15 Little Habits To Have a Better Day

You know, Alexir, the simplest habits are the most effective. They're preached over and over again for a reason. It's because those habits help you live a peaceful, productive, and satisfying life. Eat your greens and your protein, floss daily, put on sunscreen, and drink lots of water. Exercise, get enough sleep, take cold showers, and limit your screen time.

Now, if you haven't heard of them before or you're not doing them but expecting results, let that be a moment for you to remember. If you want a better day, those are the habits you have to start with. Once you've started with them, they're only a part of your daily routine. You can keep on building from here. That's what these 15 habits are about; these are the next-level little habits that will take your days from 10 to 12. Let's go!

Welcome to Ax number one: visualize your day as if it's the movie. Your mind is like a naive, excited toddler. It'll run wild if you allow it to, and it'll believe anything you show it. It'll act upon what it sees, and you can sit back and watch the magic. Every evening before you fall asleep, spend one minute visualizing your next day – from waking up and following your morning routine to the tasks you have to do at work, to your commute home and your evening routine.

You can zone in on things that need more focus, but make sure you're always in control and not drifting off into a daydream. Your mind can't really tell the difference between reality and your imagination, so visualization is like a rehearsal for what you're going to do. It'll work you through perfecting everything you've done, everything you've thought about. It'll celebrate your successes as if they've already happened, which gives you confidence and can help you to reduce stress and anxiety. It can improve your mood, help you to remember important information, and boost your problem-solving skills. You're the director of this movie; you control this narrative. Lights, camera, action, and visualize!

Number two: plan what you listen to. Chores are boring, but they do have to be done. Getting up in the morning is hard, but you have to do it. How can you make these things easier and actually fun? Our brains love listening to stories, whether those stories come from songs or shows. You're incredibly effective at doing things while listening to stories, without feeling like you're doing too much – sort of like an active trance. It's a win-win combination.

The problem is when we wake up in the morning, when we have to clean and organize our homes, or just get things done. The thought of doing that, coupled with the decision fatigue of what to listen to, can be just too much. So we freeze; we become distracted as we scroll for something that we'll enjoy. When you've got a moment at the weekend or the night before, cue up your favorite songs or podcasts so they're ready for you to play the next day. Remove the mountain of a simple decision during a time when you've got the time. It's so easy for us to forget the things that we like when we're under pressure, so note down those things when you're not under pressure and then pull them out and press play when you've got things to do, and you need that trance.

Number three: walk outside; it gives us something different. Exercise is going to elevate your life always, no matter what. Any kind of workout, no matter how small or short, makes a huge difference to your mental and physical health. But there's a type of exercise so intrinsic to ancient human nature that it allows us to move across the world further and more effectively than any other species. Like most forms of exercise, walking releases endorphins, the feel-good hormone. It helps with weight loss, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and so much more.

But it offers something more than other types of exercise. Our ancestors moved out of Africa to the Eurasian landmass and the Americas, all on foot. It took thousands of years, but we walked with families, with tribes, and with friends. We're not just walkers; we're social walkers. We can walk and walk and walk all day, all night if we need to. When we walk, the parts of our brains that support decision-making, goal-seeking, and memory and planning are all activated. It's not just the physical muscle groups; walking turns on your mental muscles too. If you're struggling with a question or a decision, walk until you find the answer.

Number four: put your alarm on vibrate. Waking up to a screeching alarm immediately sets your fight or flight response on fire. You go from a calm, deep sleep to fighting for your survival. Starting your day this way is insanely stressful. You need to wake up during a time when you're not in a deep sleep, and you need a sound that's going to wake you but not flip your fight or flight upside down.

There are apps out there that allow you to set an alarm based on the time you're going to sleep. There's a half-hour window over which it'll wake you up to make sure you're not being kicked when you're in the deepest trenches of sleep. You can choose softer sounds so waking up isn't so abrupt or even better — choose a vibrating alarm. The combination of sound and movement from a vibrating alarm is a softer, more effective way of waking you up. It might not be strong enough to wake up the deepest of sleepers, but it's definitely worth a try.

Number five: find an aha moment. Aha happens when we surprise ourselves with what we're capable of. It motivates us to do more. It's rewarding and satisfying and helps us to remember things better. These moments don't come from understanding something immediately. No, they come from struggling with a problem first. To find an aha moment, you have to find things that you don't understand. Find a problem that frustrates you; find a riddle, a crossword, or a complicated theory or article.

Look for small problems every day that you don't get immediately. Think of possible solutions. Walk away from the issue; talk to someone about it or look up expert talks to find out what they're saying about it. That's exactly the goal we have with our Alux app. We want to provide you with as many aha moments as possible to level your life up. If you haven't already, go to alux.com/slapp to start your free trial. Subscribers get daily lessons and access to collections of curated knowledge put together by industry experts. Your aha moments will come when you least expect it. It might not even be the same day, but when it comes, you'll get that rush of satisfaction knowing that your brain has built some new problem-solving blocks.

Number six: flip and strain the knowledge you gather. Take the topics you gravitate toward, throw them out, and learn about their total opposites. Flip them completely. Then put them in a mental strainer so you only keep the most valuable parts and put the rest aside. We're flooded with information, and it seems impossible to totally turn away from it, right? So we have to find a middle ground, a compromise.

TikTok has a For You page where it shows you videos based on the things that you've watched before. Your For You page becomes like your own personal library, locking you in an echo chamber and chaining you to the topics you already know and enjoy. Your own personal library? Sure, it sounds good, but it makes it pretty hard for you to leave. You can't stop watching. You hear the same thing said in different ways, and you shut the door to different perspectives.

Filtering the knowledge thrown at you every day is about stepping away from the topics you gravitate toward normally. Learning outside of your comfort zone allows you to be part of different conversations. It forces you to face things you thought were boring because you didn't understand them, and it allows you to refine your taste.

You begin to understand why you like some topics and hate others. And importantly, once you've had enough, you automatically shut off. You don't keep going because it strokes the parts of your brain that subtly satisfy you for a millisecond with each scroll.

Number seven: close your eyes. You know when you're looking at road signs? To see better, you turn the music down and scrunch your eyes. We laugh about this, saying it helps us to see better, and it actually does. Our brains subconsciously do this when we need to make a quick decision with limited information. We automatically turn off the senses that take the most energy so we can throw all of the resources into the decision and action. Your eyes use up to 80% of your brain's energy per second; your hearing uses 10%, and the other 10% is for everything else.

Closing your eyes is the simplest, quickest productivity hack. Our eyes take in 10 million pieces of information per second and transfer all of that into our brains constantly, all the time, except for when they're closed. The moment you close your eyes, even slightly, you free up energy for problem-solving, memory retention, and creativity. We're widely overstimulated with all of our screens, and our eyes use far more energy than they were ever intended for.

When you're reading or watching something, your eyes pick up every detail and send it back to your brain to be analyzed. When you're watching leaves blowing in the breeze or a duck floating by on the water or nothing at all, there's less information to process. You conserve energy, so spend some time every now and then during your day closing your eyes – 20 seconds, 2 minutes, whatever you can manage without falling asleep at your desk.

Number eight: procrastinate your pointless purchases. We're so good at procrastinating, yet when it comes to spending, ending money, and buying things, putting it off until tomorrow doesn't even cross our mind half the time. But let's redirect that procrastination energy, shall we? Because sure, we want that instant gratification, but we can override that impulse with one that is just as strong, and maybe even stronger.

When you're in the mood to buy something, say to yourself, "I'll do it tomorrow," and keep saying that until you forget about it because you didn't really need it in the first place. The procrastination tool is already such a strong part of our psyche, and unfortunately, we tend to use it on the wrong things. That tool will be powerful no matter where you direct it, so why not direct it toward the things that will actually benefit you? Craving an unhealthy snack? Say, "I'll get it tomorrow." Feeling stressed, browsing online, and seeing crazy expensive things that will make you feel so much better? Say, "I'll get it tomorrow." Put it on your wish list to make yourself believe that you actually will, and every time you come back to it, you know the drill: leave it for tomorrow.

Number nine: obsess over a hobby. We are prone to obsession; we zone in on things and spend ages unpacking them from all angles. When you obsess over your thoughts, your actions, the things you've said to people, and the things that people have said to you, this ability to obsess seems like a major mental flaw, but it's not; it's a superpower. But unfortunately, we're pretty bored in the default place this superpower is directed at, which is toward things we can't control.

But what if we used it to dive into something rewarding, like a hobby? Hobbies can be anything! Okay, exploring old abandoned buildings, learning about different types of coffee and trying them out, TV shows, new artists, succulents, rewatching old cartoons, and saving money. Some obsessions you'll stick with, and some you'll drop quickly. Some will just taper out over time; it's natural to get excited about something for a while, dive into it completely, and then ghost it sometimes. Don't feel bad; that's pretty normal. Find another obsession. We're not meant to be thinking this much all the time, so direct that constant rumination toward things that will make you excited instead of feeling anxious.

Number ten: take one small step with one daily habit. Focus on incremental progression. Our days are a lot more fun when we step further than we did yesterday. For things you do every day, do slightly more of it the next day. But try to avoid doing this with the goal of being more productive, because that tends to add pressure of wanting to do it all today. The goal is to see how far you can go just for fun. You're a game character leveling up a little bit every day. So set your alarm a minute earlier each day, run a few hundred meters further every day, read an extra page, spend an extra minute on your side hustle.

You can choose to focus on one thing every day or three things, but don't try to progress with all of your routines at once; it'll just overwhelm you. Once you've reached a point where you laugh about it and go, "Okay, okay, I actually don't have time for this anymore," or "That's crazy, I can't believe I did that," check your progress. Where did you start? Where are you now?

While it might seem slow and pointless, we teach ourselves that small steps lead to major changes over time. It's a lesson that seeps into other aspects of our lives without us having to think very much about it.

Number eleven: do the first thing that comes to mind every day at least once. Try doing the first thing that comes to mind, but wait! Okay, we have to add a little disclaimer to this one because there are some instances where we're all very good at doing the first thing that comes to mind, and those are not the moments we're talking about here. According to research, we're responding to someone when you're upset or coping with boredom or stress by shopping, eating, or doom scrolling — some of the usual first things that come to mind when we have a strong or even subtle urge.

Okay, so cross those four things out. Pay attention to your impulsive thoughts and quickly decide how much they'll benefit you versus their potential consequences. So, imagine a thermometer — at each end, there's a consequence and a benefit. One side's red, that's the consequence, and the benefit is green. So if the consequence of the first thought is in the red, discard it. If the benefit is in the green, do it. Something like driving home, seeing a beautiful sunset, and thinking, "I should go for a walk on the beach," that's a benefit in the green, so do it. Complimenting a stranger is a benefit, so don't hold back from it.

We often don't have a lot of trust in our first thoughts that come to mind, but sometimes they can be valuable and interesting. We've become so accustomed to filtering impulsive thoughts that we can miss exciting moments, so sometimes do or say the first thing if it's beneficial. Don't overthink it, okay?

Number twelve: if it takes less than two minutes, do it now. David Allen speaks about this productivity hack in his book "Getting Things Done," and it's a great one to adopt. Getting into the habit of looking at a task and doing it immediately if it takes less than two minutes is key. It's the small tasks that take up most of our clutter in our minds because we keep putting them off. You don't need to delay them; you can do them right now. Doing a two-minute task gives you some momentum and frees up mental space so you can focus on more complicated things. It's a great rule for small tasks, but make sure you don't allow these ones to interrupt your bigger missions.

Number thirteen: one item, one sheet. This is another hack from David Allen, and although it's a contentious one, it's worth trying out to see if it works for you. When we write to-do lists, we usually add multiple tasks to one list, and this can be a problem because when we come back to the list, we automatically look at everything we've written, and we get distracted by things that are lower priority. By adding one thing to one sheet, you focus solely on that task. You can't move on until you've made the next action decision. It helps to make decisions faster and then act completely on that decision before moving on.

The next time you're writing your to-do list the evening before, try cutting the paper into five pieces. Choose only the most important tasks and add each of them to an individual piece.

Number fourteen: voice the other side of your thoughts. You know those quiet moments when you're falling asleep, taking a shower, or just have extra time for your thoughts to creep up in your mind? Well, get into the habit of flipping the voice of those thoughts. Our thoughts run wild, but they often take only one road. By playing devil's advocate to your thoughts and saying this other perspective out loud, you slow down racing thoughts that seem uncontrollable and give your mind a different way to solve the problem.

It doesn't have to be something that you deep dive into; it can be a quick pushback. If you were speaking to a friend, where would they insert that "but"? To play the devil's advocate, play the role yourself to further flesh out your ideas and plans before committing.

And number fifteen: follow the flow of your space. Now, this one isn't exactly a habit; it's a strategy you can use to make doing your healthy habits easier. This habit needs a little bit of work beforehand. Alright, so whatever space you live in, whether it's a room, an apartment, or a house, there's an easy way to move through your space so you don't have to think about what to do next. To make your life and daily habits easier, you have to build a space that follows your ideal movements.

So if you function better by getting out of bed and getting dressed immediately, then put your clothes right by your bed. If you do better by heading straight to the bathroom and showering or brushing your teeth, then clear the space from your bed to the bathroom so you can move freely. Each habit should have a place in your home, and that place should easily move to the next place where you do your next task. It's like a dance that you don't even have to think about. Your muscle memory tells you what you have to do next, and you reduce decision fatigue, especially in the morning.

You don't want to wake up like Pac-Man, wanting to go one way and then finding a wall in your way and having to backtrack and think about where to go next. Each movement should be easy without much thought, and can only happen when you've created an area for each habit that naturally moves on to the next area and habit.

And there you have it, Alexir. 15 little habits that will make your day brighter, better, and easier. Use them to build on top of what you already have or start them from scratch. We'll see you back here next time, Alexir. Until then, take care!