14 Elegant habits for a classy lifestyle

I had a customer the other day who did something that blew my mind. 

(I work retail part time in case you are new here)

She didn’t speak any English, so of course when I asked her for her phone number and email (for our store rewards program) she didn’t really understand. 

Then…

She reached into her bag and pulled out a laminated paper that had all of her basic information on it for situations like this.

Brilliant!

Out of all the non-English speaking customers that I’ve had, she was the most organized. 

That one simple thing that she did made my life (and hers) a lot easier!

It was at that moment that I became inspired to focus on simplifying my life so that I can live a more organized, elegant life.

This year I’ve decided to start new habits in addition to new goals. I want to have systems in place to continue living an elegant lifestyle that is also very simple.

Here are 11 habits that I’m doing this year for an elegant, organized lifestyle.

1.Tracking the money I don’t spend.

I think we can all agree that money plays a rather large role in our lives. I spend a lot of money in the last few months of the year and I want to start having better control of my spending habits.

Starting in January, I will be tracking the money I don’t spend. 

Yes, you read that right.

Every time I make it out of the store without purchasing something (or ordering something online) I will be placing a marble in a jar. I will also keep a record of the item that I almost purchased and how much I would have paid for it.

At the end of the month I’m going to total it up and see how much money I saved myself. Then I will transfer that into a savings account.

2.Creating better beauty routines.

In 2022 I created a cleaning schedule. Each day there is something different to clean so that I never feel overwhelmed with cleaning. It was one of the best ideas I’ve had in a long time. I never feel overwhelmed with managing my house. 

There are days where I do a deep clean, but for maintenance cleaning, this schedule was a game changer. 

I will be doing the same thing for my beauty routines as well. I will have two separate routines for haircare and skincare. There will be days for hair masks and exfoliation, there will also be days for low maintenance as well.

One of the things I’ve learned this year is that I need to give attention to individual parts of my body instead of looking at my body as a whole.

• What does my skin need?
• What does my hair need?
• How can I eat better?

3.Building a second brain

I read the book Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte in spring 2023. While I was already doing some of the things that were mentioned in the book, I realized that I could be doing it a lot better. 

In case you haven’t read the book, building a second brain is about taking all of your knowledge, thoughts, tasks, etc, and putting them all into one place that is searchable so you can access them at any given time. 

I love this system because I have information in so many different places in my life and I need one solid place to keep it all. I’m going to be using his systems to create the ultimate second brain that will help me organize all of my thoughts.

If you are curious about the second brain, definitely check out his book. It’s incredible.

4.Getting laser focused. 

I always make vision boards for my life every year and usually they consist of many different ideas and goals for my life. This year I decided that I’m only going to focus on 2-3 things in my life instead of trying to do too many. 

This way I can create more results because I am going to be laser focused on what I need to do instead of being all over the place.

5.Changing the way I consume my meals.

It has come to my attention that in Europe and some other parts of the world, the largest meal is eaten in the middle of the day and then a lighter meal is eaten at the end of the day.

This is honestly brilliant to me.

I’ve never liked the idea of eating the largest meal at the end of the day but I always did it because…that’s what we do. Right?

This year I’m going to experiment with eating my larger meals at lunch and see how my body feels with it. I’m learning that instead of doing things the way everyone else does them, I need to start doing things according to what my body needs.

6.Trying new makeup and hair looks.

For Black Friday this year I invested in some new hair tools and hair products. I’ve been growing my hair out for years and now that it is at the length that I wanted, it’s time to start styling it better.

I want to learn how to do braids and create beautiful long lasting curls. I will be putting my energy into practicing new hair and makeup looks this year.

7.Using focus mode on my phone and spending more time away from my phone.

I spend way too much time on my phone. I can’t help it. Everything I need is on my phone and I think that is true for most people. In 2024 I’m going to set certain times where my phone has to go on the phone stand that I ordered and I have to stay off of it for increments of an hour. 

8.Prioritizing slow living.

I am one of those people who knows that our most valuable resource is time. It is the one thing that we can never get back. Lately I want to stop being so busy and I want to slow down and enjoy the little moments in my life. 

9.Practicing elegant speech.

One of the hardest things to change when you are on an elegance journey is the way you speak. For years I had perfected the art of speaking elegantly, but lately I feel like I’m starting to slip back into my old ways. I will be trying my hardest to practice speech into my daily life.

10.Having a closing shift in my house.

Ever since I started working a retail job, I realized that all of the little tasks we do at work every day are designed to make the store run like a well oiled machine. We are unable to clock out at night until certain things are done. 

That is how I want to start treating my house. I want to have a closing routine each night where I spend 15 minutes doing the dishes, putting things away, and prepping the house for the next morning.

I’ve been seeing this slowly become a trend on tik tok, and I think it makes for a much better experience in the morning.

11. Having at least one life admin day per month.

I absolutely love life admin days. Normally it’s when I have a day off and I want to stay at home and relax. I also like to do my life admin days at the end of the month when I am doing my monthly reset routine. I take out my physical calendar as well as my icalendar and I double check all of the appointments and plans that I have coming up.

I also go through my budgeting app and make sure that all of my recent purchases are properly tagged and organized so that it’s easy to track everything at the end of the month when I’m reviewing my budget.

11. Scheduling mandatory days into my monthly calendar

During my life admin days I plan on scheduling certain days into my calendar each month. As I get older I’m realizing that I need to get a little more organized with how I spend my time. I need certain days scheduled into my calendar to make sure that I actually follow through with them.

Some ideas for mandatory days include

• A day with my parents
• A day where I don’t leave my house
• A spa day nails, hair, eyebrows, massage, acupressure, acupuncture.
• Day with my husband
• Family day (my husband and the girls)
• A day with my parents
• A day with my friends

12. Making more lists

I love lists. I currently have to do lists for different areas of my life, but I have found that I need to create more lists in order to stay organized. I use the reminders app in my iphone to keep track of my lists and It makes my life so much easier.

13. Becoming aware of the things that I actually need

I always make a grocery list before I go shopping. It helps me stay on track and get all of the things that I need.

This year I plan on making a general list of things I need that aren’t related to food. Clothes, gifts, household items and items that I want.

This way when I am shopping and I am tempted to purchase something I can refer to my list to determine if I actually need it or not.

14. Taking detailed notes on my health

I’ve had a specific health question that I’ve been meaning to ask my doctor about for the past…year or so. It’s nothing major, but something that I was curious about.

The last time I went to the doctor I completely forgot to ask about it. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I forgot to ask him!

I was very upset because obviously doctor visits can be costly and I would have to miss work to go again to ask him a questions that I could have asked when I was there.

To fix that, I plan on taking detailed notes about my health. Anytime something seems off, I’m going into my notes app and detailing everything I can about it.

The next time I get to my doctor, I will simply pull up my notes and ask any/all of the questions that I need. I will also be able to give him details if he asks any follow up questions.

Final thoughts

I was growing increasingly tired of seeing the same habit ideas all over the web. Drink more water, get sunshine every day, etc. I wanted to create some new habits that I’ve never tried before. Hopefully you are able to take inspiration from these habits and use them to level up your life.