Human beings are strong creatures of habit.

Our small unintentional habits carry us through the day, from the moment we wake up till we go to bed. Think about all the little unintentional things that you do like checking your phone as soon as you wake up, your morning cup of coffee, your daily supplements, your night-time skin care routine, and so much more.

Your daily habits are a part of your identity that you develop over the years. Which is why your everyday habits are the best place for you to start with as you find yourself on the journey of becoming a better person. However, this is easier said than done. It is a given that leaving old habits or kick-starting new ones is going to be an uneasy, if not a difficult process. This is where micro habits come in. 

Micro habits are tiny sustainable actions that require minimal motivation and negligible effort to maintain on an everyday basis.

They are vastly different from the classic approach to habit formation that most people follow. These people dive head first into the habit and establish daily goals like exercising for one hour everyday, running three miles every morning, or solving twenty numericals each day. Then, they unwittingly hope that they will be able to continue with these habits from day one itself with brute willpower and motivation. Needless to say, almost 8 cases out of 10 end in burnout, frustration, and failure.

On the other hand, micro habits are all about small and simple life choices that steer you towards big results. Most micro habits can be completed in less than a minute or two, which makes them feel quite natural. Eventually, they become a normal part of your daily routine. With time, some micro habits can also be used as keystone habits to act as foundations for other routines. They can even help you break bad habits by implementing better ones in place. Most importantly, they make it harder for you to make excuses. 

With so many notable advantages to their name, micro habits are one of the key tools to building a better lifestyle. 

To that end, given below are some general micro habits that you can integrate into your day-to-day life no matter how busy you are. Look forward to a steady improvement in your well-being with these habits.

Wake up at a fixed time.

It is recommended to go to bed and wake up around the same time everyday. By degrees, your internal clock adapts to this routine, which then greatly improves sleep quality, strengthens immunity, enhances concentration, creativity and emotional stability, and restores balance in your daily life.

Stay in bed.

Upon waking up, stay in bed for a minute or two and set your intentions for the day. Practice some meditation or breath work for a minute, stretch yourself, and get out of bed with a positive and empowered mindset.

Sidestep social media.

When you are used to checking social media first thing in the morning, you unwittingly invite in cheap dopamine and passive inaction into your daily life. Your mornings start with some discouraging comparisons, lots of mindless consumption, and one or two trips down the nefarious rabbit hole of endless scrolling. This is why lifestyle experts recommend sidestepping social media for the first few hours of the morning and replacing that with some healthy habits to cultivate gratitude and mindfulness. 

A glass of water.

You need your 8 glasses of water a day, and what better way of ensuring that you get to that mark than by starting on that goal first thing in the morning. Moreover, a glass of water before your morning coffee helps you stay healthy, prevents a caffeine crash, and aids the digestive process throughout the day.

Make your bed.

The idea behind this micro habit, as popularized by retired Navy four-star admiral William H. McRaven’s book “Make Your Bed”, is to start your day with an immediate sense of achievement. While it may seem like a mundane and inconsequential task, making your bed is one of the smallest but most concrete steps that you will take towards a tidier and healthier living space. 

Brush with the opposite hand.

The American brain coach, podcaster, writer and entrepreneur Jim Kwik suggests this odd little trick for your early mornings. Brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand has some unexpected advantages ranging from enhancing your BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factors), training your brain for mindfulness, and putting you out of your comfort zone first thing in the morning. The uneasiness will also help you wake up and be more alert. 

Revise your affirmations.

Brushing your teeth is a good time for you to revise your affirmations while looking in the mirror. Feel free to use common affirmations like “It’s going to be a great day!” or “I am grateful for today!”. You can even use your own self-curated affirmations for specific circumstances in your life. Successfully counter that lazy, unmotivated, early morning negative self-talk with empowering affirmations for the better version of yourself. 

Get some sunshine.

Throw open the curtains and stand in the morning sunshine for at least ten minutes. Morning sunlight has several benefits as it positively affects important neurotransmitters like melatonin, serotonin, and dopamine. In turn, these neurotransmitters affect aspects of human health like the circadian rhythm, energy metabolism, the immune system, overall mood, and much more. Don’t forget your sunscreen. Additionally, you can even carry out other micro habits during those ten minutes in the sunlight. Consider the micro habits listed below for that.

Deep breaths.

Experience a sense of calm, peace and balance with a few minutes of meditation every morning. This micro habit boosts your mood, enhances your awareness, improves concentration and focus, helps you feel more centered, and boosts your overall well-being. There are innumerable other positive changes that this morning mindfulness practice will bring to your life. Invest five minutes every morning for the best life-long results.

Plan for the day.

Draft a to-do list and set your intentions for the day. Consider the pending tasks from yesterday. Identify your priorities for today and move them to the top of the list. Group together separately all the tasks that will take less than five minutes to complete. As an extra, you might even consider all possible distractions that might arise, and plan as to how you will tackle them effectively. This micro habit sets you up for a productive workday. 

Visualize your day.

Enhance the quality of your morning routine by visualizing your day as you sip on your coffee. Divide your day into rough chunks of hours such as the morning hours, the afternoon hours, the evening hours, and the hours before bed, and visualize the key activities that you plan on doing in each of those chunks. This gives you a well-defined idea of how the rest of your day will be like. It increases mindfulness and helps you tackle tasks ably. 

Read two pages.

If you wish to build a reading habit, then start with reading two pages every single day. You can soon increase the count to three pages per day, and so on. Building a micro habit like this helps you gain knowledge on a particular topic in small, digestible bits. Moreover, there are no excuses that you can make to skip over this bare minimum activity.  

Apply sunscreen.

The largest organ of the human body is the skin. The skin provides a protective barrier against physical, thermal, and chemical injury, and reduces harmful effects of UV radiation. Applying sunscreen regularly and protecting the skin barrier is a must for an organ as functional and exposed as this. Sunscreens also reduce chances of skin cancer, prevents premature aging, prevents sunburn, and enhances the health of the skin.      

Brain dump before work.

We often find it difficult to focus on the work at hand due to problems such as overthinking or daydreaming tendencies. To avoid these productivity busters, studies recommend a mindfulness practice called the brain dumping technique. Brain dumping before work eases your anxiety and boosts your productivity by centering you in the present moment. And all that you need for this practice is a paper, a pen, and a minute or two. Read our article on brain dumping for a quick guide to the technique. 

Bring a water bottle.

Catch up with that daily water goal by bringing a water bottle with you to your workspace. You can easily accommodate a 1 liter bottle in your satchel or backpack. Sip on this water as you muse on a topic, after completing a task, or when you are simply feeling bored. Fill up this bottle preferably as soon as it gets over. Place it near the foot of your desk to avoid any unfortunate mishaps (such as spilling water on the laptop or on work documents). This single micro habit will change your life significantly. And the positive effects will be visible from day one!   

Walk as you work.

Most intellectual activities are designed to keep us seated at our desks. Whether you are a student preparing for his exams, or an office employee compliling her reports, you know that you are generally stationary at your workplace for long periods of time. Research suggests we move for approximately 3 minutes every hour for well-being benefits like increased energy, improved mood, clearer mind, increased blood flow, better posture, and more. To reap these benefits, you can carry out physical activities like walking across the room while actively recalling your notes, standing up and stretching at your workplace, walking up and down a flight of stairs, visiting your colleague instead of emailing or calling them over the phone, and walking in place.

Put things back.

Get into the habit of putting things back into their designated place as soon as you are done using them or at the end of your working session. A clear workspace allows you to start the next work session with a freshness that a cluttered workspace fails to offer. Admittedly, there are some people who thrive in chaos. However, for the majority, a cluttered workspace brings stress, frustration, and anger. In turn, this lowers our productivity, and makes work a joy-draining aspect of our lives even if it is not actually so. To avoid all the hassle, put your things back as soon as your work is over.  

Personal finance.

In his book “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This In School? : 99 Money Management Principles To Live By”, retired business executive turned author Cary Siegel mentions the huge importance of spending even an hour per week learning more about personal finance. While one hour per week may sound quite insignificant in the short term, it adds up to 52 hours in a year, and to as much as 260 hours over five years. This easily puts you ahead of a large percent of the general population in terms of managing your personal finances, evading/overcoming debt, and earning/saving lots of money. 

Replace a snack.

Swap a single unhealthy snack from your daily meal with something healthier like a fruit bowl, a handful of dry fruits, a granola bar, roasted seed mix, a glass of orange juice, popcorn, baked chips, dark chocolate, greek yoghurt — the list goes on. You can even opt for simple fruits like an apple, a banana, or a handful of berries. This micro habit is extraordinarily quick to follow through, and acts as a great way for establishing a life-long healthy eating habit.

Stay fresh.

Keep your living space clean and fragrant. During your weekends, devote an hour at least to dust (or change) your bed sheets, vacuum the floor, water your indoor plants, put all your scattered belongings back in their places, do the laundry, wipe mirrors and glasses, and clean your sinks and toilets. Living in a clean space has a huge number of health benefits. It reduces stress and anxiety, helps you center yourself, increases mindfulness, enhances your productivity, improves your sleep quality, and does so much more for your well-being.      

CTM.

Nothing feels better than pampering yourself at the end of a hectic day. However, a drawn-out skin care routine is not always feasible. Use a CTM routine in such cases. CTM basically stands for cleansing, toning, and moisturizing — an extremely simple and well-trusted beauty routine that starts with washing your face with a cleanser, followed by restoring the natural pH of your skin with a toner, and ultimately applying some moisturizer for supple, hydrated skin. This micro habit ideally takes less than five minutes but has immense long-term benefits for your skin.  

Ditch devices.

Going device free even half an hour before bed optimises melatonin production, which in turn improves the quality of your sleep-wake cycle and boosts your overall well-being. The benefits compound, and with time it becomes easier for you to fall asleep and to wake up anywhere around your desired times. Instead, practise focused breathing, pick up a book or listen to a podcast to slow down your heart rate, ease your anxiety, and help your body fall asleep on time.

A journal entry.

Fill out a page or two in your journal as the day draws to a close. Your journal is your safe space for jotting down the positive and negative highlights of your day as well as your insights on them. It improves your mental health, allows for self-reflection, boosts writing ability, inspires creativity, and uplifts emotional intelligence. Relinquishing your private thoughts and examining your understanding of yourself on a regular basis is a life-changing micro habit that you should certainly develop.

List pending tasks.

A very prominent advantage of this micro habit is that you get to draft a to-do list for tomorrow while all the incomplete tasks from today are still fresh in your mind. Along with that, planning your day the night before helps you prioritise your tasks for the next day and to efficiently utilise the high energy levels that most people experience in the first few working hours of the morning. This greatly enhances our productivity, and helps us meet our goals.

Recall your goals.

As you lay in your bed and try to fall asleep, gently recall your goals. Visualize your dream life as if it has already happened, think about all the steps you took to get there, all the hurdles that you overcame, and all the lessons that you learned on the journey to your better self. Remember to feel calm, relaxed, and grounded as you do this exercise. This micro habit is a subtle exercise in positivity for your subconscious.

Practise the above micro habits as regularly as you can to reap the most satisfying results and to improve the quality of your daily lifestyle.