A century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved. Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ideas that will make your life better without much effort.
Emotional blindspots
Plant spring bulbs
Learn to relax
Always book an extra day off after a holiday
- Ignore the algorithm
- Listen to music outside your usual taste
- Mute or leave a WhatsApp group chat
- Learn a TikTok dance
- Cook something you’ve never attempted before
- Join a litter-picking group
- Don’t get a pet
- Nap
- Breathe deeply
- Buy a bike and use it
- Politely decline invitations if you don’t want to go
- If you do go, have an exit strategy
- Do that one thing you’ve been putting off
- Give compliments widely and freely
- Set up an affordable standing order to a charity
- Read a book in your bag
… we have a small favour to ask.
Please consider supporting us with a regular amount each month
- This will help us continue to deliver high-impact global reporting, always free from commercial or political influence
- Reporting like this is vital for democracy, for fairness and to demand better from the powerful
- And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read – because we believe in information equality.
Sharpen your knives
Try the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes on, 5-minute break, and repeat
- Buy a cheap blender and use it to finely chop onions
- Keep your children’s drawings and paintings in frames
- Set aside 10 minutes a day to do something you really enjoy like reading a book
Take a photo of the tag you are given when leaving your coat in a cloakroom
Set time limits for your apps
- Eat meat once a week, max.
- Join your local library and use it
- Stretch in the morning
- Sleep with your phone in a different room (and buy an alarm clock)
- Send postcards from your holidays
- Buy a plant
- Text to say thank you
- Read a poem every day
- Say hello to your neighbours
- Learn the basics of repairing your clothes
- Always bring something – wine, flowers – to a dinner/birthday party, even if they say not to
- Every so often, search your email for the word “unsubscribe” and then use it on as many as you can
- Hang your clothes up
- Make something from scratch
- Go to bed earlier – but don’t take your phone with you
