12 ways to reduce friction and reclaim your life

No is a complete sentence. It doesn't require explanation, apology, or softening. Every time you say yes to something that drains you, you're saying no to something that sustains you.

• Pause before agreeing to anything. "Let me check and come back to you" is a legitimate response.
• Notice the feeling in your body when you're asked something. Dread is information.
• Say no to one small thing this week without explaining why. Notice what happens.

Because it is. Sleep deprivation is cumulative and catastrophic for nervous system regulation, decision-making, and emotional resilience. The late nights that feel like your only "alone time" are often borrowed time — paid back with interest the next day.

• Set a wind-down alarm 45 minutes before you want to be asleep — not in bed, asleep.
• Leave your phone outside the bedroom. A cheap alarm clock costs £8.
• If the evenings feel like the only time you get to yourself, the real question is what you need to remove from your days — not how to steal more night.

Visual clutter is cognitive friction. Every unfinished thing you can see is a small, persistent tax on your attention. You don't need to declutter everything — just one space that matters.

• Your desk, your kitchen counter, your car — wherever you spend the most time.
• Spend 20 minutes, not a whole weekend.
• The goal isn't minimalist perfection. It's one fewer thing pulling at your attention.

News and social media are designed to be compelling, not nourishing. The business model depends on your emotional activation. You are allowed to opt out — partially or entirely.

• Notice how you feel after consuming content. That's your data, not your opinion.
• Set app timers. Not because you lack discipline, but because the apps are engineered to override it.
• No screens for the first 30 minutes of your morning. See what changes.

Decision fatigue is real. By midday, many women have already made hundreds of micro-decisions — and the quality of every subsequent decision quietly degrades. The fix isn't willpower. It's reducing the number of decisions required.

• Batch decisions: plan the week's meals on Sunday, not at 5pm when everyone is hungry.
• Create defaults for recurring low-stakes choices — same breakfast, same gym day, same answer to "what do you want to do tonight?"
• Identify the one decision causing the most background stress and address it directly.

The exhausting pursuit of approval from people who are not paying attention to you anyway is one of the most expensive energy leaks there is. The resentment that follows when you don't get the reaction you hoped for costs you twice — once in effort, once in disappointment.

• Notice when you're doing something to be noticed rather than because it matters.
• Get curious about what you actually needed in that moment — and whether you can give it to yourself.
• Verbalise what you need from others rather than performing your way towards it.

Connection is not a luxury. It is a biological need. But not all connection is equal — some people leave you more depleted than before. Be discerning about whose company you actually seek out.

• Think of one person who leaves you feeling lighter after you see them. Message them today.
• Notice which relationships consistently require more than they return.
• You don't have to end relationships — you can simply redirect your energy.

Exercise marketed as transformation, weight loss, or discipline is friction-generating. Movement that makes you feel better — that you actually look forward to — is friction-reducing. They are not the same thing.

• Ask yourself: what movement would I do if there were no aesthetic outcome attached to it?
• A 20-minute walk is not a consolation prize. It regulates the nervous system, improves mood, and generates real recovery.
• Start there. Build from what you'll actually do.

Some commitments, relationships, habits, and ways of showing up once made sense. They may not anymore. The friction of maintaining something past its useful life is significant — and often invisible because "this is just how things are."

• Ask: if this weren't already in my life, would I choose it today?
• If the answer is no — that's information worth sitting with.
• Letting go is not failure. It's editing.

Scrolling is not rest. Watching TV is not always rest. Rest is the deliberate removal of demand from your nervous system. Most of us are chronically under-rested despite spending hours in apparent leisure — because our leisure is still full of stimulation and low-grade stress.

• Try 10 minutes of genuine nothing — no phone, no podcast, no input.
• Notice how uncomfortable that is. That discomfort is data.
• Real rest is restorative. If you don't feel better after it, it wasn't rest.

Burnout is often sustained by internalised beliefs about productivity, worth, and achievement. The belief that you haven't done enough, aren't enough, won't be enough until you achieve the next thing — this is a system that has no end state. Choosing "enough" is a radical act.

• At the end of today, list three things that happened that were sufficient. Not exceptional. Just enough.
• Notice the resistance that comes up. That's the belief system talking.
• Practice asking: what would be enough today? Then stop there.

Sometimes the friction isn't in how you manage your life — it's in the structure of your life itself. The job, the living situation, the relationship dynamic, the way your work is set up. Coping strategies only go so far when the underlying structure is unsustainable.

• Ask yourself honestly: am I managing a difficult season, or is this the default setting?
• If this is the default — what would need to change structurally for it to be different?
• Structural change is slower and harder. It's also often the only thing that actually works.