Life—in addition to being fleetingly terminal (HAD TO TOSS THAT IN THERE, YOU SWEET LITTLE TICKING TIME BOMB, YOU)—is remarkably responsive to tweaks and hacks and rejiggerations. Thank goodness. Sometimes the difference between an average/ squanderous/ ho-hum existence and a life that feels decidedly alive/ full of vitality/ like “things are getting lived around here and you can’t stop me” energy is the difference between scrolling and strolling. Simple stuff we tend to underestimate. Tiny tweaks. Easy edits.

This isn’t exactly about looking for the easy way out, though. Well is a little bit about taking the easy way out. 87% of it is maybe about taking the easy way out. Why would we volunteer for the hard way out, unless we were gluttons for punishment like ultra-marathoners? We can acknowledge that life is full of ups and downs and it’s the Yin/ Yang of life that makes it rich and nuanced and poignant and BLAH BLAH BLAH—the point has been made. We accept that life can look like a cornucopia of crap at times and ~also~ that we’d like for things to feel easy breezy while we’re trying to hose out the cornucopia.

I’ve been compiling a little listicle of Tips n’ Tricks to Make Life That Much Better for a while—some from my life, some from yours (or others who have their shit together)—and I guess I owe you an apology for not publishing this sooner. See what ones resonate with you:

• “I stopped using the snooze button and my mornings got so much better and more productive” says my friend Sam (along with most of the annoying high achievers on the planet). If you’re a snoozer, I think you’re going to have to cold-turkey this habit… but you’ll make it through the detox period. We believe in you, Sleepy Smurf.
• Make a greeting card accordion file. You know when a friend gets married/ moves into a house/ has a baby/ loses her Uncle Hector (like, to death… not like losing him at the mall) and you’re always rushing out to Walgreens to buy the least-crappy card for the occasion while your partner waits impatiently in the parking lot? Yeah, we don’t need to live like that. We can be 12% more prepared for life and (*gasp!*) keep cards at the ready. (I was on a call with a client a couple of weeks ago and for some reason this topic came up; Scott showed us his accordion file of greeting cards and I wanted to reach through Zoom and hug him—or at least give him a Congratulations for Being So Organized card.) It’s so much fun to ~proactively~ browse through a decent card store and stock up on cool cards you’re excited to give. As I age, I tend to be buying condolence cards in bulk (not that I’m excited to pop those in the mail). Hopefully you’re still at the life stage that requires a lot of “congrats on the new bundle of joy” cards? (Needless to say, this little life hack applies to stocking up on gift bags, tissue paper, and wine bags… so you’re not giving the neighbors a bottle of sparkling wine wrapped in tin foil. JOIN THE PARTY PREPPER MOVEMENT.)
• Take the long way home. Okay this one is horrible advice when you are running late; your boss/ partner/ blind date doesn’t want to hear about how you spontaneously veered off the road to dawdle through the coolest resale shop ever, on a mini-retail-adventure, while they were foot-tappedly waiting for you to show up. But when the time is right, make the time. Get off the train a stop early and meander your way home. Go for brunch one town over next time at that interesting Mexican place. Take the scenic route instead of the mindless highway route. Opt for the flight with the four-hour connection/layover to explore the city a bit, instead of the efficient itinerary that gets you to the destination right on time for the meeting (*snore*). You see where this is going: make spontaneity a lifestyle, not a yearly event.
• Don’t check emails after dinner. There’s nothing to gain from reading messages at 8:43pm, unless you enjoy haunted, responsibility-based dreams. I used to “check in” on emails/ messages in the evening, “just so I’m on top of things for the morning.” That’s a bunch of malarkey and we all know it. (And if you have a boss or a mother who insists on evening responses, find a new job/ mother.) (And if you have a problem that I used the word malarkey, well, I agree with you.)
• Don’t watch the news. This one might make some of you “intelligent” types nervous. I get it. But you’ll lose the will to live waaaaay slower if you just read the news headlines on your phone/ laptop, rather than watch and listen to the buffoons who are running various countries and companies. This life change decreased my rage enhanced my happiness by a solid 13% when I started it during The Plague of 2020 and other than when I visit my dad, who has the news on TV every moment of his waking day (*involuntary body twitch*), I blissfully avoid the soundtrack of bad news.
• My friend Sorin shared this gem of a life hack: “When my company required me to update my password, one that WILL NEVER CHANGE, I incorporated the words memento mori into it. This way, each morning when I log into work, I remind myself that you only die once!” (Now we are all going to try and hack Sorin’s accounts bahaha.) (Okay but don’t.)
• Leave your phone in the other room. (Because you cannot be trusted if it is on your person, you sneaky phone addict, you.) When participants in a seminal “phones are the devil’s spawn” research study had their phones out during meals (even if they weren’t actively using them [👈key point]), they reported feeling less enjoyment, more distraction, and lower social connection compared to those who kept their phones put away. I know it’s hard to not have your crack pipe phone nearby, because your friends and family are very boring and you need your phone to fill the gaping void they create. But less phone time is undeniably better for your life, so maybe just put it in a drawer for an hour at a time and see what happens… you’ll likely listen closer to what your partner is really saying/ focus on the real work you need to be doing/ use your brain for the first time since the early 2000s to calculate the tip.
• Create a little nature ritual. My friend Juad has a life rule of listening to the sound of rain. “Every time it rains, I rush to open a window—even just a tiny crack—or a door, and pause for even a few seconds to listen. Just soak it in.” I know an adult who insists on catching snowflakes on his tongue… a former client makes it a policy to stop in her tracks and admire the full moon… one woman takes pictures of the tree outside her condo through the seasons of buds to leaves to crinkly leaves to falling leaves and sends them to her mother in palliative care… some team members at a company I delivered a workshop for started eating lunch outside with their shoes and socks off, right in the grassy little park beside the parking lot. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but abiding by some kind of nature rule or ritual might slow you down and help you to smell the proverbial roses.
• Go for a walk before or after work (or whatever “your day” consists of). In the morning it’ll act as a bright spot in a day that just might hit the skids, and in the evening a walk will wash the festering bits of your day off so you’re freshly poised to eat a peaceful dinner on the couch while watching Poker Face.
• Always bring a treat with you. You will never not catch me without a pink Starburst in my bag, and it brings me unusual joy to have one on a flight… in an Uber… any time I need a pink pickup. It’s the little (sugar-coated) things.
• Bonus like-your-life-better tip! A friend who knows I’m struggling with Dad-in-the-assisted-living-home visits shared that “red wine poured into a Gatorade bottle looks like grape Gatorade.” I wonder if the Gatorade people need to market this? To parents? Teachers? Bosses? Finally—a hangover and the cure in the same bottle.

Is this list exhaustive? Heck no! I don’t want to exhaust either one of us (you’ve seen the bags under my eyes; I’m looking for less baggage in life, not more). But I do want to hear about your rules for living like you mean it… clearly this article is part one of several thousand. We need all the inspiration we can get to adjust/ refresh/ refine/ detonate & start over, because we learn by example and we get motivated by others’ success (when we aren’t bitterly envious of others’ successes haha). Email me at jodi at fourthousandmondays dot com, and share your rules/ tips/ hacks for making the most of your Mondays. (And the other days of the week too.) In the meantime… cheers to a swig of “grape” Gatorade.