How often have you found yourself with an overflowing laundry basket or a sink full of dishes? What about trying to become the best version of yourself only to cave when you’re tired? in today’s post, I thought I’d share some simple daily habits that you do to make your life easier.
Word of caution, these habits are not groundbreaking – but if practised, they will cause positive and remarkable changes in your life. In my experience, they have helped me to be more productive, stay focused on my goals, decrease decision fatigue, eliminate distractions and most importantly, have kept me sane.
Integrated and tested by yours truly. I hope they help you too.
1. Wake up early
It’s the oldest one in the book. The trick here is to realise that nobody is asking you to wake up at obnoxious o’clock. Instead, try setting your alarm for something a bit more reasonable – say 15-30minutes earlier. Once that has become , then try 45 minutes or even an hour earlier.
Personally, I feel so much more productive and put together because it gives me the time and space to organise myself, thoughts and things before “life” starts. Plus, this little habit has made my life easier because I’ve used the extra time to knock things off my to-do list.
2. Step on the scale
You know that saying, how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? Well, the same applies here. Use a scale for what it is: another data point on your health journey towards your goals.
If you find that you’re becoming obsessive over the scale weight (this is for another post later), then use something else as your gauge – maybe instead notice the way your dress or jeans fit. If the scale doesn’t bother you, my best advice is to get a wifi-enabled scale that you can step on in the mornings and move on with your life whilst it syncs to your app.
Stepping on the scale daily has allowed me to monitor my weight fluctuations so that I can make adjustments before I’ve needed to reach for the “I’ve gone too far” pants.
3. Use the 2-minute rule
A great little piece of advice that I got from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done is if the action takes less than two minutes to complete, do it immediately. If you don’t, you run the risk of procrastinating and could forget it altogether. Picked up the mail? Great – now put the junk mail immediately in the bin. Otherwise, we all know it’s going to sit on the counter by the front door for ageesss.
Another way to think of this one is, “don’t put it down, put it away”. Repeat after me.
Establishing this habit or thought pattern will make your life SO much easier – especially if you have a bad memory!
4. Meal prep
You know the age-old saying, ‘fail to prepare and prepare to fail’, well it’s true on the diet front as well.
For my fellow foodies and dieters, meal prepping means that you have your food ready to go so you don’t overindulge. Hello, better portion control.
For everyone, it saves time, decreases decision fatigue, prevents hanger and stops you before you commit three kinds of murder. I mean, order delivery.
Like everything on this list, you don’t need to go balls to the wall and spend the whole day in the kitchen preparing breakfast, lunches or dinners for the entire week.
Start with something manageable – try pairing things together that are already cooked or that require minimal effort.
5. Get in the habit of a 10-minute clean
The idea is to break daunting housework or life-admin tasks down into 10-minute daily clean intervals. Soon after you’ll realise that it’s not a huge chunk of time and also helps you manage everything before the overwhelm kicks in.
Here’s how it works: Set a timer for 10 minutes, pick a space or drawer that needs cleaning or reorganising. Once the timer goes off, you stop and move on with your day. If you’re one of those all-or-nothing only-clean-when-shit-really-hits-the-fan people, then this is a great step towards helping you find some balance in maintaining a consistently clean home.
6. Move your body
Whether it’s a workout or a walk, stretch or a wiggle, just move. It doesn’t have to be anything intense. Start with something small and manageable, 15-30 minutes is a good place to start. The point is to get the blood flowing and the NEAT activity levels up.
To help pass the time, pair this simple habit with listening to an audiobook or podcast, pump up the jams or call a loved one. Having a daily goal of 8-10K steps has helped me to maintain an ideal weight, plus usually gets me out of the house for some fresh air.
7. Check your phone after you’ve done your morning routine
Whether you realise it or not, checking the phone first thing in the morning before you’ve even gotten out of bed, means that you are opening yourself up to being sucked into social media and the moods and demands of the outside world.
One simple notification, text, or email and your entire mood or plan for the day could be thrown off. Elon tweeted sending the crypto world in a frenzy? Fack. Your boss sent that email asking you to do something with a tight deadline? Cue the stress. Forgot to pay a bill or reply back to a message? Ugh. Did you find out that so-and-so XYZ? Double ugh.
We’ve all been there and truth be told, it will be there after you’ve done what you needed to do in the morning. By developing this habit, you are allowing yourself to take back some of your power; to set the pace and tone for the day before all the distractions, notifications and emails.
Leave a comment below and let me know what are some of your habits have made life easier!
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