It’s always nice how small things can make your life a lot more fun, lighter or healthier. I’m not someone who suddenly throws myself into a huge change (a move, a renovation and the sale of our old house seemed like a radical enough turnaround for the next 365 days). But I’m always up for small adjustments. Sometimes, while stumbling and getting back up, you discover mini-changes that actually make a big difference. So these are 11 small changes that turned out to have a big effect. From the discovery of never being without series again to cold turkey quitting something I used every morning and leaving my car at home more often.
Standardly keep 1 hour free in my work schedule. Every day, things come up with work, but I never reserved time for that. If all kinds of unexpected things came my way, I often just kept going a little longer. Until I realized that I could better turn it around: if things always come my way, I might as well include those unexpected things in my schedule. And so it happened. For a while now, I have been planning one empty hour on a workday without anything. My experience is that something always runs over, that you sometimes get phone calls in between and that you also spend more time on your inbox than you often estimate. Then it is really nice if you can take that time, without having to throw the rest of your schedule out of whack. I think this habit is here to stay.
Do 2-minute tasks right away. During our moving weeks, the tiny tasks piled up. The more there were, the more it felt like my head was overflowing with homework. I kept making lists, but every day another list was added and the lists became so long that I was totally demotivated to start them. For the past two weeks, I have taught myself to always do things that only take 1-2 minutes right away. For me, it was always the tiny things: putting a card in the mail, emailing the customer service of a webshop, hanging towel hooks, leaving reviews for Werkspot people, etc. All together it seemed like a huge laundry list. But if I do all those things right away as soon as I think “I still have to…”, then it can no longer become a laundry list.
Watch series from 10 years ago. You probably also have series that you watched with great pleasure 10 years ago and of which you now remember little, except for the title or the intro tune. Search for them via NLZIET, NPO Start or Videoland and watch them again. I have been doing that for a few weeks now and I am very enthusiastic about the fact that it is never silly season anymore. I recently went through my Dutch series and looked on Wikipedia for series lists from 10 years ago. In the meantime, I have already watched three serious ones from my youth. Because the viewing material is from a long, long time ago, it feels like I am watching everything for the first time again and I enjoy it just as much as when I was a teenager.
Blur my background during video calls. It must have something to do with the move. I am temporarily working in the attic and with a scratching post and a pile of moving boxes behind me, my work background is not the best. In the beginning, I apologized for it in every call. In the meantime, I have made my life easier by blurring my background. It saves me embarrassment, saves the other person from cats walking through the picture and ensures that I can sit where I want. By the way, I suspect that I will turn off the blur button again when my desk and study are finished in a while. Then I will probably be so proud of my dark pink wall that I will want to put it prominently in the picture.
No more answering emails during the weekend. I used to do that very often. And if it’s urgent, I still do it without any problems. But in general, I now try to save all work emails that come into my phone during the weekend until Monday morning. I used to think “That emailing back will be done in no time. I’ll do it now!”, but I only now notice how much peace it gives if you really leave your mailbox alone during the weekend. Moreover, no one probably expects you to respond immediately during the weekend, so I do myself a big favor and I don’t bother anyone.
Taking the bike more often. Since we live in Amstelveen, I ride my bike much more often than before. In our old place of residence, many things were either within walking distance or too far away to do by bike (so I took the car). That is different now. We have a large shopping center, the Amsterdamse Bos and the tram, all within cycling distance. Where I did almost everything on foot or by car in Aalsmeer, I now take my trusty two-wheeler much more often (sometimes to go to the public transport stop) and the car is almost permanently collecting dust in its parking space. I even do my shopping now (although somewhat swaying, with two shopping bags on the handlebars) on my nice bike. Now I notice again how wonderful the wind in my hair actually is.
Taking supplements. Ouch, caught! I know very well that as a vegetarian or vegan it is extra important to take certain supplements (in my case especially vitamin B12, vitamin D and Omega-3). Yet I started to see it – without a valid excuse – as “hassle” and that good habit had died somewhere along the way. A while ago I went for a consultation with Lisa Steltenpool ( a super-fine dietician who specializes in plant-based nutrition and who checked whether I eat fully-fledged vegan ). She gave me a good wake-up call that supplements are really necessary as a vegetarian/vegan eater. In the meantime, I even have a real supplement container in the kitchen and I – yes – faithfully dive into it every morning. For vitamin B12 and vitamin D in particular, a deficiency can make you feel awful. With that in mind, I am now obediently taking my daily vitamins again.
Get a Canva Pro subscription. For those who don’t know Canva yet: this is the most brilliant Photoshop for dummies (like me). You can design an infinite amount with it, and with little effort, while your designs quickly look very professional. (At least, a designer will disagree with me. But for a non-design talent like me, I think it’s quite fine.) I have been using the program for years, but I thought the paid Pro version was excessive. In the meantime, I increasingly ran into the problem that the nice fonts, icons and special effects were behind a paywall. Until I recently decided: “Let me just give myself this!”. So I can play with images, fonts and icons even more. You can see my first design attempts on Instagram . Don’t mind the many different fonts. I’m still discovering all the options, let’s say 😉
No more “Oh yeah, tomorrow I really have to…”-things in bed. That works like the ultimate wake-up shot for my brain in the evening. I have a pretty active brain anyway that mainly turns “on” when it’s time to fall asleep . One thing that helps me to switch off my brain more easily is that Bart and I no longer discuss all the things we’re going to tackle the next day in bed. I didn’t really like that. If I said “Oh yeah, tomorrow we still have to…”, Bart would always come up with another task, I would then think of something else and before I knew it my brain would be back in ‘on’ mode. Now we try to end the day with conversations about more pleasant topics. And if something really comes to mind, I silently write it down in my phone and it’s still out of my head.
Eat something warm for lunch. This is one of the tips that works well for my irritable bowel syndrome. My body has a harder time digesting cold food, but if I eat something warm (usually this pumpkin-peanut soup at the moment!) with it, it goes a lot better. On work-from-home days, I now always have soup or dinner leftovers next to the bread for lunch. That not only suits my sensitive stomach, but also just tastes great.
Stop using mouthwash. Rinsing my mouth with mouthwash (preferably the one with the strong ‘Cool Mint’ flavour) was a fixed part of my morning routine. “That will give you nice fresh breath after sleeping”, I thought for years. My mouthwash enthusiasm only changed radically when I recently saw a video on youtube. Apparently mouthwash also kills the good bacteria in your mouth and is therefore not good for your teeth. And I always thought that I was doing so well with my toothpaste and mouthwash. Since then I have finished the bottle of bright blue mouthwash and have not bought any more. Instead I now have a mouth rinse in the morning. It does not kill bacteria, does give you fresh breath, and has not (yet) been rejected by experts.
Do you also have a small habit that has made your life more fun in recent weeks?
