Maybe 2024 was your year – or maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, you’re probably falling for the intoxicating hit of making Big Plans to improve yourself this year. But there’s no reward for setting goals you probably can’t reach. Better to keep them simple, and realistic.
Here are 25 little ways that you can make 2025 that little bit better – whether it’s helping get you home in order, easing that desk induced back pain, or beginning to reconnect with old friends.
- Use the five-second rule
Pioneered by self-help author Mel Robbins, this is astonishingly simple. If there’s something you know you should do and want to make sure you act on it, just count down from five to one then, go for it. That could be getting out of bed when your alarm goes off, speaking up in a meeting, sending a difficult text, or doing the dishes. Anything that you tend to talk yourself out of, basically.
- Plan your outfit for the next day
If you can’t face the hassle of laying out your clothes, using the time before falling asleep to work out what you’re going to wear tomorrow can help cut out all sorts of early morning dithering. The other option, of course, is to adopt a daily uniform like the big tech chief executives are famous for. But where’s the fun in that? Playing fantasy dress up as you doze off is far more fun.
- Lengthen your stride
Unless you have a particularly physically demanding job, most of us will feel the aches and pains of a relatively sedentary lifestyle. You can make grand plans, join gyms and dig out your lycra if you like, but one of the simplest ways to help mitigate the issue is to try and make your stride a bit longer.
This will not only add a bit of cardio to your day without any extra time spent, it will also activate your glutes (which are largely at rest if you spent most of your time in a chair). Excellent for easing back pain as well as getting more pep in your step.
- Take Vitamin D
According to the NHS, most of us are not getting enough vitamin D, especially in the winter months, but it’s an essential nutrient for regulating levels of calcium and phosphate in the body.
But remembering to take it is a whole other issue. To encourage follow-through, pop a post-it note or a sign somewhere very visible that says TAKE YOUR VITAMIN D. That could be your front door, the fridge door, or above the sink – just somewhere in your eyeline as a little reminder.
- Wear your best outfit
We have an instinct to want to preserve our nicest things, something that extends to clothes. But there’s nothing stopping you from making a standard day more special by wearing your best stuff. You, and the world around you, is good enough for your best clothes.
- Delete apps from your home screen
Just adding one small extra step to opening Instagram, for example, gives you time to assess if you really want to or it’s just instinct.
- Add milk to your coffee
Dieticians may not recommend always opting for higher calorie coffees that are majority milk (lattes; cappuccinos) but that doesn’t mean milk is off the menu. Having a bit of milk in your coffee can actually make it healthier – it neutralises the coffee’s natural acidity, which protects your teeth. And while you’re at it, opt for full-fat milk. It’s far more satisfying, can have a higher vitamin content than skimmed milk, and will still amount to far less than you’d find in a flat white.
- Turn off notifications
It’s ultimately up to you whether you pick up your phone and start scrolling, but you can reduce all the ways your phone prompts you to do so. So turn off notifications and put yourself on ‘Do Not Disturb’. You can also set up certain apps like WhatsApp to run on your desktop rather than your phone – this has the added bonus of making it less likely you’ll strain your neck peering at your smaller screen.
- Be bored
When was the last time you were properly bored – not just listlessly scrolling, but truly bored? It’s worth giving it a go. Psychologists James Danckert and John D Eastwood in their book Out of my Skull: The Psychology of Boredom argue that boredom can help us find our full potential and make our lives more meaningful. We just need to engage with the feeling rather than running away from it. So rather than trying to placate your boredom, sit with the feeling and work out what would actually inspire a sense of purpose in you. This is where your most creative self can emerge, if you let it.
- Eat the frog
Don’t worry, the frog is entirely metaphorical. But this is about identifying the most difficult task in your to-do list for any given day. It might not be the most complex or demanding task – but it’s the one you’re trying to avoid, whether that’s sending an awkward text or finally going through your receipts. This is the frog that you have to eat today.
Do it first. Getting the task you want to do least done first means the only way is up. It’s both incredibly simple and very hard to do, so if you’re struggling, it’s worth combining with the five second rule.
- Make a pile of doom
The general upkeep of a household can quickly become overwhelming because it simply never ends. Keeping up with it is exhausting, but not keeping up can feel even worse when you are surrounded by endless clutter.
Rather than setting the unachievable goal of keeping your home impeccable at all times, cut yourself some slack and make tidying a two-stage process. Step one – anything you see out of place goes into one DOOM pile (that’s ‘Didn’t Organise, Only Moved’). This helps keep the visual clutter at a minimum and gives you the mental space to focus on other things. Step two is to take a deep breath and organise the pile. This should be done once a week or so, to condense time spent tidying and organising into one block.
- Clean every day for two songs
Instead of looking at the mess, seeing it as too big and avoiding it all together, tell yourself you’re just going to clean (or tidy) for the length of two songs. The tangible end point will help you keep focus and your home will be a little bit cleaner/tidier before you know it.
- Say hi to your neighbours
Thanks to the combined forces of busy lifestyles, a difficult housing market and technological advancements, it’s not the norm to befriend your neighbours. But a Gallup survey in 2023 found that even the small act of saying hello to neighbours can boost your well-being. It encourages a sense of community, reduces isolation, and can change the tenor of your day with minimal time and effort.
- Schedule emails
In the last couple of hours of working, tasks will tend to fall into two categories: the must be done right now, and everything else. Save yourself the effort of having to rally people the next day and simply schedule any important (though not urgent) emails to land in inboxes just as the day starts.
You’ll waste less time, make the most of people’s renewed attention and it only takes a couple of extra clicks of a button. You can even do this on messaging apps like Slack.
- Use a grater on fridge-cold butter
There is a unique taste to the humbling you get when you’ve prepared to bake but neglected to take the butter out of the fridge. Or when, in a rush, you attempt to butter your toast but instead rip it into papery shreds. But this is where your cheese grater will be your best friend – softened butter is just a hand gesture rather than a few hours away.
16. Keep your keys safe
If you have something you must bring with you, put it with something you never leave the house without, whether that’s keys or your phone. In the rush out of the door you will reach for what you take automatically, not what you told yourself you must remember.
- Say a weird word
If you’re someone who regularly worries about whether you’ve turned off the lights/oven/iron after leaving the house, say a random word as you turn off the oven or lock the front door to remind yourself that you did it. Muttering ‘hullabaloo’ or ‘indubitably’ may make you sound like an old-timey eccentric to any passers-by, but that just adds to the charm.
- Carry a reusable bag in your day bag
You truly never know when you’ll need it. Save your arms and your pennies for something more fun than getting groceries home.
- Eat an orange in the shower
There is no particular benefit to this, other than bringing joy to one of life’s menial tasks (the showering, not the orange-eating). Fill your daily shower with aromatic citrus and delight in the fact that, for once, you don’t need to worry about sticky fingers.
- Stretch when you put on your deodorant
A full body stretch can do a world of good, but it can be very easy to avoid doing. What you will be far less likely to neglect, though, is your daily deodorant. Use the time when you’re waiting for your roll-on to dry to get a few overarm stretches in and give your back and shoulders a wake up. Your shirts will be stain-free and you’ll feel that bit more limber.
- Text a friend
Research suggests we all underestimate how meaningful it is to get a text out of the blue from someone. So make the most of the technology we have and reach out to that buddy who just popped into your head – it will make you both feel that little bit more connected.
- Freeze your ginger
Rather than rooting around for dried out nubs, or spending £2 on a pre-packaged knob, just wash and dry ginger root before popping it in a freezer-friendly bag or container. It can last for up to five months and will be easier to grate than before, speeding up an otherwise laborious process. Yes, this is the second piece of advice involving a grater
- Buy presents when you find them
Given the time of year you’re reading this, you will no doubt be familiar with the last minute rush and panic of trying to think of the perfect presents for the people you love.
- Walk backwards
Of all of the ways you can start moving more, this is the most likely to get all sorts of muscles (including your brain) going. It will help you improve your balance (vital to hold onto as you age), your concentration and has far less impact on your knees. Just don’t try it on the stairs.
- Take phone calls standing up
The good news is there’s no such thing as a perfect posture. Back problems develop not from the posture you have, but from staying in the same position for hours at a time. So finding small prompts to get up from sitting (or if you stand a lot, sit down) will do you a world of good.
