Today I want to talk about easy fixes. Specifically, small things you can do to quickly improve your quality of life in ways that may not be huge, but that will add up. With these tips, you’ll make your daily life easier and more efficient, resulting in less frustration and more time and energy.
As you’ll see, they’re all very practical and convenience-focused; even mundane. Let’s check them out!
Small Things that Will Quickly Improve Your Quality of Life
Note: This post contains referral links.
Get Comfortable Shoes Without Laces
90% of the time I wear loafer-type shoes without laces. Why? Because I can put them on and take them off without bending down and without needing to tie or untie laces. This will shave a few drudgery-filled minutes off your day and eliminate the inconvenience of having to bend down.
It’s not a big deal but a small, Kaizen-like improvement.
I’m especially partial to the Cole Haan brand since their shoes are well-priced and sneaker-ish in their comfort.
Have a Box Cutter in Your Home
Do you receive a lot of Amazon deliveries? The amount of boxes is insane, right? So stop cutting the tape with your keys and get a proper box cutter. This useful tool costs a few bucks, and will noticeably improve your quality of life.
Also, when you collapse the boxes for recycling or disposal, the box cutter will come very much in handy.
Set Your Phone on Vibrate – Permanently
A constantly ringing and pinging phone is one of the most annoying parts of modern life, right?!? You’re trying to relax and it’s all beep, bop, and that default ringtone you never changed – ugh.
The solution is simple: set your phone on vibrate, forever. You won’t miss anything (since it’ll still buzz), but you won’t have those pesky sounds every minute or two. Yes!
Improve Your Quality of Life by Getting a Minivan
I resisted this for years, and now I’m a minivan dad.
So I speak from experience: when it comes time to change your car, consider a minivan, especially if you have a family. They’re not beautiful or sexy, but they’re the most convenient vehicles you can get. Here are some reasons:
- The rear doors slide open. This is especially helpful in crowded parking lots.
- There’s abundant interior space, especially if you stow all the rear seats.
- The third-row seats are actually useful and comfortable.
We can fit seven adults and our toddler in our Honda Odyssey, plus her stroller and a full load of groceries in the trunk. There’s nothing like it!
If you hate minivans, here’s a good compromise for a two-car family: get the minivan, and then a cool car as your other vehicle. Makes sense, right?
Get a Wireless Charging Pad for Your Phone
Another cheap and easy improvement in your quality of life. If your phone supports wireless charging, use it by getting a wireless charging pad.
Why is this much better than just plugging it in? Because if you’re at all like me, you charge your phone at night, with a charging cable on your bedside table. The problem is that said cable will frequently end up on the floor or covered with objects, making you fish for it when you’re tired and just want to sleep.
With a charging pad, all you have to do is drop your phone on the pad. It’s a small improvement that makes a difference.
Since this isn’t an urgent purchase, I suggest you just buy a cheap pad on AliExpress. Mine took about a month to arrive, but it cost $4.50 (shipping included) and works great.
Switch to a Google Pixel Smartphone
I know, I know. There may be a learning curve. Still, Google Pixels are, in my opinion, probably the best and most convenient phones you can buy. Here are some reasons why:
Call Screening Comes Standard
Do you hate spam calls? So do I. With a Pixel, Google’s screening comes standard. That means that, when you get a call (any call), you can just press a button to transfer it to Google’s screening service, which will answer and ask the caller why they’re calling. Their response will be transcribed in real-time on your screen, and you can choose whether to accept or decline the call.
Improve Your Quality of Life with Radar
Pixels now come with radar chips that detect your presence when near the phone. Most usefully (for me at least) you can silence alarms simply by waving your hand over the phone.
This is great when your phone is on your bedside table and you want to snooze an alarm. Rather than having to grab the device and press a button, you can just rustle the air over it with one hand. This is much less disturbing to your groggy self!
Here’s a video on this neat feature:
You’ll have the Best Cameras
This is debatable, but many (including myself) consider Pixels to have the best smartphone cameras. This is especially valuable if you’re an Instagrammer or other content creator.
Let me show you. Here’s one of my best pictures, taken with a Pixel 4 and edited with Photoshop on mobile:
Always Have WD-40 at Home
WD-40 is one of those magical products you always need to have at home. Just a few sprays can fix lots of otherwise bothersome situations.
For example, I have an elliptical machine in my home gym that I use at least twice a week. Man, was that thing creaky!
So, the other day it dawned on me to try spraying the joints with WD-40. I did, and it worked! Five minutes of work silenced those creaks and made it run like new.
Use Pandora for Free Music
Maybe it’s just my opinion, but I think paid music services are a little overrated. Frankly, choosing a song or artist and having a music service automatically create a never-ending playlist is convenient and crazy useful.
That’s why I stopped paying for music and use the free, ad-supported Pandora. You can create these playlists, plus still get a limited number of skips. Try it – you might just like it more than you thought!
Improve Your Quality of Life with a Toilet Bidet
Kind of odd, but true. Post-poop toilet paper is not just annoying, but painful and abrasive.
What’s the solution? A toilet-integrated bidet such as a Toto Washlet. It may cost money, but it will improve your quality of life every single day since you’ll no longer have to scratch yourself every time you do number two.
Have an Electrical Drill/Screwdriver
We all need to screw something sooner or later. So, make your life a bit easier with an electric drill and/or screwdriver. It takes away the pain of having to manually screw and unscrew, and will come in handy more often than you anticipated.
Summing Up the Quality of Life Improvement
Not everything is about giant leaps and huge improvements. More often, I find that it’s all about making small changes that together add up.
Don’t have more frustration in your life than you need to. Try out these small things, and make your day-to-day better.
What small things do you recommend to improve your quality of life?
Great tips Miguel. I would not have thought of many of them you mention here, but they are all very true! Tom
Thanks, Tom! I’m always on the lookout for more 🙂
Great way to think. I’m always looking for little hacks and efficiencies to make life better and save more time for the more important things.
Thanks, same here! 🙂
Miguel, thanks for sharing these tips. It’s always the small things here and there that add up over time and make a difference.
I keep the sound on my phone off pretty much all the time – I don’t even have it on vibrate.
I simply receive too many robo and scam calls for even the actual “phone” part of the phone to be useful. If the message is important, they will leave a voicemail.