10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Live Life Better

Incredibly Easy Ways to Live Life Better is the final entry in the series on Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Life.

See here for what this series is about, and scroll to the bottom or click here for a list of other entries in the series.

Note: Some links here are affiliate links, meaning I get a small commission when you purchase them, at no additional charge to you. I only suggest things I honestly believe in.

Incredibly Easy Ways to Live Life Better

Everyone wants to live life better.

We want to be happier, more productive, and manage our time more effectively.

That’s the goal of any self-improvement advice.

But a lot of advice does a bad job at this.

It may tell you to do things that are too difficult or time-consuming to be practical, which will only lead to frustration.

This is why I say that you shouldn’t challenge yourself. Self-help advice should make improving your life easier, not harder.

That’s the premise of the Incredibly Easy series I’ve been running on Self Helping Yourself for the last three months.

It suggests ways to improve your life that take minimal effort, willpower, thought, cost, or time-commitment. Quick and easy wins you can implement immediately.

These have covered Investing, Finances, Health, Happiness (Part 1 and Part 2), Sleep (Part 1 and Part 2), Saving Money (Part 1 and Part 2), Organizing Your Home, and Chores.

This final entry in the series suggests incredibly easy ways to live life better in general.

1. Write down your goals every morning or night

Every morning when you get up, write down what you want to accomplish that day.

Alternatively, do this right before going to bed, for the next day.

This isn’t a to-do list. Don’t write things like “take out the trash.”

Write what you can do to move toward your larger life goals.

It doesn’t need to be a long list. One or two items is fine. But actually write it down, with a pen in a notebook.

Writing it down makes it real. Which makes it far more likely you’ll follow through and do the thing you need to do to reach your goals.

Doing the thing may be hard, time-consuming, and take lots of effort and willpower. But just writing it is easy. And it will give you a big extra push toward doing the hard thing.

2. Turn off notifications for social media, e-mail, and other apps

You’ve probably heard advice about avoiding social media.

“Log out of your accounts, delete the apps from your phone, install software to lock yourself out, have a friend change your password,” and all sorts of other nonsense you’re not going to do.

Nobody actually follows this advice. Not even the people giving it.

I lost count of how many times I’ve seen people posting on Twitter to avoid social media. If they can’t even follow their own advice while they’re giving it, how can they expect anyone else to?

It’s far more reasonable to simply turn off notifications.

You don’t need to have your life interrupted every time someone posts a picture of their food.

There’s no reason you need to know the second you receive some spam e-mail.

Why would you want some game that you only play while pooping to beg you to make microtransactions, your e-scooter app to remind you that e-scooters are a thing, or your vet’s rewards app to suggest you make an appointment for your cat that died two years ago?

Look at e-mail when you’re looking at e-mail. Look at social media when you’re looking at social media. But turn off notifications so that when you’re not looking at them, they don’t intrude on your life.

3. Learn how to do things yourself instead of paying someone else

Do you know how to disassemble and reassemble a toilet?

Regardless of how handy you are or how little experience you have with plumbing, the answer is yes.

Because you know how to use Google and YouTube. Which means you know how to do a whole lot of things. Or at least, you can know within half an hour.

You also know how to do basic photo editing, install a light switch, and sew up a hole in your pocket.

It’s usually much cheaper and more satisfying to do things yourself than to hire someone.

It’s often easier and less time-consuming as well

Otherwise you’d have to find someone who won’t rip you off, get in touch with them, wait for them to have availability, make sure you’re home when they come, and sit around watching them to ensure they don’t break or steal anything.

It’s also a good idea to invest in your own tools or equipment. A friend of mine bought a $50 wax warmer so she could stop going to the salon, which has saved her over $1,000.

Additionally, every time you learn something, you’re adding to your skillset. Which makes you more productive in the future.

4. Be willing to hire someone else

This is the opposite of the advice I just gave, but it depends on the specific situation.

Some things are quick and easy, where you’re better off doing things yourself.

Some things are difficult, time-consuming, or can cause lots of problems if not done right, and you’re better off hiring an expert.

And some things are easy, but also easy to outsource, and you’ve got better uses for your time. Food delivery services are a great option for those who can afford them and prefer spending quality time with their family over sitting in traffic.

So be willing to do things yourself, or be willing to hire someone else, depending on what makes the most sense.

And if you start off doing something yourself and it isn’t working out, be willing to accept that it’s beyond your capabilities and switch to hiring a professional. Don’t be stubborn.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to this.

Which leads into the next bit of advice:

5. Don’t take one-size-fits-all advice

Every individual is different.

You’re a unique person who is different from every single person who has ever lived or ever will live.

Which means you’re different from anyone who will ever give you advice.

What works for them may not work for you.

Often people – especially various forms of gurus – forget that not everyone has the exact same qualities as them.

So they’ll insist that EVERYONE ABSOLUTELY MUST FOLLOW some piece of advice.

And if their advice isn’t compatible with your life or your traits, either your life is wrong or you’re doing it wrong.

Don’t buy into this nonsense.

You should certainly be willing to listen to advice, and try it out if it seems helpful.

But if it doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.

All it means is that every individual is different.

So if a particular piece of advice doesn’t work for you, simply ignore it, without any sense of shame, self-blame, frustration, or resentment.

And this includes advice I give.

6. Realize that nobody has it figured out

When we were young, we believed in the myth that there were grown-ups.

We thought parents, teachers, and other authority figures understood what was going on.

Then we became adults. And nobody handed us the Official Guide To How Everything Works (™).

You haven’t figured everything out. Which leaves you with a nagging feeling that there’s something wrong with you. You were supposed to be a grown-up and know what you were doing by now.

But think about your peers. Likely some of them are parents, teachers, and other forms of authority figures. And they’re just as confused by life as you are.

Because this is true of everyone. I have friends who are literal rocket scientists. And they’re just as messed up and clueless as everyone else. (Myself included.)

There’s no such thing as a grown-up.

Everyone is confused by life, doing the best they can, making it up as they go along.

It’s not just you.

Once you realize this, you can stop feeling like there’s something wrong with you and you can recognize that we’re all in this together.

Which means you should have compassion for those who are struggling.

Be willing to reach out for help when you need it.

And seek out commonalities with others in the spirit of benevolence, rather than pushing people away for their differences.

7. Keep a small notebook and pen in your pocket, or an app that lets you quickly jot down notes

You never know when you’ll need to remember something.

It might be a brilliant idea you had, the name of a book you want to read, someone’s e-mail address, or something interesting you learned.

Keep a pocket-sized notebook and pen with you so you can always write down quick notes when you need them.

Or you can use an app on your phone for this.

I prefer a paper notebook because it’s much faster and easier for me to open the notebook and start writing than it is to unlock my phone, navigate to a notepad app, open a note, type on the keypad, and fix whatever weirdness autocorrect changes things to.

(No autocorrect, I didn’t mean to say “ducking buckshot.”)

But do whichever one works best for you.

8. Be grateful for the modern world

When you express gratitude, you are building the habit of focusing on the positive. In other words, you are training yourself to be happy.

When you complain, you are building the habit of focusing on the negative. Which means you are training yourself to be unhappy.

Obviously, there are plenty of problems in the world. There always have been, and there always will be.

I don’t want to diminish these problems. These cause real horrors. But nearly all problems that exist in the world today are rapidly improving. They were much worse in the past.

The fact is, the world is by far the best it’s ever been. There is an enormous amount to be grateful for.

We can be grateful for all the wonderful things in the world. We can also be grateful that the bad things are nowhere near as terrible as they used to be. And we can be grateful for all those who brought about progress, both in building the great things and improving the bad things.

Gratitude doesn’t just help you be happier and live life better. Expressing gratitude encourages others to live life better as well.

If you convince someone everything is terrible and they have no hope, then they don’t even try to succeed. And so your negativity becomes self-fulfilling.

By contrast, positivity is infectious. When you express gratitude for all that is wonderful in the world, you encourage others to focus on overcoming problems instead of giving up in the face of problems.

Giving up doesn’t solve problems. It’s only by large numbers of individuals recognizing their power to overcome that systemic problems get solved.

And the ability to do so is yet another thing to be grateful for.

9. Assign names to your problems and negative feelings

Everyone has problems and negative feelings. That’s part of being human.

A quick and easy way to lessen the impact of these is to give them a person’s name.

For example, if you have a nagging voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough, call that voice Larry. Or if you often feel overwhelmed by having too much work to do, call the feeling of being overwhelmed Rebecca.

Giving your problems names will help give you a sense of distance from them. And separate you as a person from your issues.

To make this even more effective, name your feelings after a funny fictional character.

And if your negative feelings include an internal monologue, give it a silly and pathetic voice.

If you’re able to laugh at your problems, they’ll have even less power over you.

10. Subscribe to Five Boosts

My final suggestion of an incredibly easy way to live life better is to subscribe to Five Boosts.

Five Boosts is my weekly newsletter that suggests five articles on easy life improvements.

I go through hundreds of articles each week to find the five that will give you the best easy, actionable advice

It’s free, it’s a quick, short read, and for signing up you’ll get a free copy of 24 Ways to Improve Your Life, which features summaries and analysis of 24 top self-help books.

Conclusion: Go out and live life better

This is the end of the Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Life series.

(At least for now. I may add to it in the future.)

In the last three months, I’ve given you 148 suggestions on ways to live life better.

I’m interested in knowing what everyone thought.

Have you tried any of these suggestions? What was your favorite piece of advice?

Do you have any other incredibly easy ways to improve your life that I missed?

As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Other entries in the Incredibly Easy series:

Like learning about easy life-improvements? Subscribe to Five Boosts to receive five weekly suggestions of articles on easy ways to make your life better. You’ll also receive a free copy of 24 Ways to Improve Your Life, featuring summaries and analysis of 24 of the top self-help books.

10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Live Life Better

Incredibly Easy Ways to Live Life Better

1. Write down your goals every morning or night

2. Turn off notifications for social media, e-mail, and other apps