1. Treadmills that pair with my Apple Watch
One of my favorite features on my Apple Watch is the exercise app. I enjoy being able to track my progress, and when I run, I love being able to have accurate splits to review.
When I first got a YMCA membership, I discovered some treadmills had the option to sync my watch with the treadmill and others did not. The ones that did not track would be terribly off-sync with the treadmill.
This drove me crazy. Whenever I stopped my run, the treadmill and my watch would be half a mile apart from each other. Instead of tracking a nine-minute mile, my watch would count it as a ten-minute mile.
Thankfully, since moving, each treadmill is equipped with the ability to sync with my watch, which means I no longer have to suffer the minor inconvenience of having my tracked run be off from my actual run by 2640 feet.
2. My Owala
There has always been something wrong with the water bottles I’ve owned. Either the lid is too hard to clean, the lid doesn’t close properly, or it’s simply too small.
Until I came across my Owala.
My girlfriend had mentioned it to me weeks before I actually saw what they looked like and how they function, but I discouraged her from buying one.
Once I saw the straw/spout combo, however, I was sold.
With a bottle brush and a straw cleaner, the opening is wide enough that both the cap and the interior are easy to clean, and the removable seal insert helps avoid the easy-to-miss spots that get gross.
3. Noise-canceling earbuds
Sometimes I don’t even listen to anything. If I don’t want to be bothered or if I don’t want to hear the sounds of the outside world, I just use my AirPods Pro.
Having the noise cancellation feature also makes sure that I don’t need to blast my music or podcasts when I’m out or on a run.
4. Grammarly
My job title is “Content Writer,” but I don’t think I’d survive without Grammarly. Whether it’s writing this, a blog post for a baseball blog, or my full-time job, I’m always double-checking things on Grammarly.
Additional shoutout to The Hemingway App, which helps me identify the many, many passive sentences I write.
5. These white bowls
There’s something about these bowls that makes them superior to any other bowl I’ve had. They’re heavy, they have plenty of volume, and they’re easy to clean (unless you’re one of my former housemates, who dropped and broke one while washing it).
Since I was gifted two of them, I’ve moved five times with them, added another four more (and a replacement for the one that broke), and been especially protective when it comes to their transportation.
6. Floss picks
Embarrassingly, I did not regularly floss until the beginning of this decade. For some reason, one evening, I flossed, was disgusted I hadn’t been flossing more regularly, and haven’t stopped since then.
I never liked traditional floss. I always had the irrational fear I might cut off circulation to one of my fingers, and I never felt like I flossed adequately enough to begin with.
But floss picks have converted me. I sometimes use the pick part going around each tooth for fifteen minutes as I write or watch YouTube.
Mitchell Barbee graduated from Calvin University with a B.A. in writing in 2021. Originally from Boone, North Carolina, he is currently residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enjoys hanging out with the few friends who stayed, wearing grey hoodies, and hoping that he doesn’t get sucked into the nightly wormhole of watching a baseball game.
