Quick Wins
Cheap, fast actions where the cost of not doing them is much higher than the cost of doing them. Most are one-time setups; the rest are annual checks or low-friction routines.
What counts as a Quick Win
- Trivial cost. Setup time under a couple of hours, ongoing time under 30 minutes per week (or annual maintenance). Money cost under $100 upfront, under $50 per year ongoing.
- Asymmetric payoff. The cost of not doing the intervention is much larger than the cost of doing it – usually because of a rare-but-catastrophic downside, or a compounding upside.
- Low regret. Almost no scenario where doing the intervention turns out to be a mistake. These are not optimisation choices; they're things any rational person would do if reminded.
Quick Wins live alongside the broader intervention database; they're a curated subset surfaced here because they're easy to overlook and easy to act on. Each links to the full intervention page for more detail.
One-time setups
Configure once, benefit indefinitely. The setup itself is the action; there's little or no ongoing maintenance.
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Automated Savings
Setting up automatic transfers from your main bank account to savings accounts on a fixed schedule – typically aligned with payday – so that saving happens by default without requiring...
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Eco-Friendly Cleaning Routine
Switching the household cleaning system from disposable, virgin-plastic, hot-wash, high-VOC products to a low-impact alternative – concentrated refillable cleaners (e.g. Blueland, Method refills, or any equivalent refill brand available locally),...
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Sleep Mask
Wearing a contoured, light-blocking eye mask during sleep to eliminate ambient light that suppresses melatonin and disrupts circadian signalling. A well-fitted mask blocks the great majority of light from streetlamps,...
Annual or rare checks
Calendar-anchored or once-a-year tasks. Catch drift, refresh equipment, surface gaps before they bite.
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Annual Insurance Review
Reviewing your insurance coverage – health, auto, home or renters, life, disability, umbrella – once per year to confirm that coverage still matches your current life circumstances and that you're...
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Annual Rent Negotiation
A specific, repeatable annual practice of negotiating rent at lease renewal time – using comparable listings, vacancy data for the building and area, your own tenure as a paying tenant,...
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Ensuring Smoke Alarms Are Working
A household maintenance practice consisting of three linked actions: testing every smoke alarm monthly by pressing the test button, replacing batteries annually on a fixed date, and confirming that alarms...
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Fire Extinguisher and CO Detector Check
Verifying that the household has at least one accessible fire extinguisher and at least one carbon-monoxide (CO) detector, and that both are functional. Fire extinguishers should be unexpired, fully charged...
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Identifying and Critically Assessing One's Values
A structured set of exercises for surfacing, ranking, and stress-testing the personal values that drive behaviour – covering tools such as the Schwartz Values Survey, the ACT Personal Values Card...
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Monthly Goal Review
A structured monthly session – typically 1.5–2 hours – for reviewing progress against all active goals, evaluating whether each remains worth pursuing, updating timelines and priorities, and planning the next...
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Phone and Notification Management
Aggressively curating digital inputs by disabling non-essential notifications, batching the remainder to 2–3 delivery windows per day, establishing phone-free periods (especially during focused work and before bed), and removing or...
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Preventive Health Screening
Following age-appropriate clinical screening guidelines to detect serious health conditions before symptoms appear – covering cancer screenings (colonoscopy, mammography, cervical smear, skin checks), metabolic screens (blood pressure, cholesterol, HbA1c for...
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Quarterly Relationship Check-In
A structured, recurring strategic conversation between romantic partners – typically held every three months, sometimes every six – using a defined agenda that explicitly covers shared values, life direction, finances,...
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Regular Blood and Plasma Donation
Scheduling 2–6 blood or plasma donations per year as a recurring practice rather than one-off events. Whole blood donation typically takes ~45 minutes (donation itself ~10 minutes, plus screening, refreshment,...
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Regular One-on-One Conversations
Scheduling recurring, uninterrupted one-on-one conversations with close friends or family members – typically monthly – with the explicit purpose of going beyond surface-level updates. Most people, even in long-standing close...
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Regularly Backing Up Digital Data
Setting up automated backups of your digital files – photos, documents, work, and system data – across at least two locations (one local, one cloud) using the 3-2-1 rule: three...
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Review and Cancel Unused Subscriptions
Auditing recurring subscriptions – streaming services, software-as-a-service, gym memberships, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, app subscriptions, mobile-data add-ons, cloud storage – and cancelling those you don't actively use. Most adults accumulate...
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Set Phone Medical ID and Emergency Contacts
Configuring the Medical ID and emergency contact features built into modern smartphones (iOS Health app's Medical ID, Android's Emergency Information / Personal safety apps) so that critical information – allergies,...
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Set Up Bill Autopay
Configuring automatic payment for recurring bills – utilities, credit cards, insurance, subscriptions, mortgage or rent – so each bill is paid in full on or before the due date without...
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Weekly Family Check-ins
A scheduled, recurring meeting of the immediate household – spouse or partner, children, and/or housemates – held the same day and time each week for 15–30 minutes, with a light...
Built into a routine
Low-friction daily or weekly habits that compound. Add them to an existing routine and they fade into the background.
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Alcohol Moderation or Abstinence Trial
A structured alcohol-free trial – typically 30 days (Dry January, Sober October) or 90 days for a deeper reset – followed by a deliberate decision about long-term consumption: continue abstinence,...
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Asking for Feedback
Deliberately and regularly soliciting honest, specific feedback from colleagues, friends, mentors, or managers about particular behaviours, outputs, or blind spots – rather than waiting passively for feedback to arrive, or...
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Buy-It-For-Life Purchasing
A purchasing principle of selecting durable, repairable, high-quality goods designed and expected to last decades, rather than cheap items destined for replacement on shorter cycles. Each candidate purchase is evaluated...
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Cold Exposure (Cold Showers)
Ending your daily shower with thirty to ninety seconds of cold water (around 10–15°C). Done daily, the cold burst kicks the body's stress response into gear and produces a surge...
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Daily Sunscreen
Applying broad-spectrum SPF 30+ sunscreen to all exposed skin – face, neck, and hands – every morning as part of a fixed routine, regardless of whether outdoor activity is planned....
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Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Turning on two-factor authentication (2FA) – ideally via an authenticator app such as Aegis, Authy, or a built-in OS authenticator – on the most consequential accounts: email, banking, financial brokerages,...
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Habit Stacking
Attaching a new desired behaviour to an existing established habit using the formula 'After I [current habit], I will [new habit]', leveraging reliable contextual triggers as anchors for new actions....
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Habit Tracking App
Daily logging of target habits in a dedicated tracking app – Streaks, Habitica, Way of Life, Loop, or a Notion habit tracker – to convert otherwise invisible behaviour into a...
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Implementation Intentions
A simple but heavily evidenced planning technique in which a person formulates explicit "if situation X arises, then I will do Y" plans in advance of the moment of action....
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Learning to Name Emotions Precisely
Systematically expanding your emotional vocabulary beyond basic labels – happy, sad, angry – to precise, context-specific terms such as apprehensive, melancholic, wistful, or affronted. The core skill, known as emotional...
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Memento Mori Practice
A regular contemplative practice on one's own mortality – sustained over months or years rather than encountered as a single confronting moment – designed to convert the abstract fact of...
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Setting Boundaries With Extended Family
A deliberate practice of identifying, communicating, and maintaining limits with extended family members – aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, grandparents – on time, topics, involvement, and access. The work is concrete:...
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Smartphone Greyscale and Home-Screen Minimalism
A display-level intervention that reduces a smartphone's pull on attention by switching the screen to greyscale (eliminating colour cues that drive habitual checking and engagement) and stripping the home screen...
Where this fits with the rest of the site
Quick Wins are a curated subset of the broader intervention database, surfaced together because they're easy to overlook. For a fuller picture of what's worth doing for you specifically, complete an Awareness assessment for the life areas you care about, or run the prioritisation survey to identify your binding focus area.