some small things to make my day better. Ultimately, I came up with 40 ideas. I wrote about them here.
Just thinking of all these ideas and sharing them made me feel better before I did any of them. And, I asked readers to come up with even more ideas.
Well, we did it. Here are 101 more very simple habits that can improve your life today:
- Drink more water than you think you need.
- If it’s winter (as it is when I’m writing this), go outside long enough to get really cold. Then come inside and warm up. Good feeling, right?
- Donate books to your local library. If you don’t have one, offer them on social media.
- Eat real oatmeal. Top it with nuts, cinnamon and fruit.
- Consolidate the contents of nearly empty food containers in your fridge or pantry.
- If you have leftover gift cards for a restaurant or store with just a few dollars on them, leave them at the restaurant or store where other people can find them.
- Treat yourself to comfortable underwear and bedsheets. You use them every day; they’re a good place to splurge.
- Drive at the speed limit or lower in areas where there are pedestrians.
- Stretch.
- Move to the right for higher speed vehicles on highways. They’ll be happy to be ahead of you, and you likely never have to see them again.
- Donate to a food pantry. While it’s nice to give things you won’t use, for bonus karma, add something you love.
- Park far away from the door.
- Donate your old eye glasses.
- Buy Girl Scout cookies. You’ll make someone’s day.
- Empty the wastebasket. (I know some people do this all the time; I suppose all writing is autobiography, if I’m including this as if it were an aspiration).
- Take a minute to consciously cut yourself some slack for something you could have done better.
- Download the sound of ocean waves to your phone. It’s better than music sometimes when you want to relax.
- When you want to say something angry to someone, just say “have a nice day” instead.
- Carry a treat for dogs (but ask their owner before sharing).
- Tell your significant other something you like about them that they might not know.
- Clear the cache on your computer.
- Go through your kids’ old toys. Find 5 or 10 you can donate right away.
- Start a blog. It doesn’t matter if nobody reads it; you’re doing this for yourself.
- Clean a mess you didn’t make. (Similarly, I’m aware some some people have to do this constantly).
- Log into LinkedIn and accept some of the connection requests that have likely piled up.
- Learn to say hello, good-bye and a few other pleasantries in a foreign language. Go out of your way to bump into people who speak it and use your new expressions.
- Share free “gift” links online from your paid subscriptions.
- Play a board game with a child (your own son or daughter or niece, nephew, friend’s kid) and/or read to them.
- Put a $20 “emergency bill” in your wallet. Then forget about it.
- Clean out your email inbox
- Recycle some old old electronics you don’t use anymore.
- Shut off your Wi-Fi for a while or put your phone on airplane mode.
- If you see someone who looks like they’re having a bad day, drop a $5, $10 or even $20 on the ground near them and then tell them: “I think you dropped something.”
- Visit someone’s memorial or grave. Leave something so others will know someone has been there.
- Take a cold shower. If you can’t stomach an entire cold shower, turn the water to cold at the end of your regular shower.
- Send a message to the writer of an article you really liked, just telling them so.
- Pay a stranger a compliment.
- If you have a good experience as a customer of a business, post on social media that you recommend them.
- If you think there’s a chance someone doesn’t remember your name, either tell them or quote someone else using it. “Funny story: A friend of mine other day told me, ‘Bill, if there’s one thing I know about you…'”
- Get up early and go somewhere that you can watch the sunrise – better still if you can see clear to the horizon.
