The Small Shifts Guide: Tiny Lifestyle Tweaks to Make November Feel Easier

November 18, 2025

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By Skylar Hunyadi

In my last TFD newsletter, I shared 5 Things To Do For Your Mental Health NOW, Before Winter. If you’ve already taken those steps, you’re likely in good shape. But now we’re in the middle of November, the month that kicks starts shorter days and fuller calendars. For me, it’s when I feel the most frazzled and out of routine. 

With that said, in both my professional and personal life, I’m in prepare-for-winter-crash-out mode. I’m doing all the prep work with my clients and for myself, to prevent the holiday mental health spiral. The one where sleep schedules slide, boundaries blur, spending spikes, and your bandwidth suddenly disappears--It’s not a good time. 

So today, I’m sharing tiny lifestyle tweaks to get you through this hectic month. These small shifts aim to make your daily life calmer and more streamlined so you can more smoothly sail into December without feeling burned out. 

But before you dive into these tips, take a moment to reflect: what has historically made November hard for you? Is it the family obligations, lack of routine, or financial strain? Identifying those patterns can help you decide which tweaks will be most useful this month.  

💝 Self Care

• Reduce expectations around movement. We’re going for simple and effective. For me, this means short neighborhood walks or 15-minute strength or yoga videos. Release the expectation to stick to a regimented workout schedule. It’s also sick-season, so give your body ample time to bounce back if you’re struck down. 

• Plan (and protect) your downtime. Strategically plan periods of rest, ideally whole rest days, but sometimes we have to make do with an evening or even an hour. Schedule this downtime as you would any other important event--we’re taking recuperation seriously this month! 

• If you go to therapy, get those sessions locked and loaded right now. This is the time of year we get the most last-minute session requests. Do yourself (and us) a favor, and book ahead of time! This also applies to any spa treatments or medical appointments. 

🏠 Home

• Set up your morning the night before. Prep your coffee/tea station, breakfast, lunch, outfit, etc., as part of your bedtime routine. These dark mornings can be incredibly demotivating. Set yourself up for success + get a little more sleep!

• Cue up the cozy ambiance to get through mundane tasks. You know I am all about the ambiance, especially when it’s going to make a tedious task more appealing. This could look like lighting a candle while you answer emails or throwing on a comfort show as you tidy. 

• Batch small chores together + ten-minute tidy. Combine 2 to 3 small tasks into a single “mini session” to free up mental bandwidth later. Or dedicate ten minutes of your evening to tidying, so you aren’t spending large swaths of time on cleaning. But more importantly, shift the expectation that your home will be sparkling right now: you may have to settle for “well-lived-in” until the pace slows down. 

🎁 Holidays 

• Pre-plan holiday travel logistics. Flights, reservations, activities, get it all sorted now. Take a set chunk of time, contact those involved, and make the decisions when you have the bandwidth to do so. You don’t want to be scrambling in the thick of travel season. 

• Decide what you’re NOT going to attend. Which social events are you going to politely decline this month? Do you really need to participate in multiple Friendsgivings? Could you do without the multiple seasonal craft fairs? All to say, choose your social obligations wisely. 

• Schedule open-ended holiday-related tasks. This time of year really tests our time management and boundary skills. With so many open-ended tasks, it’s easy to procrastinate things such as wrapping sessions, holiday card writing, and menu planning. Pencil in these tasks over the course of November, so you aren’t cramming during precious downtime. 

💸 Money 

• Clearly identify and stick to your holiday budget. I know, such a boring tip, but the one that will help you the most in the long run. Sit down and crunch the numbers. There are many budgeting resources out there to help make holiday spending do-able. 

• Buy gifts slowly over the course of the month. If possible, schedule when you’re going to buy gifts according to when you have money coming in (sticking to your budget, of course). In years past, I bought all my gifts at once and severely regretted it when I checked my credit card statement. 

• Cut any unnecessary holiday spending. It’s the season of consumerism. Are there any purchases you can consciously refrain from this year? Personally, I’ve put myself on a decoration ban. Identify any superfluous spending that can be completely cut. 

******

This November, the vibes are planful and realistic. These tiny lifestyle tweaks are not meant to be long term—they’re meant to get you through the holiday months. I strongly believe that our routines and self care should be malleable, changing with us, instead of us changing to fit some prescribed version of what we think we should be doing. Very few of us are thriving this time of year, for most, it’s about survival until we breathe again in January. 

Take care <3

For more from Sky, join her on Substack! Subscribe here to receive her personal essays right to your inbox. Here's her latest post. This newsletter is a cozy corner of self care, reflections, and other small pleasures. All are welcome <3

Skylar is a licensed clinical mental health counselor who talks about self-care as the foundation of a prosperous life. She has a deep love for yoga, vegetarian cooking, and religiously organizing her Google calendar. Follow her on Instagram for more self-care and mental health content or on LinkedIn for the more ~professional~ stuff.

November 19th: JOIN US TOMORROW! We’re excited to have community favorite, Kara Perez, back for our November Society workshop, Surviving Late-Stage Capitalism: A Mutual Aid Toolkit. Feeling insane given gestures broadly at the world? Between the government shut down, the loss of SNAP funding, and healthcare costs doubling, life in the US feels precarious and expensive. Now more than ever we see the importance of community currency to aid our financial lives. With a focus on building financial resilience, you'll leave this workshop with action steps to protect your finances, engage in your community, and become financially flexible. This workshop is for The Society at TFD members at the $4.99 and up tiers!

December 4th: How To Use Monarch — This is a totally FREE workshop for both new and existing Monarch users to learn how to get the most out of our team's favorite budgeting app! This workshop will be co-hosted by Alexa Claire (TFD content and Production Manager) along with Rachel Samara (TFD Marketing Director) who both use Monarch daily! In this workshop, we’ll walk you step-by-step through how to set up Monarch, personalize it to your financial goals, and use its most powerful features to take control of your spending. Whether you’re budgeting for the first time or looking to finally stay consistent, this session will help you build a system that actually fits your real life. Come ready to follow along, ask questions, and leave with a clear structure you can start using immediately.

*This link will prompt you to download Monarch + show proof of download before being sent to the workshop registration page

^{While this section includes products and services from our paid partners, we only feature brands we genuinely like and use—and think you would, too.}

FINANCIAL ADVISORY — Advisor.com: Dozens of people in the TFD community already trust and use Advisor! They’re one of the only financial advisory companies offering their services for a fixed, flat annual fee. Their team of advisors work for you, not commissions, and help you to achieve your financial goals through planning, investing, and more, no matter where you’re starting from.

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BUDGETING — Monarch: Our recommended Mint replacement! As we already shared in the main section of this newsletter, we highly recommend using Monarch to take the guesswork out of managing your money — use it to budget, set goals, and actually understand where your money’s going. Even better: there’s no ads, no selling your financial data to third parties, and no "premium only" upsells — just a clean, secure app that makes managing money feel way less overwhelming (and actually kinda fun?).

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