If You Want to Upgrade Your Life, You’ve Come to the Right Place. Here’s How You Can Make Your Life Better for Free.
Our days are chaotic. We have a vague idea of what we’d like to do to stream-line things, but we never get around to doing them, because we’re just… too… busy. However, the simplest tweaks can make the world of difference and improve your life as you’ll find out in today’s article – 15 Tiny Life Upgrades That Cost $0.
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Reading this article will not cost you any money, but will cost you a lot of your time. Skip it and switch over to the video version:
With that out of the way, let’s jump right into the article.
1
Save All Your Passwords in One Place
Forget having to remember all your passwords or keeping them all in an unsecure Word document somewhere, there are plenty of password manager apps like LastPass, Dashlane, Keeper or Bitwarden.
If you want to use the free version, then LastPass probably offers you the best deal for…well…nothing.
It allows you to save, store and organise your passwords across multiple devices, but the free version makes you choose either computer or mobile device.
Most of the password managers work the same. They are a Chrome Extension that saves you the hassle of manually saving passwords, and it works its magic in the background while you get on with life.
2
Print a Monthly Calendar and Put It in a Visible Spot
As tasks or invites come in, place them into the calendar. Give each family member their own colour, so it doesn’t get too confusing.
The night before, check the calendar and pack accordingly. That way you avoid running around in the morning looking for missing hockey socks or arranging lifts for water polo practice.
3
Follow the 1-Minute Rule
The one-minute rule is a game changer, follow this simple rule and you’re about to improve your life to life 2.0.
The premise is this: if a task can be done in a minute or less then don’t delay, do it immediately. Sure, this might seem a bit crazy if you look around the room and see 30 or more one-minute tasks that need doing, but once you clear the initial backlog, then you will see your life declutter day by day.
Imagine how many 1-minute tasks you can get done if you give yourself 15 minutes after your dinner to do a couple.
Everything from cleaning up the washing powder spill in the cupboard to gluing your Portugal magnet back together, or simply wiping down the counter after you cook. When you do it straight away it doesn’t go into your subconscious ever screaming To-do list that causes stress and anxiety.
Following this rule doesn’t make your day busier, it makes you feel more in control.
4
Streamline Your Listening with Device Specific Podcasts
For those of us with a home device like Alexa or Google Home, here is a quick hint to make your podcast streaming far easier. Before now, if you were using Apple Music or Podcasts and had Alexa at home, it was simple to stop listening in your car and pick up immediately again in your home where you left off.
But with Google Home this wasn’t as synched. Now since the launch of Google podcasts you can get all your favourite podcasts in one app, and listen to them across devices perfectly synchronised with Google Assistant, the best part, its free!
If you are interested in podcasts, you’ll certainly enjoy reading 15 Richest Podcast Hosts.
5
Include a “Call to Action” in Your Email Heading
We chatted about this in our video, 15 Habits to avoid, to become highly productive. Save yourself a lot of back and forth and over-explaining things. Aluxers, you know these types of emails… the type of conversation that seems to go back and forth endlessly with only vague references of what actually needs doing.
Avoid this by putting the action you need right in the heading of the email, for example: Proposal: requires your approval by Friday or Suggested changes: Please send feedback by Tuesday.
These are super clear, set a time limit and assign responsibility. This costs nothing and will save a lot of time each day.
6
Use a Spare Carabiner to Upgrade Several Areas
You’re constantly losing keys in your purse… Clip them onto the strap with a carabiner.
Avoid crushed lettuce or free up more space in your car trunk by hanging your shopping on some carabiner hooks and clipping them to the headrest of your car. Boom, double storey packing space.
Your belts that constantly fall down from their belt hook can all be secured with a carabiner clipped onto the clothing rail.
Keep all your hair elastics in one place. Employ a carabiner for the job.
No more messy cables, roll them and clip on a carabiner and keep them tidy.
All these simple changes make a huge difference to the flow of your day and reduce frustration when you are feeling stressed.
7
Grab a Screwdriver and Fix All Loose Screws
Aluxers, creaking doors, squeaking handles, loose doorknobs and wobbly table legs, all add stress t o our day. They’re the type of problem that we’re aware of all the time, but we never get around to fixing. So, pencil in an hour and go and tighten all of those items up…
While you’re at it, grab the Q20 and lube up all those creaky doors.
8
Declutter All Your Tech
Put on your favourite no-brainer comedy and let’s declutter your phone and laptop.
Spend the episode upgrading your day while you unsubscribe from all the spam, block unwanted rubbish and unsubscribe from newsletters that no longer interest you.
Now time to automate your bill payments, either set up a bank repeat payment, or look on the bill itself and see if you can automate for a debit order or similar.
Now for a real feel good moment, head to your inbox and automate a declutter, oooh feel the purge! Now head to your spam and trash folders of your email and permanently delete.
While that is processing, pick up your phone and uninstall all those useless apps you never use, be sure to log out or delete your account first if you can. Will these good feelings ever end?
Then head on over to your web browser and clear your cache, this gets rid of all your cyber rubbish and speeds up your devices.
You’re on a roll, so go through your photo albums and use the function most cloud apps offer to sync and then delete all duplicates.
And now for the big finish, head to your Recycle bin and permanently delete all. Aaaah now wasn’t that incredible.
If you need a little extra stimulation to improve life, sync an online calendar with your partner and your life will never be the same!
The cost, nada, the feeling- priceless!
9
Meal Plan
There is nothing like reaching for the delivery app when you have had a hard day, but that’s not good for your health or your bank balance. Instead plug your quick fix food needs with some simple meal planning.
Plan a weekly shop with healthier and more affordable snack items, work lunches and then two meals you can batch book and freeze in easy to reheat portions. That way next time you are too tired or rushed to cook, you have something healthy, hearty, and home-made that won’t touch your bank balance.
10
Know Which Expenses Go off When
It can be stressful trying to remember that your mobile phone contract gets debited on the 3rd of each month, the rent needs to be paid on the 1st, school fees on the 31st, insurance on the 7th…
Create a list of the exact date and amount each debit order comes off and from which account, so you always know that you have enough to cover the costs without bouncing. Having it in black and white takes away the equation from swirling stressfully inside your head and makes the money monster much more manageable.
11
Get Rid of Notifications
Give notifications the door, why do you need to know everything with a ping of your phone anyway. Do you really need your messages to pop up on your screen or ping and pop at all? Start to improve your life by stopping notifications from invading every minute of your day.
Very quickly you will realise how little you really needed to know the minute someone commented on your Instagram, and how annoying it was when your emails popped up on your screen as soon as they arrived.
This small upgrade costs nothing but will do your sanity the world of good.
12
Set Alarms on Your Phone for Any Positive Habits
Some notifications are worth having, those that help you add positive habits you want to develop. Drinking more water, getting up from your desk and stretching or taking your vitamins are all worth it to improve your life. Soon you won’t need the reminder, so be sure to cancel the alarm after that.
13
Give Everything a Place
When everything has a specific place in your home, car, or bag, then you won’t spend precious minutes looking for them. Life’s too short to spend your life looking for your gym shorts, your car keys or your laptop charger.
Go through each cupboard in your house over time and assign everything a place. Just using butter or ice-cream tubs is an eco-friendly way of creating compartments for items. Use a marker for labels if you need help remembering what goes where.
If you find you don’t have enough place, then you have too much stuff. And you can improve your life by downgrading the amount of clutter you have.
Once you start sorting, and giving everything a home, you will be surprised at how much you have that you don’t use, and it will be easier to get rid of things.
14
Re-Think How You Socialise
Socialising doesn’t have to be a huge expense, its about meeting up, not what you eat or drink, and now more than ever we need our friends and family. Shift your mindset when it comes to gatherings. You don’t have to serve a 3-course meal for 12 at your house, you could also just suggest a good old fashioned potluck evening, or a bring and share snack.
Your friends will thank you for getting together, and also feel more relaxed about hosting a similar gathering at their’s next time now that you have shattered the perception that everything has to be a fancy affair.
15
Unplug Mentally
If by now you’re still not feeling inspired and ready to declutter, simplify and improve your life, then kick start the process with us. Alux has developed a course that can help you cut through the clutter in your mind to develop a successful and resilient mindset that you can easily master.
Find out more at Mindmastey.
