1. Incorporate short bursts of vigorous activity into your everyday life. This improves your overall wellbeing and counteracts the effects of being stationary. Emmanuel Stamatakis, a professor of physical activity and population health at the University of Sydney, suggests incorporating 30 to 60 second bursts of higher intensity activity several times a day, every day. “People who don’t like vigorous exertion can incorporate forms of moderate-intensity activity instead. Your heart rate will start racing at about 30 to 40 seconds, and you will ideally need to keep it up for about two to three minutes until you’re out of breath.” He suggests exerting yourself while stair climbing, grocery shopping or taking walking sprints.
2. Use half the recommended amount of laundry powder. It still results in a solid clean, according to tests by consumer group Choice. “We also suggest ditching the fabric softener, as it actually makes your towels less absorbent and can reduce the fire retardancy of your clothes,” says Matthew Steen, a white goods expert at Choice.
3. Have solar? “Use the timer on your appliances to run them during peak power generation while you’re at work,” Steen says.
4. Take the 4-45-3 approach to make your fitness goals stick, says personal trainer Drew Westfield, co-founder of Gript. That means four workouts a week at 45 minutes each, while reminding yourself “it is only 3% of your day or 1.7% of your overall week”, he says. “This is something I recommend to new clients or [those] struggling to meet their fitness goals.”
5. If you’d like to reduce your screen time this year, limit the time you spend on certain apps by using inbuilt digital wellbeing settings. These are available on iPhones and certain Android devices, and can help interrupt a doomscroll when your self-control is at its lowest.
6. Minimise your stash of cleaning products and clean with eucalyptus oil and dishwashing liquid. Eucalyptus oil is both antiseptic and antibacterial, says Tabitha Wellman, a home cleaner at Manhattan Maids. “A couple of squirts of dishwashing liquid with water in a spray bottle is brilliant for all surfaces, including marble, and you can use it on countertops, cooktops, sinks, glass and even floors,” she says. She also suggests skipping antibacterial wipes (a “con”) and using cleaning fluid directly on toilet paper to clean your toilet seat, lid and bowl. Then just flush when you’re done.
7. If you’ve got a simple medical issue, you can skip the wait for a GP appointment and see your pharmacist for prescriptions. You can get scripts for general UTIs, shingles, gastro, dermatitis and more, along with vaccinations for the flu, Covid-19, HPV, dTpa (tetanus) and whooping cough.
8. Practise box breathing, which enhances physical and mental wellbeing, reduces stress and can improve your long-term reactions to stressful situations.
9. If you have extras cover in your private health insurance, schedule time to squeeze in appointments for any benefits you have not claimed each year. “Most – but not all – private health insurers reset their extras limits on 1 January each year. Don’t forget to check any benefits your partner or kids may still have available to ensure you’re getting the most value out of your policy,” says iSelect’s general manager of health insurance, Andres Gutierrez.
10. Make like the wardrobe planner in 90s film Clueless and install an app that helps you track your wardrobe, such as Stylebook, Indyx, Acloset or new Australian app Dappa. Some of these apps help you dress faster by using AI to help create wardrobe inventory and retrieve outfit combinations. All of them help you track which clothes you actually own and wear, so you can save time and money by using what you already have in your closet and avoid new purchases that won’t match what you own.
11. Try the OHIO (Only Handle It Once) method if you’re overwhelmed by physical and digital clutter. Strategies that reduce the need for switching between tasks have been found to help improve focus for ADHD individuals, but the method can help anyone minimise the buildup of tasks that leads to fatigue and lack of focus.
12. When you’re travelling, avoid spilling liquid all over your suitcase or toiletries bag by switching to solids. Many products, including soaps, shampoos and conditioners, come in bar form and there are also solid perfumes, sunscreens and even foundation sticks. There have been significant improvements in these products lately and as a bonus, they typically require less plastic packaging.
13. If you see a therapist, ask them for worksheets or exercises you can do in between sessions to boost your mental health while spacing out the therapy bill, says Tammi Miller, counsellor and author of Paperback Therapy. It’s also worth checking whether your workplace has an employee assistance program in place that offers free counselling for employees.
14. Don’t scrimp on entertainment. Use your local library membership to access your favourite films and TV shows with hoopla Digital or Kanopy and audio and ebooks with Libby and My Borrow Box.
15. “Setting your air conditioner to arctic might seem like the best way to beat the heat, but it can blow out your energy bill and increase wear and tear on the air conditioner’s motor,” says Choice. Their experts recommend trying to keep the temperature difference to around 8C for maximum efficiency. So on a 32C day, set your air conditioner to around 24C.
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16. Use insulation strips around windows and under doors to regulate temperature in your home without turning on the air conditioning, experts at Choice suggest.
17. Dr Simone Boer, a neuroscientist and mindset coach, suggests choosing a theme for the year and thinking about how the year will play out. “The brain itself cannot discern what is real versus what is visualised, so when you think about the year ahead with a clear theme in mind, you’re essentially rehearsing success, training your brain to look for relevant cues and reinforcing the neural pathways that support those desired outcomes,” she says. “This will help you to filter out distractions, stay motivated, and remain aligned with what truly matters to you – leading to more meaningful progress.”
18. Note the dates of all your policy renewals and review them in advance, then reach out to other providers to get a better deal. “Providers often offer better rates or premiums to attract new customers than those available to existing customers,” says iSelect’s Sophie Ryan.
19. NRMA’s nationwide Fuel Finder, which offers real-time data of every service station, can help you fill up at the bottom of the fuel cycle when prices are “up to 30 to 40c cheaper”, according to Peter Khoury, an NRMA spokesperso. Don’t want to sign up? Download Petrol Spy instead.
20. Learn to tolerate negative thoughts by visualising them in a dog park, says Angelika von Sanden, trauma counsellor and author of Sit, Stay, Grow: How Dogs Can Help You Worry Less and Walk into a Better Future. “Let your thoughts be, just like you let dogs be in the dog park,” she says. “Step back, notice, observe and let them run wild. Not one of them has the power or the control to tell you what to do.”
21. Use the free and easy-to-use Australian Taxation Office super fund comparison tool to check your super fund’s performance and make sure you’re not paying excessive fees. You can also use the ATO to roll all your funds into your highest-performing account.
22. Find unclaimed cash that is owed to you through a simple search on MoneySmart. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) holds funds from unused bank accounts, shares, investments and life insurance policies. All you have to do is search your name to see if you’ve misplaced any money.
23. Learn a new hobby or skill with MakeShift, an organisation that offers “creative prescriptions” as a form of mental health first aid. Studies have shown that people who have and learn hobbies have “better health, more happiness, fewer symptoms of depression and higher life satisfaction”.
24. Get a $1 ticket to the zoo and a bunch of other deals and freebies on your birthday. You might have to register your email with them, but you can always unsubscribe (until the following year).
25. Strategically book annual leave around public holidays to get bigger blocks off work for less impact on your leave entitlement (think 50-plus days off for 20 days of leave).
