Contrary to popular belief, you don’t
have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality
of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to
see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have
to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100
days.
Below you’ll find 60 small ways to
improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days.
Home
1. Create a “100 Days to
Conquer Clutter Calendar” by penciling in one group of items you plan to
declutter every day, for the next 100 days. Here’s an example:
·
Day 1: Declutter Magazines
·
Day 2: Declutter DVD’s
·
Day 3: Declutter books
·
Day 4: Declutter kitchen appliances
2. Live by the mantra: a place for
everything and everything in its place. For the next 100 days follow these four
rules to keep your house in order:
·
If you take it out, put it back.
·
If you open it, close it.
·
If you throw it down, pick it up.
·
If you take it off, hang it up.
3. Walk around your home and identify
100 things you’ve been tolerating; fix one each day. Here are some examples:
·
A burnt light bulb that needs to be
changed.
·
A button that’s missing on your
favorite shirt.
·
The fact that every time you open
your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out.
Happiness
4. Follow the advice proffered
by positive psychologists and write down 5 to 10 things that you’re grateful
for, every day.
5. Make a list of 20 small things that
you enjoy doing, and make sure that you do at least one of these things every
day for the next 100 days. Your list can include things such as the following:
·
Eating your lunch outside.
·
Calling your best friend to chat.
·
Taking the time to sit down and read
a novel by your favorite author for a few minutes.
6. Keep a log of your mental chatter,
both positive and negative, for ten days. Be as specific as possible:
·
How many times do you beat yourself
up during the day?
·
Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
·
Are you constantly thinking critical
thoughts of others?
·
How many positive thoughts do you
have during the day?
Also, make a note of the emotions
that accompany these thoughts. Then, for the next 90 days, begin changing your
emotions for the better by modifying your mental chatter.
7. For the next 100 days, have a good
laugh at least once a day: get one of those calendars that has a different joke
for every day of the year, or stop by a web site that features your favorite
cartoons.
Learning/Personal Development
8. Choose a book that requires effort
and concentration and read a little of it every day, so that you read it from
cover to cover in 100 days.
9. Make it a point to learn at least
one new thing each day: the name of a flower that grows in your garden, the
capital of a far-off country, or the name of a piece of classical music you
hear playing in your favorite clothing boutique as you shop. If it’s time for
bed and you can’t identify anything you’ve learned that day, take out your
dictionary and learn a new word.
10. Stop complaining for the next 100
days. A couple of years back, Will Bowen gave a purple rubber bracelet to each
person in his congregation to remind them to stop complaining. “Negative talk
produces negative thoughts; negative thoughts produce negative results”, says
Bowen. For the next 100 days, whenever you catch yourself complaining about
anything, stop yourself.
11. Set your alarm a minute earlier
every day for the next 100 days. Then make sure that you get out of bed as soon
as your alarm rings, open the windows to let in some sunlight, and do some
light stretching. In 100 days you’ll be waking up an hour and forty minutes
earlier than you’re waking up now.
12. For the next 100 days, keep
Morning Pages, which is a tool suggested by Julia Cameron. Morning Pages are
simply three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first
thing in the morning.
13. For the next 100 days make it a
point to feed your mind with the thoughts, words, and images that are most
consistent with who you want to be, what you want to have, and what you want to
achieve.
Finances
14. Create a spending plan (also
known as a budget). Track every cent that you spend for the next 100 days to
make sure that you’re sticking to your spending plan.
15. Scour the internet for frugality
tips, choose ten of the tips that you find, and apply them for the next 100
days. Here are some possibilities:
·
Go to the grocery store with cash and
a calculator instead of using your debit card.
·
Take inventory before going to the
grocery store to avoid buying repeat items.
·
Scale back the cable.
·
Ask yourself if you really need a
landline telephone.
·
Consolidate errands into one trip to
save on gas.
Keep track of how much money you save
over the next 100 days by applying these tips.
16. For the next 100 days, pay for
everything with paper money and keep any change that you receive. Then, put all
of your change in a jar and see how much money you can accumulate in 100 days.
17. Don’t buy anything that you don’t
absolutely need for 100 days. Use any money you save by doing this to do one of
the following:
·
Pay down your debt, if you have any.
·
Put it toward your six month
emergency fund.
·
Start setting aside money to invest.
18. Set an hour aside every day for
the next 100 days to devote to creating one source of passive income.
Time Management
19. For the next 100 days, take a
notebook with you everywhere in order to keep your mind decluttered. Record
everything, so that it’s safely stored in one place—out of your head—where you
can decide what to do with it later. Include things such as the following:
·
Ideas for writing assignments.
·
Appointment dates.
·
To Do list items
20. Track how you spend your time for
5 days. Use the information that you gather in order to create a time budget:
the percentage of your time that you want to devote to each activity that you
engage in on a regular basis. This can include things such as:
·
Transportation
·
Housework
·
Leisure
·
Income-Generating Activities
Make sure that you stick to your time
budget for the remaining 95 days.
21. Identify one low-priority
activity which you can stop doing for the next 100 days, and devote that time
to a high priority task instead.
22. Identify five ways in which you
regularly waste time, and limit the time that you’re going to spend on these
activities each day, for the next 100 days. Here are three examples:
·
Watch no more than half-an-hour of
television a day.
·
Spend no more than half-an-hour each
day on social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon.
·
Spend no more than twenty minutes a
day playing video games.
23. For the next 100 days, stop
multi-tasking; do one thing at a time without distractions.
24. For the next 100 days, plan your
day the night before.
25. For the next 100 days, do the
most important thing on your To-Do list first, before you do anything else.
26. For the next 14 weeks, conduct a
review of each week. During your weekly review, answer the following:
·
What did you accomplish?
·
What went wrong?
·
What went right?
27. For the next 100 days, spend a
few minutes at the end of each day organizing your desk, filing papers, and
making sure that your work area is clean and orderly, so that you can walk in
to a neat desk the next day.
28. Make a list of all of the
commitments and social obligations that you have in the next 100 days. Then,
take out a red pen and cross out anything that does not truly bring you joy or
help move you along the path to achieving your main life goals.
29. For the next 100 days, every time
that you switch to a new activity throughout the day stop and ask yourself, “Is
this the best use of my time at this moment?”
Health
30. Losing a pound of fat requires
burning 3500 calories. If you reduce your caloric intake by 175 calories
a day for the next 100 days, you’ll have lost 5 pounds in the next 100 days.
31. For the next 100 days, eat five
servings of vegetables every day.
32. For the next 100 days, eat
three servings of fruit of every day.
33. Choose one food that constantly
sabotages your efforts to eat healthier—whether it’s the decadent cheesecake
from the bakery around the corner, deep-dish pizza, or your favorite potato
chips—and go cold turkey for the next 100 days.
34. For the next 100 days, eat
from a smaller plate to help control portion size.
35. For the next 100 days, buy 100%
natural juices instead of the kind with added sugar and preservatives.
36. For the next 100 days, instead of
carbonated drinks, drink water.
37. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy
to fix breakfast meals.
38. Create a list of 20 healthy, easy
to fix meals which can be eaten for lunch or dinner.
39. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy
to fix snacks.
40. Use your lists of healthy
breakfast meals, lunches, dinners, and snacks in order to plan out your meals
for the week ahead of time. Do this for the next 14 weeks.
41. For the next 100 days, keep a
food log. This will help you to identify where you’re deviating from your
planned menu, and where you’re consuming extra calories.
42. For the next 100 days, get at
least twenty minutes of daily exercise.
43. Wear a pedometer and walk 10,000
steps, every day, for the next 100 days. Every step you take during the day
counts toward the 10,000 steps:
·
When you walk to your car.
·
When you walk from your desk to the
bathroom.
·
When you walk over to talk to a
co-worker, and so on.
44. Set up a weight chart and post it
up in your bathroom. Every week for the next 14 weeks, keep track of the
following:
·
Your weight.
·
Your percentage of body fat.
·
Your waist circumference.
45. For the next 100 days, set your
watch to beep once an hour, or set up a computer reminder, to make sure that
you drink water on a regular basis throughout the day.
46. For the next 100 days, make it a
daily ritual to mediate, breath, or visualize every day in order to calm your
mind.
Your Relationship
47. For the next 100 days,
actively look for something positive in your partner every day, and write it
down.
48. Create a scrapbook of all the
things you and your partner do together during the next 100 days. At the end of
the 100 days, give your partner the list you created of positive things you
observed about them each day, as well as the scrapbook you created.
49. Identify 3 actions that you’re
going to take each day, for the next 100 days, in order to strengthen your
relationship. These can include the following:
·
Say “I love you” and “Have a good
day” to your significant other every morning.
·
Hug your significant other as soon as
you see each other after work.
·
Go for a twenty minute walk together
every day after dinner; hold hands.
Social
50. Connect with someone new every
day for the next 100 days, whether it’s by greeting a neighbor you’ve never
spoken to before, following someone new on Twitter, leaving a comment on a blog
you’ve never commented on before, and so on.
51. For the next 100 days, make it a
point to associate with people you admire, respect and want to be like.
52. For the next 100 days, when
someone does or says something that upsets you, take a minute to think over
your response instead of answering right away.
53. For the next 100 days, don’t even
think of passing judgment until you’ve heard both sides of the story.
54. For the next 100 days do one kind
deed for someone every day, however small, even if it’s just sending a silent
blessing their way.
55. For the next 100 days, make it a
point to give praise and approval to those who deserve it.
56. For the next 100 days, practice
active listening. When someone is talking to you, remain focused on what
they’re saying, instead of rehearsing in your head what you’re going to say
next. Paraphrase what you think you heard them say to make sure that you
haven’t misinterpreted them, and encourage them to elaborate on any points
you’re still not clear about.
57. Practice empathy for the next 100
days. If you disagree with someone, try to see the world from their
perspective; put yourself in their shoes. Be curious about the other person,
about their beliefs and their life experience, and about the thinking process
that they followed to reach their conclusions.
58. For the next 100 days, stay in
your own life and don’t compare yourself to anyone else.
59. For the next 100 days, place the
best possible interpretation on the actions of others.
60. For the next 100 days, keep
reminding yourself that everyone is doing the best that they can.
