This is an article by guest writer Mark Foo, author of The 77 Traits of Highly Successful People.
There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of chaos in your life. As Albert Einstein once stated, “Three rules of work: out of clutter find simplicity, from discord find harmony, in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Unexpected challenges are what make us stronger, so don’t avoid them. Keep in mind the following 50 tips and you’ll be able to streamline your life and get back on track in the New Year.
- Recycle old papers that are filling drawers in your house. If you’re anything like me, you have drawers overflowing with old receipts, junk mail, records, and notes to myself. Get rid of all of this. Invest in a paper shredder to reduce clutter and maintain privacy.
- Mentally prepare yourself for change by visualizing your ideal self. Who do you admire the most? How do you envision yourself in the future? Who do you want to be? Visualize yourself to be that person.
- Realize that unexpected events can be a good thing. As the Dalai Lama once said, “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
- Ask people you admire how they got where they are today. I’ve always admired my grandfather. Learning more about how he started up his business, dealt with difficulty throughout his life, and maintained grace throughout it all has helped me in my personal endeavors.
- Cut back on alcohol, cigarettes and other vices. These can be crutches that cloud judgment. The money saved by not purchasing or cutting back on this type of material can then be put into something rewarding such as a vacation.
- Remove elements of negativity from your life, be they people or a job you don’t want to do. If you have friends who are bringing you down, there’s no need to keep hanging out with them out of obligation. Cut your ties and cut your losses.
- Start each day with a clear to-do list along with your cup of morning coffee. Knowing what you need to do in the day ahead helps keep you on track.
- Clean your house from top to bottom and throw away anything outdated. Not only receipts, as mentioned above, but any old junk that should be donated to charity or sold in a garage sale.
- Institute a clear filing system for your personal records. Investing in a simple filing cabinet and folders with labels is something you don’t need a personal secretary for and makes your life much easier when you are looking for a specific item.
- Do your grocery shopping for the week on the day it’s most convenient. Make a list, budget, and get only what you need to save time and money.
- Take a career test that will help you identify your strengths. If you are unhappy with your career but don’t even know where to begin in the process of moving on, this can be a good way to identify strengths and new possibilities.
- Meet with a professional counselor if there are issues you need to discuss. Many people are struggling with dead weight from the past or emotional baggage that is holding them back. Deal with them and move on with professional assistance.
- Go through cabinets and throw out expired medications or food items. The last time I did this, I found everything from 3-year-old curry powder to 5-year-old aspirin. Throw them out.
- Make a clear diet plan with an emphasis on whole grains, fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet plan has a tremendous effect on your overall energy levels.
- Add vitamin pills to your daily diet. Vitamin supplements can help reduce the possibility of cancer and osteoporosis, among other disorders.
- Work out a clear exercise plan with an activity that you enjoy such as dancing or biking. My girlfriend loves yoga, and I am a soccer enthusiast. As long as it’s active, it counts.
- Set appointments you’ve been putting off. It’s easy to put off going to the doctor or dentist until we are sick, but preventive care is extremely important in overall health levels.
- Take up a mental exercise. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, or other word games along these lines are more than just a good way to pass time. They have been shown in studies to help improve overall mental capabilities.
- Publish your own book. This is easier than ever before with Internet publishing. You can get your ideas out there and start making money from them. I’ve published my own eBook, The 77 Traits of Highly Successful People, check it out.
- Make a reading list and join a book club. Most people state that they want to read more, but without an actual plan you may not make the time to do this. Joining a book club not only serves as a social activity but also keeps you up to date with your own reading list.
- Spend time with yourself each day. Susan Taylor states that “spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.”
- Practice breathing exercises or meditation. Stress can have an overarching effect on our overall productivity levels. When stressed, I personally forget to breathe at times. Take the time to take deep breaths and improve oxygen flow to the brain.
- Speak and act with honesty. Are you able to stand by what you do and say? If not, it may be time to reexamine your own words and learn to articulate your thoughts in an open, honest way. This helps eliminate mistakes down the road.
- Learn from past mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Usually, we make a lot of them during our lifetime. As long as they aren’t repeated too many times, and are looked at as a learning experience, they can in fact be a good thing in the long run.
- Volunteer to help others in your community. Helping others is a rewarding way to get your own life together.
- Take up a new language or hobby.
- Read inspirational biographies. For new ideas, find out how others got their lives in order.
- Talk to a stranger. Unplanned conversations can be surprisingly inspiring.
- Reconnect with friends and relatives who live far away. Call those people you miss but keep putting off calling. With the Internet and Skype at your disposal, even an online chat can help you reconnect.
- Change your toothbrush. It can be a hotbed of bacteria.
- Take more naps. Sleep is often sadly underrated in its ability to boost energy, mood, and keep reaction times sharp.
- Drink at least 6 cups of water per day. Staying hydrated helps keep energy levels up.
- Organize your photo collection. Get both digital files and physical printouts in albums. If you’re anything like my family, your photographs could be sadly sitting tucked away in shoeboxes in the closet, taking up space.
- Take an interest in art in your community. Visiting galleries can help introduce you to the artists in your community and help stimulate thinking.
- Join a hobbyist club. My friend decided to learn more about building model airplanes and was so deeply into it that he recently obtained his commercial pilot’s license. You never know where a simple hobby can lead you in life.
- Keep a calendar with commitments. Having a visual reminder in front of you can be extremely helpful. We are all different types of learners.
- Don’t put off difficult conversations. Deal with problems directly and immediately. This will result in a much lower level of anxiety for all involved.
- Make a list of priorities and do what makes you happy. If you have lost touch with your own priorities lately, it can be beneficial to take the time to sit and think about what actually makes you happy. Work toward achieving this as much as possible.
- Spend more time outdoors. Nature has an ability to help soothe a troubled mind and clear your thoughts. Taking a walk in the woods or climbing a mountain, at any level of difficulty, gives a sense of pride and accomplishment.
- Attend lectures. These could be science lectures or other types, but it’s helpful to keep up-to-date on what’s going on in the world and plan accordingly. Keeping the mind active helps you in all aspects of your daily life.
- Take the time to stretch muscles. Get a massage to improve muscle tone and circulation, then use this new energy and apply it to your work routine.
- Make laughter a priority. Hang out with some of your most entertaining friends for a good laugh, or simply sit back with some favorite old comedies. Laughter counts as exercise and has been shown to expand your life span.
- Clear some time each day to do nothing. As a child, I remember that we had “free time” scheduled into our school activities every day. This could be used for reading, drawing, or simply staring into space if that’s what we felt like doing. What a novel idea, and one that keeps the brain at ease.
- Schedule a much-needed vacation.
- Learn new tips for entertaining. You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to throw a great dinner party, and learning how to be a host or hostess with minimal effort can give a big boost to your confidence levels.
- Throw out old clothing that doesn’t fit. Too many of us are squeezing into outdated clothes that are doing us no favors. Look and feel your best with clothes that are tailored to fit.
- Live in the present, not the past. The past is over. Move on and enjoy every moment as it occurs. Take stock of what needs to be accomplished and move forward with this information.
- Learn from past mistakes and move forward with your life. Get your life in order by looking forward, not back.
- Get your car checked up. You go to the doctor to have your body checked up. Don’t wait until it is too late to perform maintenance on your car. I once got stuck on a road trip to Ipoh (Malaysia) as a result of this oversight, and it wasn’t pleasant.
- Budget for possible home repairs. Set aside some money in the proverbial cookie jar to keep home maintenance within the realm of possibility in this coming year.
Do you have a tip to help us get our lives in order? Please share in the comment section below!
About Mark Foo
Mark has brought together 48 personal development bloggers and writers to co-author The 77 Traits of Highly Successful People eBook that spells out all the secrets of very successful people. This eBook is available to you FREE. Grab your copy now at http://www.77SuccessTraits.com.
Excellent post. There are so many good ideas here that I think it would be smart to maybe pick 4 or 5 at a time and implement those each month. I think if you tried to do all of them at once you might find yourself overwhelmed. I always enjoy the content here at Litemind. Keep it coming
Hi Srinivas,
Thank you for your comment. Good to see you here. I agree you should just pick a couple of those listed and implement them each month so you don’t get overwhelmed. I never did them all at once but rather over time.
Cheers~
Mark
Thank You for this information is excellent!…
Hi Nancy,
I’m glad you like this post.
Cheers~
Mark
Some lists overwhelm me, especially when they are over 50 items, BUT this one inspired me. It wasn’t just another “50 things I have to start doing” but a “50 healthy reminders to help get me back on track.”
Thank you so much for this Luciano!
Hi Steven,
I’m glad this list inspires you. I certainly hope they can help you get your life in order once you start implementing them.
Cheers~
Mark
really cool list, easy & simple ways too.
thank you Luciano.
Hi Bestpublisher,
Thank you for the comment. A lot of the times, it is the simple things that are the most effective. I certainly hope you’ll implement some them and let them help you get your life in order.
Cheers~
Mark
Great list Mark. All things I use for myself or others but I have never collected them together. It is surprising how many there are. I especially liked the reminder about conversations with strangers.
Hi Alison,
Yes, I was surprised too after I made the list. I didn’t know whether I could complete this list when I started out. Sometimes, there are things in life you just don’t take note of until you start to put them down on paper.
Cheers~
Mark
“keep in mind these 50 tips”… are you kidding? Keep in mind where to find the link to refer to these 50 tips would be more helpful advice.
Hi Martin,
You’re right. So do remember to bookmark this page so that you can refer to it whenever you want.
Cheers~
Mark
Happy New Year everyone! (or maybe I should say “Happy Late Year!“)
Thanks Mark for the guest post!
As some people pointed out in privately to me, some of the tips here look like plain common sense. I agree — but that doesn’t weaken them at all as common sense doesn’t mean common practice. I’m sure everybody can take at least a couple of items we “already knew” and get inspired to actually do them starting now. I’m definitely one of these people.
Thanks for the tips, Mark — they are great reminders for this beginning of year and onward!
Hi Luciano,
Thank you for letting me do a guest post here! It’s been a real pleasure to interact with your readers.
I agree with you that common sense is not so common after all in these days. Sometimes, people just tend to focus too much on the “sophisticated” stuff that they forget about the equally important simple things. Just look at kids. They’re simple yet they’re happy. We have so much to learn from them.
Cheers~
Mark
Hey Mark thanks a tonne for giving these simple yet wonderful ideas.Actually we all know these things ourself but the problem comes in getting them listed and implemented.But the way you presented them they seem to be easy on implementaion now.Especially the point where you say scrap out people who all hold you back in you life.
Hi Prashant,
No worries. I’m glad you find these tips to be helpful. I agree it can be a problem implementing them as simple as they may be. But you don’t have to implement them all at once. I didn’t. Just implement 2-3 a day will be good enough.
Cheers~
Mark
I love the idea of making laughter a priority. Katie over at the Levity Project helps people tap into their laughter without humor. The feel good chemicals still release and give us a relaxed and enjoyable feelings.
My other favorite is spend time with yourself each day. I think this is very underrated in most people’s eyes. When we meditate, practice Yoga, or just go for a walk this gives us time to listen to our thoughts. By listening to our thoughts we can process the good and bad and make adjustments to help our happiness.
Hi Karl,
I’ve also recently heard the idea of laughing without depending on humor and was very intrigued by it (I believe I saw it on Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind).
Lauguing “without reason” feels stupid at first, but it does give us good feelings indeed!
Hi Karl,
Laughter without humor is completely new to me. I gotta check it out. It sounds really interesting.
As an introvert, I love spending time with myself. Not that I don’t like spending time with friends and family, but it is also a must for me to spend time alone. I like to read, watch TV, or take a walk along the beach when I spend time with myself. Taking a walk really helps to refresh my mind.
Cheers~
Mark
What a thorough list! You covered such a wide spectrum… and I’m impressed.
Removing negative people from my life was one of the hardest things I ever had to do on my journey towards joyful living. But I must say that the payoff is sweet.
> “You covered such a wide spectrum…”
That’s one of the things I liked most in Mark’s list: it has something for people in all “mastery levels” — from white to black belt. It’s hard to picture someone not benefiting from at least a few of the items in the list.
Hi Nea,
Thank you. I’m flattered that you’re impressed.
Removing negative people was also not easy for me. But like you, the payoff was sweet and I’m glad I did it.
Cheers~
Mark
Wow.. fantastic list! There’s plenty there I still need to do. Publishing a book is a biggy for me – this year for definite.
Hi Craig,
Publishing my eBook was a biggy for me, too. It came with a lot of challenges. But once you did it, the satisfaction and sense of achievement are beyond words.
Cheers~
Mark
“Three rules of work: out of clutter find simplicity, from discord find harmony, in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Yes. Often attributed to good old Al. However, I would be very interested to hear – from you – where, when and why he said it. Was it in some form of writing? Was it in a speech? – in public or in private?
Moving forward; What, exactly, does he (or whoever it is) mean by “work”? Oh, yes, exactly. You want to put this stuff in front of us, well, the very least you can do is explain what these words mean. Oh. Whilst we are about it – the biggest brain on the planet does not know that there exists a strange beast called a semi-colon? He uses a colon? Why?
Lastly, you will be glad to hear, Al was a German Jew.
English was certainly not his first language. No. Way down the list of his languages. Strange then, that he manages to stuff all of the following words into one paragraph;
Clutter, simplicity, discord, harmony, middle, difficulty and opportunity.
Really? I cannot imagine Einstein using a word like “clutter”. Or has this been translated from the original German? If so, by whom? When?
Redrags – and, yes, I do know that that is an anagram.
Malcolm
Hi Malcolm,
I’m afraid whatever you’re concerned with is not the focus of this article.
Cheers~
Mark
Knowing how to deal with our (thoughts) creates a lot of positive change in our life. Nice list you have here.
Hi Lou,
I’m glad you like the list here.
Cheers~
Mark
Great, great piece of writing here.
I made this one of my three links for the day on my “Other Thought for the Day” blog:
http://otherthoughtfortheday.b.....phone.html
All the best, Ted
Thank you for the link, Ted. Luciano and I would appreciate it.
Cheers~
Mark
Hi Mark,
I love this list. Keeping your life in order is a life long process! It’s so easy to be pulled away by “stuff” that doesn’t really serve us so well. I find the best way to keep my life in order is to constantly remind myself of my values and then strive to live my life in accordance with them. You have to ask yourself all the time, “Does this support my values?” My top five are serving, creating, learning, contributing, and interacting.
Best,
Barrie
Bloom Life and Career Coaching
Hi Barrie,
It is indeed a life long process. I greatly admire your values and the fact that you strive to live your life in accordance with them. I think this is extremely important in order to live in harmony with yourself.
Cheers~
Mark
Wonderfully insightful and I couldn’t have stumbled upon it at a better time quite literally! Will do some of these suggested things right now – Thank you for inspiring me – I am sure you will inspire others…chow ciao for now!
Hi Divaliscious,
I’m glad that this has inspired you and I certainly hope it will go on to inspire others.
Cheers~
Mark
I enjoy the list especially “Live in the present.”
Aha! And clear the paper in my drawers also
Hi SallyBeam,
It’s great to hear that you enjoyed the list.
Cheers~
Mark
very nice one luciano
Hi Mark, some good work you have put into this. I am still a big fan of the mega list posts and you are fast becoming a master at them
. Hope you and Luciano are doing well
Cutting back on alcohol is a great one because it gives you so much ental clarity in other areas that you can use. Great post.
Nice list – summary simplify, prioritize, remove the clutter in your life.
That’s a great way to summarize it. Judging by your comment, it seems you’re apply this advice already.
It is interesting to read different commentaries from different people. Among them all, let me choose the most obvious and most important at the same time: “common sense doesn’t mean common practice”, from Pasuello, the headmaster. Dale Carnegie’s books are full of commom sense, but, I’m afraid, little practised.
Great job there. My problem is there are so many I have to figure out how to organize them so I can get started working on them. Just kidding. Those tips are great.Thanks
Debbie
Haha, Debbie. I know you’re kidding, but that’s actually a problem many people face. My advice? Pick any one of them at random and do it.
Much better than bookmarking the page just to never find it again
Great list….thanks for this!
Really thank you for this amazing list and tips which helping me to have an organized life. Thanks again.
Awesome list! So much to apply here!
Mark, great content.
If I were to write a #51 for getting our lives in order, it would be to think carefully about where we live, and consider a move based on proximity to where we spend most our time, vs. proximity to where we wish we spent most our time.
Seems crazy that people will commute over an hour to / from work for five days a week, so that they can have a suburb/rural home that they don’t ever get to spend time in.
If people lived closer to where they work, they’d be able to spend more time with family in the morning and early evenings (increasing quality of life), and could take trips to parks and the rural areas in the weekend which could actually give them more doses of ‘nature’ and peace and quiet than they currently have.
be interested to know if others thinks this makes sense
I just came across this website while surfing yesterday and I am really impressed by content.
Right from the articles to posts, Everything seems so useful.
Great Work Mr. Luciano Passuello, i have become a fan, sent u an add req on facebook too, lol, just hoping u accept it…
keep up da gud work
Thanks Darshik, I am glad you enjoy the website. Keep in touch!
Such an amazing list of ways to make our life in order. No doubt that is someone will follow those tips, his/her life will be peaceful and in order. Thanks for sharing.