Small Habits to Create Now to Overhaul Your Day

by The Productive Pixie - July 24, 2021

One small habit can drastically change your day whether that be a good habit that does wonders for your day or a bad habit that is a stumbling block in your path. Good habits for the most part are hard to create, and bad habits are hard to give up. When you create a good habit it has the power to entirely change your day. Today, I'll be telling you small habits you can create that will dramatically overhaul your day!

Small Habits to Create Now to Overhaul Your Day

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Updated for 2024

I've been thinking a ton about habits lately. I myself, have been trying to create better habits that will improve my day. Plus, I've been reading personal development books, which (no surprise! 😂) contributes to my interest in creating a better life for myself.

I just finished Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin, and now I'm reading The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I highly recommend both of these books!

To create a better life for yourself, you need to start at the daily level. Your day is almost entirely built up of habits. These habits might be good. These habits might be bad. Whatever sort of habits you have, determines what sort of day you have.

Think about it.

Why do you wake up at the same time every day and hit snooze on your alarm? Why do you eat dessert after lunch at the same time every day? Why do you get stuck scrolling on your phone at the same time every day? Why do you always turn on your TV "to relax" at the same time every day?

Okay, I hear you groaning and trying to think of plausible excuses. I would feel called out too!

The point is: if you change your habits, you change your life.

I get it. I hear you. Habits can be really really really (Yes, the repetition was necessary) hard to create. The best way that I have found so far to create habits is to start small.

So for today, I put together a list of tiny habits you can create now that will dramatically overhaul your day! Each habit will take fifteen minutes or less to create so you don't have any excuses.

And just a side note, some of these habits might be kind of cliche things you already know you should do, but I'm going to add them anyway because I might have some tips on how you can better incorporate them into your day. Let's get right into it!

Small Habits to Create Now to Dramatically Overhaul Your Day

1. Wake Up 15 Minutes Earlier

Starting off with this habit because you might be telling yourself that you really don't have any time to create new habits. (In that case, why are you even bothering to read this post if you have no intention of actually creating new habits? You could be using the time you are spending right now on your phone or laptop to literally create a new habit.)

If you wake up fifteen minutes earlier, that is fifteen minutes you can use for yourself to create a new habit of your choice.

Please be aware though that you need a sufficient amount of sleep. If you wake up in the morning and you feel dead tired because you went to bed crazy late the night before, you should probably sleep in for fifteen minutes and go to bed earlier tonight so you can have a better day tomorrow.

And before you get started with telling me that you aren't a morning person, let me tell you that waking up just fifteen minutes earlier than you already do will not make you a morning person. If you consistently wake up at 8 AM in the morning, waking up at 7:45 AM is not going to make you a morning person.

When I wake up at 6 AM or earlier, I feel like I am getting a head start on my day so it automatically makes me feel more productive and accomplished. You can feel the same way at the start of your day!

2. Plan Out Your Day

This is a cliche tip for sure, but everyone says it because it actually will make your whole day better! It's up to you, what planning system you decide to use. You could use a traditional planner, a bullet journal, or a to-do list on a sticky note. It just needs to work for you.

I use a bullet journal myself, and I love it. If you don't know what bullet journaling is, you can read Bullet Journaling: What Is It? to get started.

Whatever system you use, you should change it up every once in a while because it will be hard to stick to your planning system, if it is the same all of the time.

In fifteen minutes or less, you can plan out your entire day, so you'll be able to get a lot more done and you'll be able to hold yourself accountable. I like planning my day out in the morning, but you might want to plan out your day the night before. Experiment and see what works best for you.

3. Read a Personal Development Book

You know how people always say that they don't have time to read books? You might use this excuse too! It just means that you aren't making reading a priority, because hey everyone has the same amount of time in the day.

But, you could find time to read just a few pages because you only need a few minutes. I like to read a few chapters of a book during lunch every day. I'm going to be posting a list of the best personal development books I have read pretty soon, but until then, you can read the books I recommended above, which are Better than Before and The Miracle Morning.

4. Clean for 15 Minutes

Think how clean your house will be if you declutter for fifteen minutes every day. That's an extra 105 minutes of cleaning every week, and it will go by super quick! People usually underestimate how much they can do in fifteen minutes.

So if you think you don't have any time to clean, just try doing fifteen minutes of cleaning every day.

5. Unplug Intentionally

This habit will give you extra time in your day to create more good habits. Here's the plan. You decide on a time during the day when you are going to intentionally unplug and savor the moment. You pull your phone out of your pocket or your purse and you stick it in another room. Then you don't look at your laptop or your TV.

This might be the first fifteen minutes in the morning. This might be the last fifteen minutes in the evening. Doing this will help you relieve stress, feel better about yourself, and you won't be able to become distracted. You can use this extra time in your day to do something for yourself!

6. Recite Positive Affirmations

This habit will only take a few seconds or minutes of your day, but it can improve the quality of your whole day! Spoiler alert, I haven't actually tried this out myself how it's supposed to be done, but I am going to incorporate this habit into my day soon.

Currently, my favorite affirmation is "let's do this thing", but I don't recite in the morning when I get up, which is when people usually recite affirmations.

I'm a dancer, a pianist, a former gymnast, and I've done acting so I've performed on stages countless times. Before I perform, I've gotten into the habit of reciting my affirmation to myself, and sometimes I even think affirmations while I am performing.

It really helps me perform better, and so I'm going to start reciting affirmations daily and see how that goes.

7. Watch a TED Talk

This is a new habit I am currently creating, and wow is it a good habit to create! Every morning, I watch a different TED talk on YouTube and it's an easy way to get some motivation and inspiration for the day.

Plus, each TED talk is only 10-20 minutes long, so even if you don't have much time in your day, you could listen to a TED talk during breakfast, while you are driving to work, or while you are on break at work.

There are tons of TED talks to listen to so there is a very slim chance that you will run out of TED talks to watch!

8. Listen to a Podcast or an Audiobook

There is tons of free educational information out there on the internet that you can take advantage of. Professionals from all walks of life, and backgrounds give free information on podcasts!

You can find podcasts about almost anything. Need motivation? Listen to a podcast. Need tips to improve your life? Listen to a podcast. Just want entertainment? Listen to a podcast.

The amazing thing about podcasts is that you can do anything you want while listening, so you can't say that you don't have time to listen to a podcast. I am going through tons of podcasts right now and listening to episodes in each, so I can give you recommendations for the most helpful and inspirational podcasts to listen to.

9. Do a Quick Workout

Whenever I exercise, my day always goes better. That is just how it is. No exceptions. Adding just fifteen minutes of exercise can improve your day so so much. Besides, you can listen to a podcast while you exercise so you can create two habits at once.

If you find that you never have the motivation, to exercise you can read How to Find Time to Exercise + Stay Motivated to see how I stay motivated to exercise two to three hours daily.

10. Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude for just a few seconds can improve your mood. Imagine that you wake up in the morning, and you start your day off on the wrong foot.

You wake up late, you didn't sleep well, you can't find the outfit you wanted to wear today, and you end up being around fifteen minutes late out the door. Sounds like a pretty bad day, am I right?

But then, once you drive to your destination, whether that be school, the office, or the grocery store, you take a few moments to think of something you are grateful for, and maybe you even write it down. All of a sudden the day takes on a new perspective and you can see how your day could have been much worse. Hopefully, you'll go on to create a better day for yourself, because a bad minute in your day doesn't have to define your whole day. It only will if you keep thinking about it.

11. Be Creative

Even if you don't think you are artistic, everyone has a creative side. Maybe you just haven't found your creative hobby yet. It doesn't have to be in a traditional creative way. Many people think of artistic things when they think of being creative, but it doesn't have to be artistic.

Just find something that you love to do, that you can be creative with, and doing it for just fifteen minutes every day will help you to be happier.

12. Practice Self-Care

Tying into the last habit, it is so important to take some time out of your day for yourself. Find something that you find calming and stress relieving. It may be the same thing you do to be more creative. It's all up to you!

13. Learn a New Language

It will only take a few minutes to learn a day! As a bonus, it always sounds smart when someone says they are learning a new language. 😂 You can be one of those people too!

I use Duolingo and it's free (What's not to love about that?). It will only take a few minutes every day, and there are stories to read as well as lessons, and practice lessons. For those of you who are curious, I'm currently learning French.

14. Take a Course

Advancing your education is never time wasted. It might be a course that you pay for or it might be free. There are lots of free courses on the internet you can take.

If you do one lesson a day, you can learn a ton in a month. Instead of scrolling on social media, put that time into something that will actually help you have a better life. No need to thank me!

15. Read an Article

You know how you are always scrolling on Pinterest and saving pins to boards so you can create your "dream life"? Well, how many times have you actually gone back to one of your boards and read one of those pins?

Yeah... it's almost never. I'm guilty of this too.

There is a simple solution to this! Have a Pinterest board called "To Read". Whenever you see a pin you want to read, and it's not related to a specific project you are working on, you can pin it to the "To Read" board. Then every morning, evening, afternoon, whenever you want, you read one article.

Boom! You can learn so much every day by just reading one little short article and now you have an excuse for scrolling on Pinterest for longer. By the way, if you aren't following me over there, you totally should. I pin to Pinterest almost every day so you won't want to miss out on that fun stuff!

16. Get Ready for Tomorrow

Talk about being productive, you can create a better tomorrow for yourself if you start today. Take fifteen minutes to prep your breakfast for tomorrow, or to pick out what you want to wear.

Then see how much more excited you are to get up in the morning when you know that some of your morning choices have already been made! What an incentive to get up in the morning! I know I like having a shorter to-do list and you probably do too.

17. Go to Bed 15 Minutes Earlier

The last one on this list and we are done! You deserve to get the amount of sleep you need.

Instead of binge-watching that last TV show, which isn't going to give you a better quality of life, you should just go to bed. You deserve to go to bed. If you are reading this article late at night, this is your wake-up call to literally do just the opposite of waking up and go to bed.

If you go to bed earlier, you will be better rested in the morning. You will be able to be more productive and you will have a better day!

Small Habits to Create Now to Dramatically Overhaul Your Day

I hope you found at least one or two of these tips to be helpful for you. If you did, leave a comment below and let me know which habit you are going to be starting. Just remember that your day starts with your habits. Build better habits, and you will build a better life.

If you liked this article, you might also like these ones as well.

Thank you so much for reading this post! I hope you have a happy and productive week!

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Tags : productivity

Small Habits to Create Now to Overhaul Your Day