Habits that make you healthier, more organised or just somehow improve your life

[mynameisnotkate]

There was a great thread on MN about a year ago where people were sharing their useful habits. I picked up a good few, but have kind of lost my mojo and am looking for inspiration. Any ideas?

Things I've tried:

• getting up earlier - really like this, am going back to this soon
• Wim Hof - planning to go back to cold showers, but didn't get much out of the breathing
• drink four pints of water a day - have really given up on this but want to restart, it definitely makes me feel better
• 16:8 fast - again, I want to get back into this, it helps with weight, though on its own it's not enough
• ways to make me more efficient at work - have tried lots but find it really hard to make things stick. A task diary is quite useful.

What have you tried that worked / didn't work?

Lists.
I action most things straight away. Any notification from school I fill in the medical form, put it in my diary on my phone; put in a birthday party for DS2 on my phone make sure I've got a stack of 10 birthday cards and slip a tenner in and then these things are done, and I don't need to worry about it.

I put all medical appointments in my diary immediately. on a Sunday I kind of review things, talk to DH, plan anything that needs to be done and this all works really nicely, very rare for me to be caught unawares.

@Porridgeislife

I also use my inbox as a to do list (inbox zero). To file, I have about 10 broad task based files and some catch all ones (personal, office admin, interesting work stuff not related to a specific project).

I have can search those broad folders if I need to find an email from a past task/issue, and it keeps my inbox focussed on what is happening now.

Forgive my being dim but if you move an email out of, say, gmail into a file on your computer, what form do you store it in?

I’m using Outlook which has folders.

Gmail doesn’t use folders, it uses tags. So if I’m using Gmail, I tag everything e.g. online shopping confirmations, charity receipts etc

Great thread!

I'm loving if it takes 2 minutes just do it at the min.

I sometimes work evenings so somehow feel less resentful if I do housework during the day those days!?

Paper calendar

Fasting for 16 hours per day has enabled me to lose a stone without really trying that hard. It honestly works. I also now swear by taking high dose Vitamin D on the advice of my oncologist and it's definitely helped my energy levels. You can buy it in spray form which is super easy to take.

@peaceanddove

Fasting for 16 hours per day has enabled me to lose a stone without really trying that hard. It honestly works. I also now swear by taking high dose Vitamin D on the advice of my oncologist and it's definitely helped my energy levels. You can buy it in spray form which is super easy to take.

What kind of dose do you recommend?

Fantastic Thread!

Paper calendar for appointments, bill pay times, recording gyms lists so I feel encouraged, highlighting the school holidays and the days I don't work so I feel better (can you tell I'm retiring soon?

Email folders for everything

Work clothes ready for the week so I don't have to think.

@Nineteeneightynine

I'm interested in the Wim Hof (cold showers one)

What are the benefits? Will have a proper look online later after work.

An overwhelming sense of smugness, going by the people I've met who are into it.

@peaceanddove - I'd be interested too!

Jumping on this thread. Curre tly trying to avoid the temptation to 'overhaul my list system' which is ALWAYS ALWAYS a procrastination technique and total time-sink for me.

I use Google calendar and Keep but usually write the next days tasks and events in a paper diary for the next day so that it goes into my brain better.

We are also reinstating the family meeting on a Sunday so we can keep track of everyone's schedules, lifts, events, things the kids forgot to tell us, etc.

I do a lot of the things mentioned here - team TOMM (heavily modified to suit me, don't know if it counts as TOMM anymore 😂), bullet journal, don't leave the room empty handed, do the 5 min jobs immediately, don't leave a room empty handed.

One I haven't seen mentioned which I learnt from the TOMM Facebook group is put things where you use them. Like I bought a second steam mop for upstairs - bit of an investment but saves me lugging the mop up the stairs twice a week to do the bathrooms.

Early nights early mornings.
Fruit.
Yoga.
Daily steps. Ideally in nature.
Journaling and lists.

Whether or not I do all these things regularly is another matter.

Just coming back to say, on advice from a PP on this thread (thankyou for the tipp-off!) I downloaded the sweepy app and paid for the premium option in order to schedule the tasks and share them onto my DH's phone. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread! I'm not being paid by them this is not an ad but my God, my house has never looked so clutter free and clean and my DH and I are actually enjoying getting our small list of tasks done for the day! I never thought I'd see the day, it's some kind of minor miracle

Any tips for dealing with life admin? It wears me down.

@HereticFanjo

Any tips for dealing with life admin? It wears me down.

It’s a pain to do but the OHIO method. Only. Handle. It. Once.

Basically deal with it as soon as it comes through the door. It’s annoying but also amazing how quickly paperwork can be dealt with.

@Sportycustard

The 'Sunday summit'. DH and I plus diaries, phones and a glass of wine at 8pm on Sunday evening.

We look 6 weeks ahead and we go through who has deadlines and might be working late (used to be who was travelling for work!), who is cooking, days that are already really busy when we need to avoid booking anything else in etc.

We used to also book restaurants, taxis and babysitters and work out who was working away and if we needed extra childcare but covid has curtailed that.

Once that's done I meal plan and book the shopping delivery and DH picks up any admin like bills, sorting car insurance and new energy suppliers.

Takes about 90 minutes but my goodness the difference it makes to our lives!

Similar to this. We have a monthly finance meeting…rock and roll! We update our spreadsheet with credit card totals which are each broken down into the balances of any 0% deals and when they end. This means we know which card we should put any extra payments onto. It’s helped us to become super organised with our finances and we’ve paid off so much debt and overpaid loads on our mortgage.