9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year

So instead of deleting the apps from my phone, I’ve decided that I’m not going to use them on Sundays. And so I did. After four weeks, I’ve drastically reduced my screen time and even set a 1-hour limit for social apps.

Use Google to schedule usage limits for weekdays and weekends.

Write down a to-do list and check your calendar to see if you scheduled any meetings or calls. Do anything you can to make the next day easier.

If you have a plan, you get things done faster. There’s no magic involved, it’s pure logic.

Having lunch or dinner shouldn’t take more than 10–15 minutes. So when did we become so busy that we don’t even have 10 minutes to spare to fuel our bodies?

The Pomodoro Technique might as well be called the Bible of Productivity. It got so famous because it works so it does deserve all the praise. Out of all the micro-habits I mention here, this one has helped me the most.

If you keep your phone next to you when you sleep, you’ll just keep hitting the snooze button until it’s almost too late to get out of bed. But for most of us, the hard part is standing up, not waking up. And this is why this method works.

For the past few years, I’ve been applying two rules before buying anything. First, if I see something I like, I never buy it on the spot — unless it’s something I need and have been looking for. Instead, I wait for a few days to see if it’s still going to be on my mind.

If after three days I still dream about a dress or some shoes, I go ahead and buy them. If I completely forget about them, then I just dodged a bullet because it was probably just compulsive shopping.

“It’s ok, I’ll remember it” should go down in history as the biggest lie we tell ourselves. Out of all the things you pick up during the day, you end up forgetting more than half of it.

So make a habit of writing everything down, even the silly stuff that seem unimportant.