Every Avid Readers' Must Have Everyday Carry

We love books. If you're anything like me, and you love books, you understand how hard it is to carry your books everywhere you go, whether you're just taking them to work so you can read at lunch or on a break, or if you're taking them somewhere for the weekend, most of the time in a backpack or a normal bag that people carry, your books get smashed, smushed, and I hate that. So I've kind of figured out a system and a way of doing it where my books are protected and. And I can take more than one book with me. I can take. I mean, I literally could probably take 10 books with me, but most of the time I'm probably carrying around three books, depending give or take. When you catch me. I'll say this, though, like, if you are one of those weirdos with Kindles, you could probably put, what, 40 kindles in this thing, if that. I mean, if that was your thing. But we're going to go through my everyday carry of what bag I use, what I have on me all the time. I will say that I love watching these videos on YouTube. YouTube, to see what people are carrying around. And I've learned a lot, but they always seemed a little staged. So what I've done is, this is just my bag. It is what it is. I took it from my office and set it here. That's it. So it might not be as organized, but I feel like it's a little more authentic and it'll give you some insight into what it really is versus the idealized version.

So the first thing is that this bag is actually a camera bag, believe it or not. So this is a company called Oberworth, and they make camera bags. And that'll make a lot more sense here in a minute. I'm going to go through the top part, and then I will go through the bottom. And so I have a lot of stuff you're going to see. So. So first thing is these notepads. These are cardstock, and I use them for everything. I take notes on them. Once I've written on them, if they have good information or something I want to keep, then I take a picture and then I transfer it to some sort of document is how I do it. But I love laying them out. I love brainstorming. I have a couple pens that I use for that that I really love. This has a pocket on the inside so I don't have to have a secondary sleeve for my laptop. Sometimes I will put my laptop and my iPad in there. Right now, I just have my laptop, but the sleeve is built in, as you can see, which is really cool. Then I have my headphones, which are the AirPod Pros. I always carry coffee with me because you can't trust that there's gonna be good coffee anywhere. So I have these Canyon Coffee instant six packs, which save me all of the time. I have these little metal pill holders that I use for my supplements that I take every day. I have about seven of these. So when I travel, I can have a week's worth. The only reason somebody would read a book on a Kindle is because they had terrible parenting. Some sort of childhood trauma, clearly issues. I have sunglasses that I have in there. Most of the time I'm using these sunglasses when I'm not in my own vehicle. If I'm in somebody else's car or I'm out of town and I'm in a rental car. But these are Gucci's. I don't know. They're probably like four years old, back when Gucci was relevant. Then I have this holder for my reading glasses. I usually have two pair of reading glasses with me at all times, but I like how this protects them. I have had the situation where I throw them in my bag and they get scratched, and that's all I have. So, like, for, you know, a week out of town, I'm looking through scratched glasses. These are. The company is called Caddis. Those are the reading glasses I use. I'm usually 2x.

So, you know, therapy probably works for people. I guess if you have a Kindle, call a therapist, get a recommendation.

Cigar, humidor. Have to have that.

So this is a twisty.

You can kind of see.

I love to smoke a cigar with a cup of coffee while I'm reading a book. Then I have this packing cube here that I use for my cords and wires and chargers. This is Rick Owens packing cube. I'm not sure if you can buy this, but they gave it to me at Rick Owens when I got the Rimowa limited edition Rick Owens roller carry on suitcase. It's pretty cool. You can see kind of how I do this. So one. One thing that, that I love is a hack is using old lens covers for cameras, like camera lens covers. This is a Leica one for my cords, and I have my charging cords in here. And then I also have a set of AirPods. And sometimes when I'm on a zoom, depending on the environment, those work better than, you know, just regular charger, extra batteries for my camera. And then I have this little charging block. I'M not a big carry around a brick guy. In fact, I rarely ever if at all use this. But I do like it. But most of the time I'm lending it to somebody whose phone is dying and they need it. I usually don't go through a full charge on my phone in a day, but it's nice to have in case of an emergency. I have a little dongle in there too. The Kindle was probably invented by the CIA. Like if I was the CIA, I would want people to have Kindles because I could go in there and change history. Then I have a pen. So this is a Mont Blanc pen with a felt tip. I know this looks like Paul Smith, but it's actually not. It's the Beatles edition. I've had it for quite a while. I love the weight and the feel of it. And then there I just have a notepad that I will keep notes in when I'm in meetings or go to different events. Here's the fun part and the real hack of this is this bottom part here is meant for cameras. And I do have a camera in here, but more importantly, my books. So I have my Leica Q43 in here right now, which I love that camera. Then.

Second hack for you with these old Leica lens covers that are hard is this is where I keep my pens and highlighters. So you can see I always have one of these silver Sharpies. Invariably I end up in an event where I'm signing my I Am Leader book in the first couple of pages and last couple of pages in that book are black. So you need a silver pen to sign it. So I always have one just in case. And then these highlighters. And I love these highlighters. They're zebra mildliners. I like the color, I like the way they feel, I like how they last. And then the next thing is this little toilet paper bag. I'm not sure what it would be used for normally, but I use it for my tabs and stickers when I'm reading a book. So I love to tab the pages that have stuff on them that I think is important. I don't shove these into here with the highlighters because they get all bent up and they're kind of fragile schedule. So I have a separate one. And then look at this. I have 1, 2, 3, 4 books in here right now. These books are covered. They're never going to get damaged. It's the best. The thing about a Kindle is at some point somebody could go in there and change the words and you would never know with real books. With these books here in the library. Nobody's coming in here and changing the story or the words without meeting a bunch of resistance. Like, it's not going to happen. It's set in stone. Kindles aren't set in stone. Kindles can be manipulated. So let's take this book here, the Disavowed Self, and let me show you how cool these highlighters are. Okay, how about this? In dealing with self alienated individual, an effective psychotherapy seeks to establish.