The key to change your life for the better is to make better use of time.
You do not need to make a huge leap to transform life for improved living, but a mindset to use time wisely. Instead of reading pointless BuzzFeed articles, you can spend time reading personal development books. Some simple tweaks in daily routine may result in a huge change in your life.
In this article, you’ll learn TEN 10-minute habits that will help you to change your life for the better. Through these small habits, you can start building better habits, and become physically and mentally stronger day by day. Over a year, you can see many positive changes in your life that you may not imagine before.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Lao Tzu
1.Take a deep breath
Every day we take thousands of breaths unconsciously to live. Fresh oxygen passes to the blood and carbon dioxide releases from the body through the breathing process.
However, deep breathing is a mindful practice that offers more health benefits than helping the body to live. Through deep breathing, more oxygen enters into our bloodstream and reaches to our brain.
It works as a natural remedy for various problems of our body and mind. It helps our body to combat stress and anxiety, reduces blood pressure, improves digestion, detoxifies the body, and improves the immunity system and many more. Deep breathing process takes only 10 minutes a day, but do wonder on body and mind.
To get started with deep breathing – sit comfortably and straightly, inhale and exhale slowly and gently. This is the general way of deep breathing. There are more deep breathing techniques, and you can try each one to see which one gives you a better feeling of calm.
Recommended Resource: 6 Breathing Exercises That Can Help You Relax in 10 Minutes or Less
2. Sun salutation
If you don’t have time to exercise for an hour, the sun salutation is a great way to start your day energized. Each round of sun salutation is made up of 12 different asanas which involve various vertebral movements to the spinal column.
Studies have shown that it takes approximately 3 minutes and 40 seconds to complete one round. However, it could be done in a slow and fast pace.
A 10-minutes practice at a faster pace can be a good exercise for the cardiovascular system. On the other hand, a slower-paced practice is good to increase mental ability.
Learn the steps from this YouTube video: Guide to Suryanamaskara | The Art of Balance | Shilpa Shetty Kundra 
Every day, this 10-minutes habit of sun salutation practice will help you improve your physical and mental health. And you’ll feel energized throughout the day. Here are some of the benefits included –
- Lose weight and belly fat,
- Decreases blood sugar level
- Improves flexibility of joints and muscles,
- Helps the digestive system function better
- Solves Irregular menstrual cycle problem,
- Helps to cope with stress, anxiety, and insomnia,
- Detoxifies the body and gives glowing skin
As a beginner, you can start with four to six rounds of sun salutations and increase one round each week. Gradually, you can increase it to 12 rounds at a moderate pace.
Recommended Resource: How to do the 12 Poses of Surya Namaskaram / Sun Salutation
3. Meditation
This is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Thousands of studies have shown that meditation has a positive impact on mental and physical health.
Meditation helps us to move past the tensions of the day. It allows us to pause whenever we feel overwhelmed and anxious. And let us experience a sense of calm and clarity.
Many of us find it difficult to manage 10-minutes for meditation. But we forget that our mind is the most valuable resource for our life, and taking good care of the mind should be our top priority.
Mindfulness practice is the best way for mental well-being, and it develops the ability to enjoy the feeling of presence.
To experience joy and benefits of meditation you can start with a 10-minute guided meditation track. Here is how to get started –
1. Find a quiet place (where no one will disturb you for 10 minutes),
2. Sit comfortably,
3. Take a few deep breaths,
4. Play a guided meditation track and follow its instructions.
Here are five 10-minute guided meditation tracks
4. Read books
Reading is one of the best habits that you can put into your life. This habit offers a lot of benefits beyond gaining only knowledge. Researchers have found that people who read regularly possess a more complex brain than those who don’t read.
Reading habit improves memory and sleep, reduces stress and develops analytical thinking ability. Regular reading helps delay cognitive decay in old age and keeps brain well-functioning in that age.
Words and sentences that you read stay in your head as information and the knowledge may come in handy whenever you face any challenge that is associated with that information.
The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to overcome any challenge you face in life.
10 minutes a day equals to 5 hours a month. If you read 5 pages in 10 minutes you can finish 150 pages in a month which is the equivalent of a medium-sized book.
Now, what to read? You can read anything that goes to your interest and curiosity. It could be a half a chapter of a book, an article or editorial, a self-help book or a mystery novel. Read something that enriches you. Especially, the books that will help to be better in your life or whatever you are trying to be good at in life.
5. Listen to TED Talks
You probably already know about TED Talks, but pay little interest in this. TED is devoted to spreading ideas that cover almost every possible topic – from cooking to zero waste and atoms to manifestation.
Most of the TED speakers are industry leaders, and the lectures are short (usually 18 minutes or less) and powerful that will open your mind. Even you may find truly inspiring and life-changing lectures here.
Recommended resource: 11 must-see TED Talks
6. Complete reading one book in Blinkist
Blinkist is awesome, where you can listen to the summaries of nonfiction books. The text version of the summaries is also available there. The advantage of using this app is that you can get key ideas of a book in 15 minutes.
The summery of a book will save you time and money. A summary will help you to decide whether you should read the whole book or not. Some of the books may not go to your interest and worth your time.
Therefore, through Blinkist, you can decide about your next book to read. Every day you can read one book within 10 to 15 minutes and that is 30 books a month. You can enrich yourself with the key ideas of those 30 books. There are thousands of bestselling nonfiction books in the Blinkist library and each month 40 new book summaries are added in the library.
The cost is a lot less than buying actual books, which is a monthly $7.49. In the free plan, every day you will get access to the summary of one pre-selected book to read and to listen.
Recommended tool: Blinkist App
7. Learn a new skill
Learning is one of the best ways to utilize your spare time. People who embrace learning, get success easily.
We all know that Knowledge is power. Continuous learning is an indispensable tool to grow and sustain in a career. It allows you to be up-to-date and relevant in your industry. It also boosts your confidence and opens the doors to better opportunities.
At present, knowledge is now at our fingertips. There are hundreds of resources around us and the resources are available in different forms – text, visual and auditory. Here are some of the ways to learn something new every day –
- Read books or ebooks or listen to audiobooks
- Read industry-related blogs or magazines
- Listen to podcasts or TED videos
- Become a member of an association that is related to your work,
- Go to the library
- Try MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) or online courses
However, don’t be overwhelmed with all of the resources. Allot 10 to 20 minutes a day to learn a skill or language. Make a list of the skills you want to learn and make a plan to learn the skills one by one.
10 minutes a day equals to 5 hours a month. There are hundreds of courses available online that requires 5 hours to complete. For example, the following course requires 4.5 hours to finish the course.
Ninja Writing: The Four Levels Of Writing Mastery
End of the month you will complete a course like this.
8. Plan your day in advance
The key to a productive day is planning in advance. Planning will help you to use your time effectively.
A good plan will allow you to be aware of the things that are coming up tomorrow. It is recommended to plan for tomorrow. If you have 10 minutes in hand, utilize it to plan your day in advance. Here are the simple steps to get started for planning –
Step 1: Take a pen and a piece of paper. Make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish.
Step 2: Pick the three tasks from the list that you want to do the next day. Prioritize high-valued and important things over the other tasks from the list.
Step 3: Consider your regular and self-care activities. Don’t forget to block off times for regular tasks that you can’t avoid to do – exercise, replying to mail, making a phone call to a client, etc.
Step 4: Plan everything into the 24-hour time slots of a day. Put those three tasks into the schedule along with your regular to-dos. And don’t forget to include travel time and waiting time in the schedule.
This method is the simplest way to plan a day and it is good for a beginner. Advanced planners use tools to plan a day.
There are many to-do list apps available online. The tools are handy because you can access your to-do list from multiple devices and sync the list across the devices. Even you can plan on the go without the need for a pen and paper.
Recommended tool: Todoist App
9. Track the progress of your life
Got another 10 minutes?
Relax with a cup of coffee and spend some time reflecting the day. How better you are doing in your life. What is the goal of your life and what is your progress towards the goal.
Throughout the day, you are checking phone or emails, replying to text messages and remaining busy with other activities. Not all activities have the same value. By reflecting a day, you’ll identify the time-wasting and high-valued tasks of the day. This will help you plan your schedule aligning the goal.
Many people prefer to reflect through writing a journal. If you don’t want to bother with pen and paper, you can do this simply by sitting with a cup of tea or coffee and spending time thinking about your progress and what to do next.
Recommended resource: How to Reflect: 9 Steps (with Pictures)
10. Declutter and organize
Though clutter is associated with physical objects, it has a profound impact on our brain. It affects negatively on our mood and self-esteem, increases stress level, decreases productivity, and even results in bad quality sleep.
So many things can be improved in your life if you develop a habit of decluttering and organizing. Just 10 minutes a day can make a huge difference in your productivity and in your work or living space.
Usually, people prefer to do it on weekends or on holidays. Lots of things pile up by those days and it takes hours in decluttering or organizing.
A 10-minute habit can save those hours on holiday and you can enjoy the day with family. Here are three (or anyone) things you can do in 10 minutes to declutter your living space or workspace.
1. Sort and toss garbage items. Packaging, broken bits, expired coupons, empty bottles, a dried-up glue land any unused stuff throw to bin whenever you see. And develop a habit to do this instantly.
2. Keep al stuff in the right place. Sort the non-kitchen items that belong to another room, and move them out of the kitchen. Similarly, move toys from drawing room to the kids’ room, and tools from the kitchen to garage.
3. Keep the living room tidy by squaring up reading materials and paper piles. Avoid eating in the living room. Plates, glasses, and packages won’t pile up in the room if you don’t eat in the living room.
Bonus Tip: Speak to a friend or a relative
These days, there are many communication channels available online – messenger, IMs, Facebook, etc. Technology saves our time and energy, but is it good to save our relationship? Some relationships demand face to face conversation or a phone call. There have some friends or relatives with whom you haven’t talked to in a while.
Don’t hide yourself behind a computer screen. Spend 10 minutes to connect with those friends or relatives or your loved ones. You’ll feel good by doing this, and it will strengthen your relationship with those persons.
How to manage time to apply 10-minute habits to change your life for the better
Now you’ve got the idea about how to utilize 10-minute chunks effectively and make life better. It is time to find ways to save time to spend 10 minutes on any of the things listed above.
- Be judicious about spending time on TV or Netflix or YouTube. Stop watching the programs that won’t add value in your life or enrich you mentally.
- Avoid checking Facebook 25 times a day. Do the same with other social media and even with email.
- Don’t waste your time viewing funny images online or funny clips on TikTok. You time more valuable than these foolish things.
- Avoid gossiping friends and colleagues. Be a part of a positive group that helps people grow intellectually.
- Learn the ways to improve time management skills and save time to do high-value tasks in a day.
To sum up
There are 10 x 10 = 100 minutes, which is around 1.5 hours – 2 hours. Many people unconsciously spend this time scrolling down facebook feed or watching YouTube. If you want to transform your life, you need to be conscious about spending time. If you practice 5 to 6 out of the 10 habits stated above, you can change your life for the better and make life more meaningful.
Now we’ve reached the end of the post. Let us know about your 10-minute habit in the comment section. Share your idea or suggestion regarding good habits. We’d love to learn from you.
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