Don’t get me wrong; work ethic still matters a lot, and always will. But people are already working as hard as they can. And hence, the future calls for efficiency. And efficiency is simply to do less yet get disproportionate benefits. When we think about it, ‘efficiency’ is a mindset. Some people always do stuff in a conventional way. On the other hand, some people will always be looking for ways to be efficient. I’m the former, trying to be the latter. Hence, efficiency is a skill you need to practice. You won’t just wake up one day and become efficient. No. You need to ask yourself again and again — “How can I be more efficient?” before it manifests in your life. RELATED: Woman Confronts Friend’s Husband After Seeing Him At Hospital With A Pregnant Woman These are the kinds of questions we address when we think about efficiency:
How can we lose fat with exercises that take up the least of our time?How can we boost our productivity with the simplest of habits?How can we become the smartest version of ourselves even if we don’t have hours and hours to read?How can we learn to control our emotions with simple daily rituals?
In this article, I want to share 20 micro habits that I hope will provide the answers to these questions. We’ll be looking at the easiest habits that can boost your physical health, mental health, productivity, and creativity. Don’t try to adopt all 20 of them together. Focus on a few, say 4, and when those are ingrained in your life, come back to try out some more. Excited? Let’s dive in!
Here are 20 unsexy micro-habits that save me 30+ hours each week:
Our circadian rhythm is mostly determined by two hormones — melatonin and cortisol. To fall asleep quickly at night, our cortisol levels should be low and melatonin levels, high. When you don’t get sunlight in the morning, your cortisol levels might not peak enough earlier in the day, and hence stay elevated even when it’s bedtime. Hence, by getting sunlight first thing in the morning, you make sure that your cortisol levels have peaked as soon as possible and by nighttime, they’ll have shrunken down to low levels enabling you to sleep better. I discovered a lot of Stoicism after becoming a writer. When I ask my friends about it, to my surprise, many people don’t know in-depth about stoicism. Shame, because Stoicism is literally one of the best philosophies out there and still holds so much value in our modern world. It has the ability to make life so much easier. However, the texts of Stoicism are hard to break down for everyone. Hence, I believe that everyone should buy a physical copy of the book The Daily Stoic, where the modern-day stoic Ryan Holiday has made Stoicism digestible in the form of 366 less-than-1-minute-to-read lessons, each designated for one day of the year. And even though many of us might know that vaguely, Ben suggests that we must have a formal sentence written down that conveys our purpose and that we must read it every day. Ben’s is “to empower people to live more adventurous, joyful and fulling lives.” What’s yours? Write it down and read it every morning. It will motivate you to work towards your goals and live a more fulfilling life. And hence, reassurance in the form of an “It will all be okay” can sometimes be the sweetest sentence we could hear. And because while we won’t always have another mass of flesh and bones to say it to us, we need to do it ourselves. Hence, every morning I tell myself that it will be okay. I become mindful of my fears and insecurities and suffering, and I tell myself that it will be okay; that my suffering is impermanent. And after months of doing this, my anxiety levels are lower; I’m learning to take my days one at a time and live an uplifted life. I hope it does the same for you. We all have some sensory distractions that stop us from achieving our goals. For most of us, it’s sugary food and binge-watching. We cannot resist delicious food, and hence we fail to lose that belly fat. And Netflix has never been more efficient at stopping us from working. It’s okay to enjoy these. However, when we overindulge, it becomes a problem. Hence, every morning, try to spend some time becoming mindful of your particular sensory distractions and try to contemplate their impermanence. Tell yourself how the pleasure lasts for so little time but holds the capacity to do so much damage in the long term. RELATED: Mom Says Husband ‘Flew Off The Handle’ After She Paused His Game So He Would Give Their Son A Bath While you don’t have to do everything with your non-dominant hand, brushing your teeth like that is a good place to start. It will help your brain become healthier while at the same time, making you more creative in the long run. Simply divide your day into 30-minute blocks (or 5-minute blocks if you’re Elon Musk) and assign tasks to them. This will help eliminate taking decisions at the moment and also help you deal with procrastination. This is what it looks like.
By author. Your brain has a blood-brain barrier whose job is to keep certain harmful substances away from the neural tissue. However, this blood-brain barrier gets leaky with age, allowing important stuff to leak out, and toxic stuff to get in. As Ben Greenfield mentions in this video, exposing your head to cold is a fantastic way to improve this barrier’s quality. Hence, if you’re not up for a cold shower, at least try to dip your head in a cold bucket of water. Hence, it’s a really wise choice to start washing your food the right way. Simply mix 1 part vinegar with 4 parts water, and soak your fruits and veggies in it for 2–5 minutes, followed by rinsing with normal water. Don’t consume all those chemicals when you don’t have to. And the easiest way to do that? Just do 30 seconds of exercise like burpees, squats, or jumping jacks before meals. This increase in heart rate will help optimize glycemic variability due to that meal. Yes! 30 seconds of exercise can help you live longer. Combine this with 10 minutes of walking post-meal, and you get the best out of that meal. It’s almost laughable, but it works. And with obesity being the new pandemic — damn, we have enough pandemics — it won’t hurt to make this tiny shift. After all, it’d be really nice if we could fit into those jeans we used to a year ago. RELATED: Kids Read Their Cheating Father’s Texts To Other Woman In Front Of Him & Their Mother Eating food only until you’re 80% full is the Okinawan practice called Hara Hachi Bu. Besides the science that I mentioned, Hara Hachi Bu promotes an important mindset shift as well. The western world eats until they are able to say “I’m full” while Okinawans eat until they’re able to say “I’m no longer hungry.” It’s simple — do it today + make it incredibly small. Want to start working on your abs? Instead of starting a full-blown workout on Monday, do 2 crunches right now. Want to finally start writing that article? Instead of waiting for hours of free time, write only one sentence right now. This strategy helps make an overwhelming task simple enough to do at the moment. Overshooting is a technique inspired by the above quote. This is how it works. Whatever your desired goals for the day, try to do a little more in at least one of them every day. Let’s take an example — say that I have these 3 goals for my day —
Run 7 laps in the park.Read 40 pages.Write 1500 words.
On Monday, I might decide to run 8 laps. On Tuesday, I might read 45 pages. And on Wednesday, I might decide to write 1600 words. This will keep sending a message to my brain every day that I’m capable of doing more. This is how overshooting may help build mental strength over time. Note: Don’t overshoot by a lot, and don’t overshoot for the same goal every day. Keep it mellow and mix it up. I’ve adopted this ritual in my life as well with my phrase being a simple “Work Done”. I say that every day around 6, and I switch off my work side. Doing this has helped me reduce my work-related anxiety, and I highly recommend it to everyone else. Hence, I think it’s time we all started to take care of our spines. Here are a few poses. Pick one of them, do it for a week or two, switch to another, and keep going.
Sphinx poseLocust poseChild’s poseThread the needleCat and cow
How do you do them? Simple. Walk out of the house at night, put on your headphones, and listen to music – perhaps Coldplay is a good option – and watch the stars. Simply put, look at the universe with awe. My friend’s brother is afraid of walking onto the weighing scale. You know why. We prefer ignorance rather than the truth. But when you engage in self-awareness by measurements, you make it easier to take action in the right direction. Hence, measure what you would like to be managed.
Step on the weighing scale every day, if you want to look leaner.If you want to waste less time, place your screen time widget on the homepage and write it down in your journal every day.If you want to be smarter, measure how many books you’re reading.
Start drinking apple cider vinegar.Stop taking your phone to the washroom.Start taking power naps.
Hence, before sleeping, practice self-compassion. Research shows that people who practice self-compassion are happier. After all, there’s nothing noble about going to bed mentally beaten up and guilty. Say “I forgive myself” and go to bed with a clear conscience. So, do yourself a favor and come up with your own micro-habits as well. Ask yourself — “How can I do less yet get more?” And when you’ve come up with enough, write an article about it if you’re a writer, and if you’re not a writer, share them with a writer who can communicate them with the rest of us! RELATED: Woman Burns Down Boyfriend’s House After She Believed That He Was Cheating On Her Akshad Singi, M.D. has been published in Better Humans, Mind Cafe, and more.
