8 Life Hacks To Make Your Life Easier

Don't you just wish sometimes there were just some simple things you could add to make your everyday life easier? From your dedication, to your health, to your energy, to your time management, and even your organization? Well I have great news for you because in today's episode I'm going to share eight life hacks that made me get my life together, that improved my discipline, my productivity, and my dedication. And the best part is you can start all of these today, like from right now. They're easy to implement and they have a massive impact. Before I implemented any of these I felt like I was constantly juggling balls. I was trying to fit everything in all the time and my motivation was coming and going. It was unreliable. My discipline was nowhere to be found and I was just really overwhelmed all the time trying to do a lot when really I was looking at it the wrong way. I needed things to be simple and easy so I would stick to them. So by the end of today's episode you're going to have eight easy to implement life hacks that are going to help you improve your discipline, your motivation, and your organization. They'll help you take control of your day-to-day life and ultimately feel way more organized. At the end as a bonus I'm going to share my three favorite current apps that I use. These are not sponsored, they're just genuinely apps that I use. There's one for health and fitness, one for nutrition, and one for organization. They're three that I use every single day so make sure you stick around to the end so you can hear what those are. Before this episode starts I've got a favor to ask of you. 85% of people who regularly watch this podcast are yet to subscribe to this channel and 15% of those who have are yet to hit the bell notification. The bigger this platform gets the more people we can impact and connect with and the bigger the guests are going to get. So if I can ask you for one favor, if you've so far enjoyed this podcast, this channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button and turn your notifications on. I'm your host Erica and let's dive into today's episode. Today's life hacks span across many different areas. So they're not all just health, they're not all just productivity, they're kind of across the board. So it's going to give you a nice varied menu option for different hacks you might want to start implementing from today onwards. Before we dive in I'd love to hear if there's any hacks of yours that you've either got front of mind right now or as the episode goes on if it's not mentioned and is one you use every day. I want you to drop it in the comments below because it would be great to have a thread of life hacks because some might resonate with other people, you might inspire someone else. So please drop those in the comments below either now or at the end of the episode. The first life hack is around emails. So when I worked out I could do this, oh my gosh, my productivity and just my organization went up a whole nother notch. This might be obvious for some of you that already use it but it'll be game-changing for those of you who don't and that is to schedule emails to yourself. No one else's inbox is as important as your own. What I mean by this is if I'm sending out a pitching email for example, say you've written something to a client to bring in more business, to connect with someone, etc. How often is it that you go back and follow that up, right? You might forget, you might remember, you might put something in your diary. A really simple way of doing this is the second you send the email, schedule send an email to yourself to follow up in two weeks from then, three weeks, four weeks, whatever the frequency is that you want. That just means I've literally just parked it out of my brain. It's coming back to me in two weeks as a reminder if they haven't responded, right? If they respond, generally you see the follow-up email scheduled underneath and you can just delete it but it helps me be on top of guests, organization, pitching things, events, meetings, etc. Anything I need to do. I even like to do this when I get reminders to pay bills. Sometimes you get them really early in advance for like renewals or just different things and say I'm really busy in that moment but I've opened the email. Instead of just leaving it as unread because that will go down in my inbox and I'm going to forget about it, I just schedule send to myself like three days before it's due with like a pay now reminder. This has just been such an easy way for me to organize my inbox because it does get flooded, things do get pushed down, life happens and you can't always remember that you're going to follow up that person, right? But if you just schedule send yourself an email reminder at the time, wow, this just changed my life and it's like having a personal assistant and whenever I get my own reminders I'm like I love past me for doing that like that is just so useful. So schedule send emails yourself is one of the best life hacks I've ever used. Number two, this is for my people watching who are feeling like they don't have consistent motivation when it comes to exercise or going to the gym or anything in that realm. One thing I do every single day still to this day is I will put out my clothes and my gym bag packed the night before. What this means is I have like 10 less decisions to make in the morning. I just wake up, put my clothes on, brush my teeth and walk out the door. Instead of waking up thinking about what I'm going to wear because what workout am I doing because my girls know depending on what workout you're doing the outfit needs to change. Then what goes in your gym bag again depending on what workout you're doing. So thinking about all of this the night before removes that decision fatigue first thing in the morning and just makes it that 10 times easier to get up and go. If you know you have to get up and think about all these things your days already like your energy is already being utilized so much more. So this I find is such a good tip I even do this with like work clothes. Now one little segue on this a lot of people always say to me like why do you always wear the same thing on the podcast? Listen I don't have the brain power to think about a new outfit for every single guest that I interview. I've got like a podcast uniform now and it's honestly one less decision I have to make. This is not a fashion show podcast I'm definitely not a fashion icon in any regard. So this is just something I feel comfortable in it helps me get in the zone and it's one less freaking decision I have to make. So wherever you can reduce that or do it in a condensed way to make the next thing easier is the biggest life hack and I find in this setting with like putting my gym clothes out the night before has been the best way to keep my ease of just getting up and going in the morning to the gym. So try it and let me know if it works for you. The third life hack don't be a morning person if it's not your rhythm. This one really revolves around energy management it's something I love talking about. There's a massive productivity myth that you have to be good at time management to be productive. Yes there's an element of that but there is a foundation piece to that which if you miss energy management you're wasting your time just focusing on time management. Energy management gets you to really think critically about your own energy peaks and dips throughout the day. So for morning people they do have energy peaks first half of the day or first thing in the morning and then it dips in the afternoon for most people right. Whereas night people or night owls as they call them generally have more energy in the evening and so for those people to force a morning routine just because it's quote unquote the right thing or the thing they should be doing is not the most productive thing for them to do. So waking up early is not necessarily the key to productivity. One of the biggest life hacks I can give you is to work out your own energy management. Work out your own energy peaks and dips and structure your time around that. On this note I had a psychologist on the show Dr. Saliha Afridi she's incredible. She spoke about this from a psychological point of view from her own personal and professional experience and that episode is jam-packed with tips on this point. So I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes if this is one you're interested to learn more about but it's invaluable to the way you show up every day and the way you maximize your energy with what you're doing. Number four is in the realm of meal prepping. How many of you watching have been saying to yourselves for ages I want to meal prep I want to start meal prepping I want to eat healthier but it just seems to be one of those things that you can't stick to. I was there for a long time until I started having a system for it. Systems are life guys like you need systems for things otherwise you're just relying on how you're going to feel that day what kind of brain power you have that day what kind of motivation and inspiration you have that day and I'm telling you now I do not feel inspired to cook every single day. What I do do is I plan on the weekends. So I'm going to share with you guys kind of like a two-step approach I have to meal prepping which has helped me be really really consistent with it. Saturday mornings I wake up and I plan what am me and my husband going to eat that week right what are we going to eat I plan out the meals and I plan out what I need to order and I order the ingredients to be delivered on Sunday. So the only thing I'm focusing on Saturday is to plan and order. Now I live in Dubai it's very easy to get things delivered next day cost me the same as going to the supermarket right I don't know where you're watching from and where you live but depending on what works for you you might want to go and buy all the groceries on Saturday or do that on the Sunday but the point here is breaking up the planning and doing phase it's a lot in one go right. So Saturdays I plan and I order Sundays everything arrives and I spend a few hours just preparing everything washing all my veggies prepping the meals and it's not always like cooking everything it's just chopping everything up so when it comes to Monday Tuesday night just throw everything in a pot let's just say for a curry or whatever it is and it's just easy right like you want to make your week easier and I always look at the weekend or Sunday specifically is how can I make my week easier by doing a little bit of preparation now. This has been a way for me to stick to meal prepping and just make my week so much easier especially since I transitioned out of working in a corporate nine to five which was a I do not have the energy after a crazy busy day of being on episodes or doing client work to think about what am I going to cook for dinner and order food that night like that is you're overloading on the decision fatigue right there's kind of a running theme here it's all these hacks are ways to reduce that decision making power you want to make it as easy as possible so find a system that works for you maybe that's on the weekend maybe it's twice during the week obviously think about what works for you but I found like splitting up the planning and ordering and then the actual prepping and doing that for like the most of the week ahead is has been really really useful for me. Number five is get on top of your social media use if you've been struggling with like doom scrolling or just being on your phone a lot you know how you get that notification on your phone that tells you how much screen time you've had and you panic every time it pops up you think far out four hours a day imagine I just spent like one hour of those four hours just reading a book every day or just like thinking about I don't know my life or just whatever you're trying to achieve like it freaks me out every time I see that so one thing that's been an incredible change for me is bringing intention to my social media use and time limiters so the intention piece is like why am I using social media right if I'm feeling bored or lost or I just feel like want a distraction right I need to acknowledge that first and foremost because I love memes I love sending them to my siblings we've got a dog chat like they serve a purpose and it's entertaining but when you stay there for too long and it's been hours and hours you're not bringing an intention right you're not saying to yourself I want to go on to be entertained and use it in this way it becomes then unhealthy because you get stuck there the way the app is made is to keep you on the app right it's like being at a casino and that drains your dopamine it forces you into leaning into what everyone else is doing not you and out of your own lane so intention behind this is really important if you're going on to just see what other people are doing fine if you're going on to be entertained fine have an intention and give yourself a time limit so on the iPhone sorry for Android users but I am an iPhone user if you go in the settings or just quickly google it there's a way you can time limit the app so you can say I only want to be on for half an hour one hour a day like any addiction because let's be honest you can be addicted to social media you don't want to go from zero to 100 because that's not sustainable say your phone's telling you you're spending three hours a day on Instagram two hours one hour whatever it is don't go to the extremities and go I'm gonna do five minutes only just slowly start to decrease it you can put the time limiter on and it'll basically pop up and tell you you've got five minutes left you got whatever 10 minutes left and then it'll close the app when the time's done and this is like a good accountability partner right to keep you in check and it's like a forced way to do it so look at that and look at your screen time right look at how much time you're spending on your phone on what apps and think about all the things you want to achieve and if you allocated a slice a quarter of that time every single day how much more you could do right how much more you can invest in the things you're trying to do or just yourself right so really be critical of this this is not one to sleep on guys if you want to have a little bit more productivity and progress in your life you need to be on top of your social media use it is a non-negotiable so check out the time limiters look at your screen time get on top of it it's like if you're trying to get on top of your finances but you don't want to look at your spendings every month right like it's the same thing you need to be on top of your social media use the sixth hack is to create systems for everything because winging it honestly gets you nowhere or gets you nowhere fast put it that way i try and have systems for everything i've shared some of those today obviously like with the gym it's putting things out the night before but it's not only that i'm not walking into a gym and thinking about okay what am i gonna do today like i want to do legs but what workout like what machines what exercises i'm following a program right again one less decision i have to make i can go in there and i know exactly what i'm doing it's tracked from the week before etc i'll share the app i use at the end of the episode same with nutrition i'm following a guide at the moment that's just helping me stay in a certain amount of macros and so i'm hitting my protein etc i have systems for everything even my goal setting right i have a system for that it's not like i just wake up one day and want to write my goals right i have a system for how i approach that because if we just go into these things we're basically relying on how much energy we have that day and how inspired that we're feeling if you walk into the gym or if you sit down to write your goals and you're kind of half-assing it you're not really feeling it you're not really prepared to push yourself because no one's watching you're really not maximizing your potential systems help us really reach our potential and push ourselves so on the goal side i have actually put together an e-book with my whole goal setting system it's an eight-step process and it really helps us do a lot of the groundwork before we start our goals right it's again removing that decision fatigue it's building a strong foundation so by the time you go to start your goals or like a gym by the time you walk into the gym you know exactly what you're doing that e-book is available for the price of a single coffee it's in the show notes i've spoken about it on the show a lot before but that is one to think about if you don't have a system for goal setting right or if you don't have a system for other things i always like to think about it where am i feeling friction in life and how can i build a system around this i feel like i'm obsessed with it but honestly it is just a way to organize your life in in a way that takes the decision fatigue out of every day and makes it like a string of habits right so think about what systems you can implement whether it be in your health and fitness in your workplace with your goal setting with your personal development and try and lean into that if you guys want another episode on systems just drop a comment in the show notes so i know and i can think about doing a video on it specifically for future episodes the seventh life hack is having a night routine morning routines overrated if you have a morning routine but you don't have a night routine you're missing most of the piece because how you go to sleep is how you wake up and i'm telling you now you can have the most perfect morning routine but if you are going to sleep not having a great sleep and then you wake up with no energy what good is that morning routine if you can't give it 100 if you can't be present and actually enjoy it so thinking about having a night routine is in my view even more important than having a morning routine what does that look like again we're all very unique and individual but in essence your night routine needs to be something that unwinds you and prepares you for sleep because if you're scrolling right having that dopamine flick of every five seconds looking at something new and having the light in your face which emulates sunlight basically if you're not using any blue light blockers or blue light glasses or anything like that you're not telling your body and brain that it's time to sleep so by the time you hit the pillow your body is like and your mind is on and it takes ages to unwind from that so i have a very very hard rule and so many guests have also shared that they have this rule so it's got to be working guys i mean i can personally tell you that it is for me but because of the sheer number of people who have also shared that they have this rule i know for sure that it's like something worth seriously thinking about and it's a no phone rule it's at least an hour before you go to bed and at least an hour when you wake up no phone so just do what you were going to do before you go to bed an hour before you go to bed and in that one hour do things start to wind you down from your day could be a bit of stretching could be yoga i like having a shower getting my body warm being in the seam like it helps me relax for bed i love doing yin yoga it's like a combo of meditation and stretching some people like to read like you just want to do things that pull you out of the busyness of your day and get you ready for sleep and once you start doing that over and over and over again those habits or that string of activity signals to your body that it's time to sleep and you fall asleep way faster there's no need to toss and turn for two three hours right you're not distracted your mind's not going because you're signaling to your brain that it's time to go down another thing here is having a consistent bedtime right even on weekends try and stick to a consistent bedtime that also helps with having a strong night routine so forget about your perfect morning routine if this is not something you're focusing on and having this as a focus and really building out a system or a night routine is the biggest life hack like honestly sleep is so important and doing that before you go to sleep amplifies that experience which means you're waking up for the new day ready to tackle it and take it on number eight procrastinate strategically procrastination is often seen as this really negative thing but i actually think in small doses it can be used to recharge your brain and reset yourself for the next task if you procrastinate by sitting on the balcony by having a quick scroll by replying to someone by watching something it helps break up different things you're doing especially when it requires different energy right it just takes you out and gives you like a bit of a mental reset a key thing here is intention you need to have an intention when you're procrastinating so it doesn't roll over into doom scrolling or you know being distracted and then losing an hour of your time allow yourself to procrastinate strategically and with intention so i'm going to let myself scroll for 10 minutes just to switch off in between two really brain heavy tasks that i'm doing you might want to whatever it is you can use procrastination strategically if you bring a level of intention in so those are the eight life hacks that have honestly made my life so much easier as you can see there's kind of a running theme of removing that decision fatigue of me needing to make decisions on the day all the time and building out those systems that help me actually have these habits kind of pre-written for me so i would just wake up and it's easeful i'm not forcing myself to do things as promised i'm going to share the three apps that i'm currently using they're not sponsored they're just apps that i love the first one is for the gym so i'm using an amazing app it's called move with us the founder is rachel dillon she's an australian girl and i love the workouts i'm a resistance training girl so i love lifting weights the app has like a hybrid so you can do at home workouts too and it's just probably the best fitness app i've used you're easily able to change exercises and the way it's done is just really really good i love it it's very high quality the second one is for like nutrition and it's actually also on the same app so when you sign on to a program it it asks you kind of like your your protein goals your macros etc and there's so many meal plans and what i love about it is on like say the meals like a chicken pad thai you can actually go in and change the protein so you don't like chicken you're vegetarian you can change it to tofu or if you feel like having fish you can change it and it'll give you the equivalent of the macros it also gives you a shopping list so it just makes my saturday planning so good so easy there's so many options on there the functionality is amazing i honestly really should reach out to them to be like a brand ambassador because i'm a huge fan it's amazing check it out it's called move with us and then to organize my life so that's kind of like the first two right like fitness and nutrition to organize my life like day-to-day with meetings and appointments and things like that i use two so one's called since sama and this one basically is for anyone watching who has many different email accounts so for me for example i've got one for work i've got one for the econ business i've got one for the podcast and then my personal email as well so having like meetings and schedules and appointments on all different emails can get very hard to track so since sama lets you plug in all the emails in one place and it'll pull together all the scheduled events and appointments in different colors so you've got it in the one calendar that's been brilliant and i love that one and i also love using calendly that would be my third recommendation this is good for me because i currently live in dubai and i often do business with people in australia people in europe and the time zone thing it's burned me so many times i'm really bad at converting it it's just not something i just can't keep on top of it all the time and i feel like it's unreliable to do it manually so calendly is so good i put in my availability and the person who's trying to book in can just put in their time zone and see what that is on their time zone like it's just so easy especially for us sorry guys you guys they're on like the complete opposite time schedule and i can never get it right so this is a good one to do the conversion so those the apps i'm currently using i have been using for a while and really really highly recommend and i've put links to all of them in the show notes below if this episode has really prompted you to think about okay i need to do an audit of how i'm spending my time i need to think about what is taking up all of my time and i really need to be considered and intentional with what deserves my time i've done an episode which is kind of like a two-part workshop and it explains the balance theory which by the way is a concept on work-life balance and it's how to actually achieve that so it'll take you through working out what your priorities are and then how to actually schedule your time around that and it'll help you get very clear on what deserves to be in your life because it means something to you and what doesn't and you'll very quickly work out where you're having time leaks so where you're spending time that is time you don't want to be spending and what really doesn't deserve to be on your calendar so check that one out it's in the show notes i highly recommend that for anyone who hasn't done a time audit or wants to get really granular with some of these hacks but all these hacks are things you can implement from today they're easy they're free they're things that you just need to decide you want to start doing i'd love to know which one of the eight really stood out to you so drop a comment below and let me know and also as i mentioned before if there's one that you use that could be useful for the community make sure you let us know too i would love to continue to flesh this out and see like a thread of life hacks so drop yours in the comments below let me know which of the eight was your favorite thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode and i'll see you guys on monday for another podcast