more of it on purpose.
- Ask who is worse off if you stop. Then ask if that is enough.
- Keep one pursuit that will never make money.
- Put your name on something small this month.
- Teach one thing you know to one person who needs it.
- Choose problems you would still find interesting in ten years.
- Notice which wins felt hollow. That data is expensive to ignore.
- Book the thing you keep postponing until you are less busy.
People
- Keep people close enough that someone would notice if you disappeared.
- Keep one standing weekly thing with people you like.
- Put the friendship in the calendar. Good intentions do not schedule themselves.
- Eat one meal a week with someone, phones away.
- Call rather than text when the news matters.
- Reach out to the person you keep meaning to reach out to.
- Repair fast. The gap does the damage, not the argument.
- Ask a second question. Most conversations stop at the first.
- Say the appreciation out loud on the day you think it.
- Be the one who organises. Nobody else is going to.
Recovery
- Take a full day off every week. The same day, every week.
- Book the holiday before the year fills up.
- Leave the laptop at home for at least one trip a year.
- Take the break before you need it, not after.
- Put an end time on the workday and let it be real.
- Change clothes when work ends if you work at home.
- Do one thing daily that produces nothing.
- Spend time outside every day, in whatever weather.
- Read fiction. It uses a different part of you.
- Keep a hobby you are visibly bad at.
Decades
- Stop smoking. Nothing else in this book competes with it.
- Know your blood pressure and treat it. Silent, common, and the largest number you can move.
- Do the screenings for your age. All of them, on time.
- Keep people close. Isolation behaves like a physical risk factor, not a mood.
- Stay useful to somebody. Retiring from work and retiring from purpose are different things.
- Keep learning something hard every year. The brain wants difficulty, not information.
- Learn to get up off the floor without using your hands, and keep it.
- Keep alcohol occasional and know your real weekly number.
- Write the will and the power of attorney. Once, then forget it.
- Ask what your eighty-year-old self would thank you for, then do one of those things this month.
[ WHEN A LIST STOPS BEING ENOUGH ]
A list tells you what to do. It does not do it with you, and it does not know what day you are on. If you want the version that runs for ninety days, measures the same ten domains on day one and day ninety, and sends one small move every morning, that is what the programs are.
Each is one payment, three months, coach included. Take the audit first: it tells you which one is yours. Nothing on this page is required before it.
[ A FREE EXTRA, IF YOU WANT A NUMBER ]
Read all of it. Then, if you want to know which of these you are actually worst at, the Life Audit scores ten domains of your life in three minutes. Free, no login. A number out of 100, a score for each domain, and the one pattern underneath them.
It also tells you where to start reading, and it gives you something this book cannot: a number to beat. Take it again in ninety days and you have two numbers instead of an impression.
Take the life audit →[ WHAT COMES NEXT ]
This page is free and it stays free. Send it to whoever needs it.
If you want the thinking behind the ranking, that is what the writing is. The letter is called The Human Half.
One letter a week. Unsubscribe any time.
[ WHERE THIS COMES FROM ]
Every mechanism above traces to the public bibliography at /research — 190+ peer-reviewed sources, published in full, no paywall. Nothing here is a supplement recommendation and nothing here replaces your doctor.