For the Techie

H O L I D A Y GIFTS For the Techie

Digitize your Notes

The Neo Smartpen N2 has an internal camera that captures your handwritten texts and converts them to digital documents when the pen syncs with Neo Studio app. The digital pen also has 90MB of internal storage so you can transfer your stored handwriting data at a later time.

Enjoy your space

Featuring an ear hook design, ARC Open-Ear True Wireless Earbuds have a flexible hinge for a comfortable secure fit. These open-ear earbuds do not cover the ear canal, instead they channel audio directly into your ear. This unique design allows you to maintain spatial awareness and still enjoy your audio.

What a cup for coffee

This high-tech mug from Ember is the perfect gift for coffee and tea drinkers. It keeps any beverage warm, and you can control all the settings directly through your smartphone via a mobile app. Thanks to a built-in battery, the gadget will maintain the drink’s temperature for up to 1.5 hours.

Keeping safe

The Ekster aluminum cardholder has a sleek, slim design and many smart features, making it a great tech gift for gearheads. We like its patented mechanism that can eject cards from its aluminum storage pocket just by pressing a button. The slim accessory also has an RFID-blocking layer to safeguard against identity theft.

It’s all about moon beams

The Moon Beam Sleep Aid is a drug-free device found at Uncommon Goods, which helps you fall asleep more easily through scientific research. A gently pulsing light projects on the ceiling, creating a hypnotic effect that helps quiet anxious thoughts and slow down your breathing to a sleep-inducing level.

Where you choose to put your focus is crucial to how you experience a situation. It’s about to be the holiday season and while for some Thanksgiving and Christmas can’t come soon enough, for others these holidays can be a source of stress. A lot of planning and organization is required to host and entertain and sometimes house family and friends. Then, there’s the added pressure to purchase and wrap gifts. So, if you find yourself starting to panic, you are not alone! The best way to manage this (or indeed any potentially stressful situation) is to first notice and name the feelings and then set out to create an action plan for yourself.

Creating an action plan will help you to break down the challenge into manageable chunks and allow you to prioritize. Rather than looking at everything you need to accomplish pile up into one insurmountable wall, you can tackle a small piece at a time which immediately alleviates stress and anxiety.

A good place to start is visualizing the perfect or desired outcome. Whether it’s Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas shopping or holiday travel, find a quiet place to close your eyes and immerse yourself in the images of your event playing out perfectly. What does it look like? Who is there? What are you eating and drinking? What roles are people playing? Spend as much time as you need until you have a really clear picture of what you want to achieve. Then take a deep breath and slowly come back to reality ready to begin that action plan.

The next step in creating your holiday action plan revolves a little reverse engineering. Let’s say your visualization was of a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner. We will break that dinner down into categories:

FOOD • What food did you picture? • Which stores do I need to visit to purchase what I need? • If it’s multiple stores, can I group the stores and create an optimal route to minimize travel time and make myself more efficient? • What can I buy now that won’t expire? What do I need to buy the week before? What do I need to buy the day before?

DRINKS • What can I buy in advance? • Who was drinking what in my visualization?

TABLE • Do I need to buy table decorations? • If so, where do I purchase them from? • Can I buy on-line, or do I need to go to a store? • If I need to go to a store can this be part of the planned route when I go to purchase food?

PEOPLE • Who can I ask for help? • Can I delegate different dishes to various guests? • Who can I ask to help me serve or clear dishes? • Who is most definitely not going to help, even if asked? (As much as this is annoying, managing expectations in advance can help on the day – make the task so simple or easy that they can’t say no and are able to claim that they did something!)

By mapping out the event and then working in reverse to take care of each detail, you can build a timeline with a manageable workload so your holiday planning does not become overwhelming. You can of course apply this approach to any task, but now is as good a time as any to practice so that your perfect holiday visualization plays out just as you imagined it.