The Small Joys List: 40 Tiny Things That Make Ordinary Days Better

There’s a quiet assumption baked into most conversations about living well: that the good stuff is big.

The big trip. The big move. The big career leap. The things you put on a bucket list and save up for.

Those things matter, and we’re big fans. But if you add up a year, the big moments take up maybe a few days. The other 360 are ordinary: commutes, emails, dishes, Tuesdays. If those days are grey, a handful of highlights can’t fully make up for them.

That’s the idea behind a small joys list: a short, personal catalogue of tiny things that reliably make an ordinary day a little better.

Why Small Joys Deserve a List

You might be thinking: I already know what I like, why write it down?

Because when a day goes flat, we’re terrible at remembering. On a stressed Wednesday, your brain does not helpfully remind you that a walk around the block usually helps. It says, “scroll the phone.” (If that sounds familiar, our piece on replacing doomscrolling gets into why.)

A written list does three useful things:

1. It makes joy a choice instead of an accident. You can pick something deliberately.
2. It sharpens your attention. Once you’re hunting for good small moments, you start noticing more of them.
3. It lowers the bar. When “doing something for yourself” means a ten-minute thing, you actually do it.

Psychologists who study well-being keep finding something similar: how often you have small positive experiences predicts life satisfaction at least as well as how intense the occasional big ones are. Frequency beats magnitude, more than most of us would guess.

40 Small Joys to Steal (or Spark Your Own)

Treat these as raw material, not a prescription. Cross out anything that does nothing for you.

Morning

1. Drink your first coffee or tea sitting down, with no phone
2. Open the window and listen for a minute before starting the day
3. Make the bed so you come home to something tidy
4. Put on one song you love while getting ready
5. Eat breakfast somewhere that isn’t your desk

Midday

6. Take a ten-minute walk without headphones
7. Eat lunch outside, even if it’s cold
8. Buy a pastry from the good bakery
9. Message a friend something you appreciate about them
10. Move your workspace to a window for an hour

Evening

11. Cook one thing from scratch, slowly
12. Light a candle at dinner on a weeknight
13. Take a long shower with the good soap
14. Watch the sunset from a spot you’ve never tried
15. Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while

With your senses

16. Fresh sheets on the bed
17. The first sip of something really cold on a hot day
18. A playlist from the year you were seventeen
19. Walking barefoot on grass
20. The smell of rain, and standing in it for a moment
21. Wearing the soft sweater you saved for “good days”
22. A new notebook, with the first page left untouched

Small adventures

23. Take a different route home
24. Visit a bookshop and buy whatever catches your eye
25. Try a restaurant you’ve walked past a hundred times
26. Go to a market and buy one thing you can’t name
27. Spend an afternoon being a tourist in your own city (our guide to that has more ideas)
28. Sit in a park and watch people for twenty minutes

With other people

29. Send a handwritten postcard or note
30. Have a slow dinner with no phones on the table
31. Play a board game or a card game
32. Share a playlist with a friend
33. Compliment a stranger, sincerely
34. Ask someone to tell you a favourite memory

For your future self

35. Plan something to look forward to, even if it’s small (anticipation is its own kind of happiness)
36. Write down one good thing that happened today
37. Clear one drawer or one shelf
38. Put a reminder in your calendar for next Saturday: “do something fun”
39. Take a photo of something ordinary you want to remember
40. Go to bed twenty minutes earlier and read a few pages

How to Make Your Own List

The 40 above are generic. The best list is personal.

Step 1: Look back. Scroll through your camera roll, messages and calendar from the last month. Which moments felt good? What were you doing?

Step 2: Notice the pattern. Are your best moments social or solitary? Outdoors or cozy? Active or slow? You’ll probably find two or three themes.

Step 3: Write 15 to 20 and keep them cheap. Small joys should cost little money, little time, and little planning. If it takes a weekend and a budget, it’s a bucket list item. (Both are great. They’re just different lists.)

Step 4: Put it somewhere you’ll see it. A list in a forgotten note helps nobody. Keep it in an app you open regularly, or on a sticky note by the door.

Step 5: Use it on bad days first. The list is most useful when you least feel like using it. Make a rule: if a day feels flat, pick one thing before doing anything else.

Small Joys and Big Dreams Need Each Other

Here’s something we’ve noticed. People who only chase big goals tend to postpone happiness: I’ll be happy when I’ve done the thing. People who only collect small pleasures can drift, comfortable but a little aimless.

The combination works better. The big list gives your life direction and shape. The small list makes the road between the milestones something you actually enjoy walking.

If you want a simple way to hold both, keep two lists in one place: “Someday” for the big stuff and “This week” for the small stuff. When you tick off a tiny item, you’ve just made your life better today, which is the only day you can ever do that.

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Looking for a home for both lists? Buckist is a bucket list app for the big dreams, with inspiration when you’re out of ideas and a life in weeks view to keep the whole picture in sight. Download it on iOS or get it on Android.