1. Stretch. Stretch for 15 minutes every day helps you become more flexible. It will facilitate blood flow throughout your body. This flow will improve your overall health and improve your mental focus.
2. Read. Pick a time when you can read, without interruptions, for a solid 15 minutes each day. You’ll find that you’re able to get through certain books in a week or two, and you’re increasing your knowledge and mental capacity with minimal effort.
3. Run. Do a series of short sprints with intervals between running and resting. This is the best way to build up speed and increase your body’s capacity to utilize oxygen.
4. Calisthenics. This form of exercising involves sit-ups, push-ups, trunk twists, squats, chin-ups, etc., which basically means using your own body weight as resistance. It’s very effective to build muscle tone.
5. Sleep. This one is more useful during the middle of the day. If you have a set schedule, and you can conveniently fit a 15 minute nap, you can catch a second wind that will leave you feeling energized for the second half of your day.
6. Cook. This might not be enough time to make an extensive meal, but it is sufficient enough to put something together. Make yourself a sandwich, or get some leftovers together, so that you don’t have to eat out for lunch. You’ll save a lot of money using this method.
7. Write. Depending on your writing skill, you may be able to take a nice chunk out of writing a 50,000 word novel (it’s less than you think), over the span of a couple of years, if you use your 15 minutes a day wisely.
8. Talk (aka Listen). You can use your newly found time to build solid relationships with several people, or an even closer one with one special person. You can both look forward to these 15 minutes, whether in person or over the phone, and share your goals, dreams, and accomplishments with each other. If 15 minutes is too little time for you to talk then just listen to them for 15 minutes and they’ll love you for it.
9. Draw. You can use these 15 minutes to create several nice drawings, but more importantly it will sharpen your skill and give you a creative outlet.
10. Blog. In 15 minutes you can craft and publish some witty commentary or useful information about a breaking topic that your readers would truly appreciate.
11. Journal. Taking just 15 minutes a day to write down how you feel, what you learned, and what you want out of life will help you track where you’ve been and where you want to go.
12. Visit nature. Bask in the beauty and serenity that nature has selflessly provided us with. Go to a forest, park, or simply sit under a tree, and do nothing, read a book, or chat with a friend.
13. Meditate. The research is in, and there’s no doubt that stress is a killer. Meditation is one of the very best ways to relieve stress, and it has many other benefits as well.
14. Organize. In 15 minute bursts there is a lot you can do to organize your life. You can clean a table top, the desktop on your computer, your bookshelf, organize your clothes, vacuum your house, bathroom, kitchen, etc.
15. Plan. Spend 15 minutes planning out your day, or week. By spending time planning every single day you’ll end up saving hours by remembering the right supplies, making special arrangements, and cutting out unnecessary steps. Planning makes a difference.
16. Network. Whether it’s for your job, or some kind of recreational endeavor, you can use your 15 minutes to network and make friends. You can do this by using twitter, or creating a template e-mail and searching out new people to contact with it. Even if you contact 5 people a day, that’s 1825 potential contacts over the year. That’s just the point, it adds up.
17. Research. With Google at your fingertips you can find out some very useful information about your health, hobby, career, or some way to improve your life.
18. Play catch. It’s great exercise, it’s relaxing yet invigorating, and a great opportunity to talk and bond.
19. Eat slowly. Do not treat eating as one of life’s little inconveniences. Instead, eat slowly and enjoy each bite as if it were your last, and if it were, know that you got the most out of it by using an extra 15 minutes to extract pleasure from each morsel of food.
20. Self-improvement. Take 15 minutes a day to read some articles by your favorite writers who compress massive amounts of information into practical, easy to read, and very informative articles.
*For more information on these tips visit: Pick The Brain
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