101 Ways To Live Better: Spend Time With Family & Friends

Welcome to my 101 series, which explores 101 little things you can do to improve your day to day life, and the world, just a little bit.

Our eleventh post is: SPEND TIME WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

What is the number one thing that people regret on their deathbed? Not spending more time with family and friends. What is the number one indicator for overall life satisfaction and happiness? The quality of and individual’s connection with their family and friends. Why do unmarried men die much earlier than married ones? Because men rarely forge the bond with friends that women do. Single men die of loneliness. Baby animals, given all the warmth and food they need, still die without contact with a parent or surrogate. Human babies, denied affection, show ‘failure to thrive’ and may never learn to walk or talk or even crawl.

Humans are social. Without socialization, we suffer, we even die. However I hope no one reading this blog is at that end of the extreme. I hope you all have friends, if not families, who love you. This blog post isn’t about avoiding death though, its about making the most of the connections you do have with friends and family, so you, and they, live longer and happier lives.

Great connections are like amazing gardens. They don’t happen spontaneously. They require some degree of knowledge and planning, they start slow and ugly and build, with lots of care, time and effort, into something productive and beautiful. They may look effortless and natural, but that is part of the charm. Don’t be fooled, the people with great relationships with family and friends are working on them constantly.

The most important thing is to make time for people. Its a busy age. We all have a lot on. You need to prioritize the things, and people, that are most important to you and tend to those things first. Don’t cancel plans with people unless you are on death’s door. Keep your promises, be reliable, so people understand how much they mean to you.

You should also aim to have quality time. Don’t do the same thing, day in, day out. Go to different places, have new experiences, make time to talk, alone, without distractions or do things you can work as a team. Go beyond the superficial and forge connections that matter to you, in a way that matters to you.

It is also important to remember relationships go both ways. Have standards for people’s behavior. If you are the only one sustaining the friendship and putting effort in, its not really a friendship. You’re just a fan. You don’t have to tolerate that. Put effort into the people who put effort into you. Don’t be afraid to cut someone out of your life if they don’t treat you with love, respect and mutual enthusiasm. Trust me, the moment you stop wasting time on those people, people who are excited to spend time with you will come into your life.

Most importantly, remember this is about being happy around people you enjoy. Its not a mission. Its not a job. Its something you want to develop to be happier and live longer. Take joy in the times you spend with friend and family, be grateful you have them and one day look back on your life with joy.

101 Ways To Live Better: Donate

Welcome to my 101 series, which explores 101 little things you can do to improve your day to day life, and the world, just a little bit.

Our seventh post is: DONATE

There are lots of ways to give back to our community and one of them is donating. You don’t have to donate money, you can also donate time and things. So no matter who you are or what your situation is, you CAN donate something to your community.

People who commit regular acts of charity are, statistically speaking, happier, healthier and more social than people who don’t. However it is a little chicken or egg, are happy, healthy, more social people naturally more inclined to charity or does giving back to other people make you happier, healthier and more social?

I am inclined to say it works both ways. I, personally, have found I am a lot happier now than I was before and I came into charity grudgingly, almost against my will. Now I love it and the sense of satisfaction is reward in itself.

Give it a go and maybe you will reap the same benefits I did.

Donate Stuff:

If you are anything like me, you have a heap of ‘stuff’ you don’t need. Furniture, old toys, books, cutlery, tools, old computers. Just a lifetime of things that have been replaced or no longer needed. You may automatically think these should just be given to charity, but there are other ways to donate stuff that might be more rewarding. Animal shelters often need more towels, blankets, leads, collars, bowls, tupperware and other pet related things you may not need.

ESL classes, hospitals, school libraries, women’s shelters, etc may need books. There are a few charities that are specifically seeking to ship books to refugees and disadvantaged communities.

The same goes for your old prescription glasses, phones and some other odd things you would never even consider.

Unwanted clothes could go to charity stores, but they could also be used by fashion students, disaster relief agencies, or again, to animal shelters, depending on the fabric. (However the global fashion waste is HUGE, so as much as possible, cut down on buying new clothes and focus on having a small wardrobe of versatile, good quality items you can wear for years.)

If you have a garden, your excess seedlings and pups could go to schools or community gardens. Even just offering them for free collection on online sale sites can be a great way to give back to the community. If your garden or chickens produce a lot of excess and you have run out of friends and neighbors who want any, look up soup kitchens and community food pantries.

Donate Money:

I’m a Christian and I believe strongly in tithing. The first 10% of my income goes to charity. However as I am also passionate about conservation, and I don’t always think churches use their funds for the best possible causes, my tithing is done to no kill animal rescue shelters. I can’t think of a more godly, noble pursuit than dedicating your life to the care and rescue of animals.

You don’t have to call it tithing, or even make it ten percent of your income. However if you are a minimalist, you have extra income, and you are time poor, donating money to charities you believe in is a fantastic way to make a real, genuine difference to your community and the lives of people or animals who need you.

I recommend putting a little time into researching the charities you are donating to. Make sure you know their values—some of the better known religious affiliated charities are homophobic, transphobic or even racist.

I choose local, privately run charities that I can visit, that regularly update on a blog or facebook and that don’t pay for advertising. I can go out and visit them and I can see where my money is going. Usually directly into the feeding and medical care of animals.

Donate Time:

Time is money and if you can donate time and even your expertise to charities, that’s just as good as money. Maybe you don’t feel like you have the skills to help out at the charities you are passionate about. Maybe you want to help at a women’s shelter, but they prefer not to have men on the grounds. Or maybe you want to help a cat shelter, but you are severely allergic to cats. You can donate time in other ways. If, for example, you are a gardener, you can offer to donate your time to a raffle and make one of the prizes 20 hours of yard work. Maybe you have a van and can help make deliveries and pickups for a charity. Maybe you can cook for a soup kitchen or offer your time at an ESL class for refugees.

Decide what you are passionate about, and find as many charities in your area that cater to that passion, and email them with your details, skills, experience and availability. Ask if you can go and meet them and ask what areas they need help in.

All of these things really can make a positive difference in people’s (or animal’s) lives. Regardless of who you are, you can make a difference. And you will be glad you did.

101 Ways To Live Better: Organize Your Time

Welcome to my 101 series, which explores 101 little things you can do to improve your day to day life, and the world, just a little bit.

Our third post is: ORGANIZE YOUR TIME

I live and die by my day planner.

My day planner is a physical book. Its A5 and every day of the week has its own full page. None of that shared Saturday and Sunday crap. I get a hardcover, something robust. This year, its fake-leather bound. However, since it is something I am going to use every single day for an entire year, I want something that will 1) last and 2) that I will want to look at, handle and use every day.

You may have different tastes in day planners to me. Maybe you prefer a digital day planner or calendar app on your phone. I don’t think what you use matters, as long as it works for you and it is accessible, enjoyable and something you check regularly and don’t totally forget about. Feel free to try a few different things out. Don’t force yourself to keep using something you don’t like. There are lots of options.

Be consistent in writing in meetings, dates, birthdays, events and so on so you don’t forget things. Get in the habit of checking what you have to do tomorrow before you go to bed and check your day planner first thing in the morning so you don’t get flustered and forget something important.

If you really want to make the most of your time, the next step is to track what you do all day. For a week, or two weeks, stop every half hour and write down what you did over those 30 minutes. You might find you are wasting more time than you thought on things that are really not that important to you.

Is there something you really want to do or achieve but don’t have the time? Like writing a novel or reading more or learning to play and instrument? Did you do this exercise and realize you’re spending an hour and a half on youtube every day? There’s the time you needed.

There’s a lot of distractions in the world these days. Radio, TV, the internet. Let’s be honest, its mostly the internet. It used to be you had to be at a desk, at a computer, to access the internet. And even then, it was very slow and the content was limited. Now there are more videos on youtube than you could ever watch in your entire lifetime and you can access them all on your phone. And that is just a single website.

You are never going to run out of media to watch while you have a phone (or laptop) and a wifi signal. And if you are reading this, you probably have both of those things.

That is why these days it’s very important that we think about how we are using our time. That we choose how to spend our finite hours on the planet, and not just let ourselves be distracted by bright lights and loud noises.

As an added bonus, get a notebook right now and map out the hours you are awake. Perhaps two lines per hour and write down how you wish you spent your time every day. Compare this exercise with the earlier one, which mapped out how you actually spend your day. Adjust accordingly.