There are articles telling us to change all of our life in a matter of seconds, as if it was no biggie. And it can, through simple actions. But you don’t need to do all of them all the time. Pick one. Or all 21 if you want.
Manage your money
Set a free app like Money Manager to let you know where your money is coming from and going to
- Enter what you have and then automize regular incomes and expenses
- When you’re done, enter in all of your other expenses and their categories
Organize your home
Set different spaces for different tasks (reading, working, meditating, sleeping, gaming, etc.)
Throw things away
There’s a lot of rubbish you could throw away and that creates space
- Try not to keep something you don’t need just because it could be useful
- You might get a taste for it and keep doing it, or you might want to throw it away because it’s not useful
Make your bed
It doesn’t have to “change your life right away”
Discover one new thing a month
do it the way you want. Spend 10 hours on it one Saturday or a few minutes a day for a month. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend on it, all that matters is that you want to discover something new.
Stand up every hour
This is one of the hardest habits to remember.
- Notifications don’t work and even if you remember to stand up while writing, you don’t want to break your flow. Remember, you’ve stayed sitting for hours on end for hundreds of thousands of hours
Take care of your posture
A bad posture has a lot of repercussions in the long run
- If you still have a good posture, treasure it and notice when it’s not the case
- Hang reminders around
- For example, your phone’s background picture should be a simple sentence: “Stand straight!”
Quand on a pas de tête, on a des jambes”
When we have no head, we have legs
- Remind yourself you’ve got to have legs to do what needs to be done
- Accept that what’s done is done, all you can do is go forward
Refuse once a week
Set higher limits of time for others, so there’s always so leeway for yourself
- If you accept everything, you’ll never have time for yourself, so create some leeway
- Refuse something you’re not excited about during the week to free up time
Exercise for a minute when you wake up.
30 push-ups, 30 seconds of planking, 1 minute a day
- If you prefer a full workout in the morning, go ahead and do that. Otherwise, do a few simple exercises before you head to the office.
Write three things you’re grateful for
The goal is to always be looking for the positive in each day
- When you struggle to find a positive aspect in the previous day, say “I am grateful for being alive and with a future full of possibilities.”
Spend a minute a day with yourself
No phone, no computer, no tablet, just you and your thoughts
- Do this while on the toilet if need be
- Start with a minute and increase as you go
- Talk to yourself, accept whatever your thoughts are and move on
If a task takes 2 minutes, do it right away
Set 2 minutes as the higher limit to do right away.
Ask open-ended questions
Help keep the conversation going and people love talking about themselves.
Turn off notifications
It takes about 25 minutes to regain your focus, even if you only look at a notification for a second.
Invest in experiences
How often do you spend money on objects? Compare that number to how often you invest in experiences.
- My guess is you invest more in objects than experiences, but even if you spend the same amount on both, that’s still not the best. What we remember is experiences.
Read for 15 minutes a day
It’s only a start, but it’s more than most people.
- 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last 5 years
- You can start changing your life by making small changes that will lead to big changes in the long run
Watch the news less
If you can, only watch or read the news once, around midday.
Drink more water
Try drinking water every time you want a cigarette.
Ask yourself whether what you’re doing is worth it
A lot of actions we do don’t matter, we finish them, move on, and forget about them, but think back a week later regretting how much time we wasted on it.
- If you had two months left to live, would you be laying on the couch binge-watching the Queen’s Gambit, or writing that masterpiece you’ve always wanted?
