14 Small Habits That Changed My Life

I don’t look at my phone before 9 am, I don’t drink alcohol, and I never stay up past 9 PM on the weekends. Why don’t I do these things? Well, certain habits, certain changes to my lifestyle have had such a monumental impact, such a positive change, that I can’t imagine a life not doing these these things.

Amazingly, these habits are mostly tiny, easy, and small habits that over time have compounded to some of the biggest changes in my life. Like becoming a doctor, getting half a million subscribers on YouTube, and even beating Larry David in a staring contest (true story).

In this article, I’m going to give you 14 small habits that changed my life that you could start today.

1. Clean up and Lay Out Every Night

Every night, I spend 10 minutes cleaning my apartment and laying out everything I need for tomorrow:

• A bulleted list of every thing I’ll do tomorrow on a post-it note
• My workout clothes, my work/day clothes, and my comfy clothes for when I come home
• The plates, cutlery, and pans for breakfast

Then, when I wake up the, there are no excuses. Past Zach was looking out for future Zach. I’ll have breakfast #1, workout, have breakfast #2, do work on personal projects, then get ready and go to work.

And the evidence supports this, even though it’s super simple, and only take 10 minutes, studies show that people who plan their day specifically and chronologically (what and when they will do the thing) are nearly 2x more likely to actually do that thing (if you want to nerd out this is called “protection motivation theory.”¹

Bonus: A weekly review has also been game-changing for me, for 20 minutes every Sunday, before I plan the next weeks food/clothing/daily tasks, I’ll journal on, “what went well,” “what went poorly,” and “how I’ve learned from last week and will implement what I learned this week.”

2. Setting an Hour Aside every Morning to work on personal projects

One of the most impactful changes has waking up early and spending one hour every morning on personal projects. And, the critical distinction is this is only working on something that could or will be “shipped” one day.

I don’t read any books, or watch any videos, I only work on creating or editing something that might be one day published. So working on YouTube scripts, editing videos, coding up a web app, or writing a newsletter.

When I was in medical school this is how I built my YouTube channel from zero to 100,000 subscribers in one year.

Bonus: My personal project hour must be completed before I look at my phone or email or anything. I also reward myself with a coffee during the hour of this time.

3. Having Exclusive Spots in My Apartment For Everything

To take advantage of classical conditioning I have a spot for:

• Working on YouTube stuff (desk 1)
• Working on Coding or random personal projects (desk 2)
• Work work (kitchen table chair 2)
• Sleeping (bed)
• Meditating (outside chair)
• Reading (Chaise lounge)
• Recording YouTube videos (desk 1)
• Eating (kitchen table chair 1)
• Relaxing and watching TV or playing video games or browsing my phone (Couch)

Every time I do one of these things in these locations, and only these things, I reinforce the neuronal connections in my brain to make it that much easier and more effective to do that specific thing in that specific place.

When I sit at desk 1 I know it’s YouTube work time. When I sit on my outside chair it’s meditation time.

Bonus: To level this up I’ll have a certain action I also take. Like a tea when I sit down at my work desk, or certain headphones when I go to my personal project desk (#2).

4. When I Feel Stuck I Walk Outside Without My Phone or Exercise

After sitting inside all day when working from home or even a lazy weekend day, I don’t know how to explain it, but I get this feeling of stuffiness. Brain fog, poor motivation, and anxiety.

When I feel this, my work is usually at around 10% efficiency, so for 60 minutes of working I may only actually work for 6 minutes. I try to watch out carefully for these moments and when I notice them I put down my phone, drink a huge thing of water, and go for a walk outside for at least 10 minutes, preferably 30 minutes.

There is evidence behind this, physical exercise, nature, sunlight, and a true break are magic for clearing the brain and giving me an opportunity to recharge.^2-4

Bonus: Sometimes if I really need energy, I’ll clean my space up before the walk, and then after the walk I’ll come back and take a cold shower before sitting back down with a nice cup of tea. This “resets” my energy without the need for coffee or energy drinks.

5. Using The Perfect Playlists for Everything

I have playlists for nearly every thing I do and even levels of things I do, again, this comes from my obsession with classical conditioning:

• Happy Wake Up Playlist
• Working
  • Level 1: Ambient
  • Level 2: Classical
  • Level 3: Aphex Twin
  • Level 4: Lo-Fi
  • Level 5: Epic Music (Movie Soundtracks)
  • Level 6: Trance Electronic
  • Level 7: House Electronic
• Weight Lifting
• Running
• Summer Driving Music
• Airplane Music

And the list goes on, I like curating these and editing these that simply make me happy when I am doing various life things.

Bonus: Again, I get very neurotic about this, but I’ll try to only listen to my weight lifting songs when weight lifting, or running songs when running. This is likely placebo but when, for example, I get one of my favorite running songs in my ear during a run I feel like I can run super fast and feel super strong.

6. Carrying around a Physical Notebook Everywhere

Whenever I go anywhere, as long as it’s not a purely social thing, I bring my notebook. When I travel, go to work, go to the library, a coffee shop, I always have it with me.

The freedom yet impossibility of distraction from it excites me every time I open it. Maybe I just want to journal. Maybe I want to dry and draw out a new website or idea I had. Maybe I want to create a habit tracker for next month.

When I would try to do this with fancy apps or computer things I inevitably get distracted and it just doesn’t feel as good.

I only have one notebook, a chronological notebook, and it helps me immensely.

Bonus: The notebook is where most of my “raw” ideas and thoughts go. The only other place “raw” ideas go is the things app on my phone. Every Sunday I’ll complete or convert my ToDos to my Apple Notes. I have another post about how Apple Notes organizes my entire life.

7. Exercising Hard in the Morning

There is something about tough exercise early in the morning. I mean the exercise that is so hard you can’t think about anything else while it’s happening. I get this from hot yoga sessions, training sessions with a personal trainer, hard group classes, or tough trail runs.

I am very lucky in the sense that my anxiety levels are relatively low and my mental health baseline, chemically, is pretty good. I get some anxiety occasionally, but, I find when I have these hard exercise mornings it’s not only impossible for me to be stressed at any point in the day but the whole day feels like I am on a cloud.

Evidence supports this, many people get the “runners high,” which is likely a release of Endocannabinoids and GABA which is that immediate feeling while the day-long feeling is from “Stress Inoculation” essentially getting my body used to high physical stress states (which releases the same chemicals and high mental stress states) allows me, mentally and physically, to handle stress states better.^5,6

Bonus: Combining this with a nature hike with friends, no phone, a great meal, a good book? These are the most magical days I’ve had in my recent memory.

8. Having Dedicated No-Phone time and Dedicated “Phone-Chat” Time

I try to not look at my phone before 9 AM because “life” has so many random things that really aren’t urgent and take away mental energy from me when I’m at my peak mental state.

In the morning I have the strongest focus and productivity so I don’t want to spend that time on emails or texts or paying taxes, I want to spend that time on personal projects or important work things.

The other thing I do is protect that time at all costs because of the power of deep work and flow states. Now, likely, I’ll have random conversations with friends, colleagues, or family and I love these chats but I don’t want to interrupt these flow states. So, instead, I’ll have a set time during the week (usually M-Thur from 2-5 PM) where I am ok with having these calls.

This helps me connect with the people I care about more frequently and because I have these set times it’s easier to connect consistently.

Bonus: I use Roots to “check” myself and block apps. I block pretty much everything on Sunday, from 5-9 am, and from 6-11 PM.

9. Stop drinking alcohol

I don’t drink alcohol. At all. Not even “just one glass of wine with dinner.”

I’ve never been that into alcohol, it upsets my stomach, it messes with my sleep, and most of it doesn’t taste good (I’m a simple person).

However, my main issue was that whenever I would want to drink just 1 drink, it is a slippery slope from peer pressure and the dampening of my prefrontal cortex. Also, it usually led to later nights, poorer sleep, and more money spent.

Now I can easily say, “I just don’t drink,” and it’s the end of the discussion. Compared to, “I only want to drink 1 drink.”

Now I’m about a year into no alcohol and I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back. I think I may go back to one glass of wine once or twice a week but not for a couple of years, I just feel so great right now!

Not to mention the research on alcohol’s effects on sleep, cancer risk, liver disease, and brain health at any amount.^7-9

Bonus: ordering “bitters and soda with a lime,” is the most “alcohol sounding” drink that tastes pretty good and has no crazy sugar. It’s really just sparkling water.

10. 10 Minutes Meditation After Morning Shower

Meditation was a near impossible habit for me to stick with until I used James Clear’s strategy of “Habit Stacking.” I always shower in the morning so that’s a solidified habit. To add a habit to it was simple and made meditation stick.

I use the Waking Up App from Sam Harris right now and do his daily 10-15 minute meditation.

Meditations benefits for me have dramatically outweighed the costs. For 10 minutes a day, it’s created clearer thinking, calmer interactions, and more happiness for most of the day.

Bonus: I’ll throw in some short exercises like farmer’s walks, hanging from a bar, jump rope, and stretching my calves, hips, and shoulders.

11. Reaching out to people who are where you want to be or are interested in learning about

I make sure to have one conversation with one person I’m interested in professionally once a week.

This has led to me becoming a doctor, creating a YouTube channel, landing my dream job, and optionality and connections I never thought I would have. But, more importantly, it’s taught me insane amounts about the options the world has to offer.

Most people never ask and many of my current mentors were from cold outreach. I chat to a few people monthly who were simply fans of my YouTube channel and reached out on my email.

Books like The Third Door, Shoe Dog, and Be 2.0 inspired me to do this.

Bonus: recently I’ve been trying to level this up with in-person meet ups. So far this seems like an exponential multiplier of interacting with new and interesting people.

12. 30 Minutes of Spontaneous Reading every Day

Here’s my rule: 30 minutes of reading every day, but I can read any book I want at any time.

I usually rotate between 4 books at a time, and at this time of the day, usually around 6 PM for me after my after-dinner walk, I’ll pick up whichever book is calling out to me.

Reading anything is better than reading nothing. And the issue I had is that I felt bad for not reading the book I “should” be reading. That guilt killed my reading habit.

Bonus: Check out my favorite book list here https://97books.zhighley.com/

13. Keeping my Phone in a Separate Room Always

My phone never sleeps in my bedroom. Evidence shows a phone anywhere in your bedroom reduces your quality and duration of sleep. The blue light, psychological presence, cognitive stimulation, and risk of interruption isn’t worth me messing with my sleep.^10,11

Bonus: Even during the day I keep my phone at one spot. Not by my desk but on a spot by the kitchen.

14. Consistent In-Bed Time and Out-of-Bed Time

Finally, saving the best for last, this is probably the most impactful and evidence-based habit on this entire list. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day.

My body’s circadian rhythm CRAVES consistency. This helps me establish strong neural pathways for sleep time and wake time making it that much easier to wake up and go to bed. Which leads to better alertness and better sleep and the positive feedback loop just keeps running.

Bonus: All unsponsored, my favorite things are: PHillips Wake-Up Light, Eight Sleep Pod (temperature regulation and “smart” alarm), nighttime routine and Phillips HUE lights turning orange, and a nighttime and morning routine.

Conclusion

These 14 habits aren’t magic pills. They’re not life hacks that promise overnight transformation. They’re simply small, consistent actions that compounded over years into a life I actually want to live.

The beautiful truth about the compound effect is this: you don’t need to overhaul your entire existence tomorrow. You don’t need perfect discipline or superhuman willpower. You just need to start with one tiny habit—maybe the easiest one on this list—and let time do the heavy lifting.

If you improve just 1% each day, you’ll end up 37 times better at the end of the year. That’s not motivational fluff. That’s quick mafs.

I didn’t become a doctor, build a YouTube channel to half a million subscribers, and redesign my entire life through heroic effort or extraordinary discipline. I did it through boring, repeated actions that most people would scroll past because they seem too simple to matter.

But simple doesn’t mean easy. And simple definitely doesn’t mean ineffective.

Start today. Pick one habit from this list—just one. Give it 30 days. Then add another. Then another.

In one year, you won’t recognize your life. In five years, you won’t recognize yourself.

The compound effect is already working in your life. The only question is: which direction is it taking you?

Work Cited

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3. Albulescu P, Macsinga I, Rusu A, Sulea C, Bodnaru A, Tulbure BT. “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLoS One. 2022 Aug 31;17(8):e0272460. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272460. PMID: 36044424; PMCID: PMC9432722.
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6. J. Fuss, J. Steinle, L. Bindila, M.K. Auer, H. Kirchherr, B. Lutz, & P. Gass, A runner’s high depends on cannabinoid receptors in mice, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (42) 13105-13108, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514996112 (2015).
7. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet#:~:text=The%20International%20Agency%20for%20Research,esophagus%2C%20and%20liver%20in%20people.
8. https://www.iarc.who.int/faq/iarc-handbooks-of-cancer-prevention-volume-20a-reduction-or-cessation-of-alcohol-consumption/#:~:text=In%201987%2C%20the%20IARC%20Monographs,and%20liver%20(hepatocellular%20carcinoma).
9. https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-alcohol-consumption-carries-significant-health-risks-and#:~:text=Ischemic%20stroke%2C%20intracerebral%20hemorrhage%2C%20ischemic,breast%20cancer%2C%20and%20liver%20cancer
10. https://www.sciencealert.com/screen-time-in-bed-may-increase-insomnia-odds-study-suggests#:~:text=In%20a%20new%20study%2C%20researchers,of%20total%20sleep%20per%20night.
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