Shadowing Practice: 10 Minimalist Habits to Start in 2026 - Learn English Speaking with Video

I never set out to be a minimalist.

I'm just a mom in her 30s who got tired of feeling

so overwhelmed by the clutter and stressed by the never-ending housework.

I started decluttering seriously almost three years ago and it's changed my life.

My home is much more minimal than it used to be

and it's these tiny minimalism rules I've tried that have made a huge difference.

This is not about being perfect or being strict, but I think these little rules and methods can really help you change your home and your life.

So take what's useful for you from this list.

The 22nd rule.

This is a rule from the book The Happiness Advantage by Sean Acor.

Am I pronouncing that right?

When we want to change something about our homes or our lives, what we need to look at is the habits behind those things.

The 22nd rule is where we try to eliminate the number of steps between us and the good habit.

And we try to add more steps in between us and a bad habit.

This has been life-changing for me

because it really opened my eye to how making it really convenient to do the things that I want to do, the good habits that I want to follow,

it actually makes things so much easier and I don't have to rely

so much on that discipline or that willpower because especially when you're a busy mom or a tired mom, maybe you haven't slept through the night,

your willpower and your discipline levels are going to be this low.

And so that's something I can't really rely on some days.

but this method really helped me kind of flip a switch in my brain

so I know this for myself if I'm trying to reduce drinking Pepsi

or you know having junk food or things like that

if I have it in the house I am almost certain

that I'm gonna eat that especially on the days where I feel low

or I'm you know kind of low mood or low energy that's

when my willpower will be at a zero

and I will just resort to those things whereas

if I just don't have them in the house then the number of steps in between me

and having that junk food is greatly increased right

because I would need to physically go to the shop to buy

that junk food so I know this is such a basic thing

but it really helps if it's not in my house I'm not gonna eat it

and we can apply this to so many things

that we want to achieve in our lives so

if I can make setting up to film a YouTube video

that much easier so you know simplifying that process

and not make it take too long then I'm much more likely to actually do it.

If I'm trying to tidy and keep a clutter-free house and I already have those little systems in place, like I already have the bins and I know where everything goes,

then I'm reducing the number of steps between me

and actually tidying my house because it only takes a few minutes to do that.

I already know where everything goes and so when I simplified things like this, it honestly improved so many different areas of my life.

Putting my phone away more is something that's actually very hard to do.

And I think for a lot of us, we do get very used to having that phone with us all the time.

And it's something we rely on every single time we get bored or, you know, when we have time to kill.

And I know for myself, if I'm like waiting in the car for my kids to

come out of school I am very likely to go on my phone

and I have started realizing more

and more how much it's kind of affecting my mood my motivation

and I am just trying to put it away more I don't want to be on my phone

that much and it's hard and maybe I'll let you know along the way

if I learn any tricks that really help me do this

but just being aware of the fact that getting my phone out

and scrolling for 30 minutes means my dopamine is gonna spike

and then instantly crash very very low after I put my phone down making me feel even worse than

when I first started scrolling.

I learned that in the dose book by TJ Power and that's something that's really opened my eye.

How much I actually go on my phone

and putting my phone down is even harder because social media is my job like this is what I do.

I do think there's a difference between scrolling with intention you know like getting content ideas

or seeing what's trending what's working on social media versus just scrolling for the sake of scrolling.

The north row is one of my favorites because it's

so simple to remember and it's something I try to do throughout the day

and it's something that's kind of rubbed off on other family members.

Whenever I go north I bring something that belongs north with me.

What does that even mean?

If I'm in the living room

and I'm now going to the kitchen I'm gonna look around

and see are there any bottles

that need to be taken to the kitchen are there any mugs any rubbish

that needs to be taken to the bin

if I'm going upstairs I will look around to see

if there are you know pajamas from this morning

that need to be taken upstairs things like

that it doesn't sound like much but when you start doing this consistently

and you do it throughout the day it kind of becomes

a bit second nature like I don't even think about it

that much I just do it and what it means is

that things don't pile up yes there will be messes but

because we do this constantly throughout the day it means things

generally don't get too overwhelming upgrade less this is very hard to do these days

because you do see a lot of people upgrading their stuff

whether it's their phone their car a new macbook it can feel like

if you're not doing that you are behind

or you're not doing great in life where in reality

that is just not true i know recently there was

that new iphone that came out it ended

and i think especially as a content creator I did start having these thoughts of should I upgrade

that made me less of a content creator

if I don't have the latest one and then I realized

that is so silly I do not need the new iPhone

or the newest technology to create videos yes there's a time

and place for upgrading when you do have the budget

or you know when you're ready for it

but I don't feel like it's necessary I used to create

all of my Instagram videos on an old iPhone it was one of those iPhones

xs wait no that's a clothing size iphone se and

that old iphone got me to over 100k instagram followers i did upgrade at some point

but it wasn't the latest iphone it was one a few generations ago just

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because there were a few features i wanted like the wide angle shot i also have my macbook

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that i'm editing all of my videos on and creating all of my content on.

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That is like eight years old maybe.

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It still works fine so unless it actually broke and it doesn't work anymore, I'm gonna keep using it.

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I think upgrading for the sake of upgrading is just not needed.

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It can be a waste of money and we can use

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that money in a better way that actually helps us reach those financial goals that we have for ourselves.

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Go digital with paperwork.

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This is something we started doing

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because we wanted to avoid a whole bunch of junk mail coming into our home

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and I know bills are not technically junk mail

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but you know it kind of accumulates and so we want to reduce that paperwork as much as possible.

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We switch to digital bills and I think we very rarely do we get a bill in the mail.

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For the most part it's all online

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and I think none of us really need that bill in a physical copy do we?

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That can be such a simple thing that just reduces the paperwork because otherwise it can really accumulate in our home.

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The two minute rule is something I really love as well.

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If there's a task I see that takes less than two minutes to do, I will try my best to do it right then and there.

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If it's, you know, a birthday invite that I want to reply to, I'm going to try to reply straight away.

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It does not take me two minutes to do.

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And that means I can, you know, take that off my list.

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I don't have to put it in the mental backlog and have it kind of clutter up brain space, if you know what I mean.

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I think if you're a mom, you know, there are so many different tasks throughout the day that can accumulate.

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They can make us feel more overwhelmed.

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And so doing this little two-minute rule can be so so helpful for that.

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Work your dopamine muscle.

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I was reading the dose book and I noticed how it mentions a lot anterior cortex.

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I think it's the AMCC.

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So it's this little part of our brain.

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When we do something that raises our dopamine, like when we do an activity that requires motivation, then it lights up this part of our brain.

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It's just like a muscle.

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The more that we do this, the more that that part of the brain lights up, the stronger it gets.

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And that means it's going to be so much easier to feel motivated to do things.

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And sometimes we think, oh, there's just people who are motivated, people who are not.

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But in reality, if we work on exercising that muscle, that AMCC, it's just going to get stronger and we're going to be much more motivated people,

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not just one area like going to the gym or something like that, but in a lot of different areas of our life

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and things like scrolling on our phone a lot actually is something

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that decreases that motivation it decreases that dopamine

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and I think for me it's really important to find

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that balance so yes I might be scrolling on my phone

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but I want to have a lot of activities throughout my day

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that actually improve my dopamine they like increase my motivation in a balanced way things like working out

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or working on a video or working on a project that's maybe a little bit effortful or even reading a book.

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All of those things are activities that can raise your dopamine levels.

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When it comes to clutter or things in our home, give it a spot and optimize later.

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It's something that I've been trying to do because when things don't have a spot, it can be really tempting to think, well, I'm not going to tackle this clutter yet

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because I need to have that perfect spot in mind for it to go in

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and doing this means we're delaying decisions and clutter is just delayed decisions

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that are just lingering around our home until we actually decide what to do with them or where to put them.

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So when I just started decluttering and things were kind of a mess I didn't have a system where everything went yet.

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I just started finding a home for it even if it was not perfect, even if maybe it wasn't the end goal that I had for it.

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Just find somewhere to put them, just find a place for all of those things in a cupboard, in a drawer, in a closet, wherever it might be

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and then afterwards we can find ways to optimize it like adding a basket

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or a bin or something to kind of organize it a bit better

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but I found that for me it was really important to not let

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that deter me from actually you know tackling the stuff in my home wear it today this is a method

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that i've been trying to do to declutter my wardrobe

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so you know those items

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that are in your maybe pile what i started doing is i started challenging myself to actually wear the outfit

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so i had this stripy jumper i wasn't sure

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if i wanted to keep it or not

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so i kept it in my maybe pile for quite a

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while and then i said okay i'm gonna wear it for the day

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and see why am i not wearing it enough and

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when i put it on for the day to wear it I realized

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that actually the neckline was a little tight the length felt a bit off

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and that's when I realized yeah I do not need to keep this I can let it go

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so if you have items like that

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that you're not sure about putting them on actually trying them

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and wearing them for the day that's what gives me a

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much better perspective on you know is this an item

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that I actually like that I actually like to wear

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or is it an item I'm just keeping it because it's there

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but it's not really serving any purpose in my wardrobe because I'm clearly not wearing it.

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Try a low buy month.

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I did a low buy month about a year ago.

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It gave me such an interesting perspective on why I shop, the kind of feelings that I get behind

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that impulse to buy something new and

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so this is something I wanted to do a bit more

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because I realized that one of my dopamine kind of addiction behaviors

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that I used to have a lot and sometimes I still do struggle with this is shopping.

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Yes, I used to be a bit of a shopaholic, maybe a bit more than just a bit.

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And I realized I actually have better financial goals for myself

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than just having a lot of new outfits in my wardrobe or buying a lot of things that I don't truly need.

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So I am planning on doing a no buy or low buy month in either January or February next year.

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Let me know if you would like me to take you along on that.

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Let me know if you are planning to do any no buy months

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because I think that will be really interesting

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and maybe we can kind of go through it together

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because for me I do want to do things like pay off my mortgage early

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or have more experiences as a family versus just buying a lot of things that clutter up my home.

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Do you have any minimalist rules that you've used in the past and have found helpful?

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Let me know in the comments below.

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I would really love to hear from you.

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I hope this was helpful and I will see you in the next one.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: 10 Minimalist Habits to Start in 2026 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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