Product Recommendations

Coming up with Practical Betterments is hard — it's especially hard to think of ones that don't require buying something.

I try to keep a good balance so that this website doesn't just become a product guide — so that people can marginally improve their lives without spending any money.

However, since I do have a lot of recommendations for products, and I feel moved by greed, I've decided to share them with you.

Fellow Precision Kettle

This is one of my favourite things. It's a kettle, but it can heat water to a specific temperature. This has a three advantages…

It makes your tea and coffee taste nicer. Coffee should be brewed at 93ºC / 199ºF and depending on the tea the idea brewing temperature can be as low as 60ºC / 140ºF.
It saves energy and money. Heating water uses electricity, and so it makes sense that heating it less uses less. Exactly how much this saves will be the subject of a future Practical Betterment.
It doesn't fill your home with steam. If you live somewhere damp like a riverbank, a submarine, or the UK. Heating and not boiling the water prevents it from becoming steam and then mould and then illness.

Staple-less stapler

Staples are bad (read unsubscribe from staples to find out all the reasons why).

Instead you can bind paper together without using staples at all by using staple-less staplers. I particularly like the crimping version.

Keyhole Lubricant

Keyhole lubricant is fine graphite dust you puff into your keyholes to make them faster.

Surprisingly, keyhole lubricant is the most popular product people buy through the links on this website. I worked out I save about ~40 minutes a year by having lubricated keyholes. You can read more about this endeavour here: "lubricate your keyholes"

Rounded Corner Cutter

This rounded corner cutter allows me to save a small amount of weight when travelling. Read "cut rounded corners into your travel documents and medicine blister packs" to learn more.

Water Efficient Shower Head

The subject of a future practical betterment — once I've learned more about how exactly it works. This is one of the best purchases I've ever made. My water pressure was bad, I got one of these and now it's good — it also saves water and the energy required to heat the water.