How the order half lives

Tiny habits built into a hectic day - laying out clothes for the week in advance, having one of three set breakfasts daily - can help carve precious time out for yourself. See why micro-efficiencies are popular, and how you could be using them wrong

- Sukanya Datta

Fashion influencer Taryn Hicks from Utah sets aside time every once in a while to tighten the shoelaces on all her sneakers, so she can slip them on without having to untie and retie the laces. “It helps me... just... run out the door,” she says, in a Reel on Instagram.

Life-hacks influencer Nishant Kasibhatla ‘from Singapore wears a white shirt in every video, so he never has to worry about picking the “right” outfit. When you have systems built around the little decisions, it makes life a lot easier, he says. “You can focus better and be more productive.”

Gabrielle Treanor, 50, a life coach from Wales and author of 1% Wellness Experiment: Micro-Gains to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day (2023), uses habit-stacking to make chores more seamless. “If you're putting off the five-minute breathwork, pair it with, say, walking the dog,” she says.

People who build micro-efficiencies into their day swear by their effectiveness, as well as the sense of accomplishment from getting multiple things done in one go.

Eating the same breakfast (or one of three fixed options) or dusting during advertising breaks (“20 minutes of cleaning without it feeling like a chore,” as one Redditor put it) lets one strike items off the to-do list without really having to do them. It's a bit like having a thoughtful valet, except the valet is you.

It used to be Presidents and corporate billionaires that had to think like this. Barack Obama (while in office) and Steve Jobs famously kept to a fixed set of outfits, in a fixed set of shades (suits in blue or grey; black turtleneck sweater with jeans) so they could minimise trivial decision-making.