GreenLife is back. Start with what you have.
Yann Vallery-Radot#greenlife#simple-living#minimalism+1 more
You don't need to buy anything to begin living a little more simply. There may be a shirt you still love, a shelf you could make room on, or a patch of sky you haven't looked at all day.
GreenLife is a free, independent web app that offers one daily nudge towards a simple life, lighter on the Earth. Read the idea, try what fits, and carry on with your day. Save the ones you want to return to. Share one with someone who would enjoy it. Start with what you already have.
What does a GreenLife nudge ask of you?
Sometimes it asks you to notice. Go and find some awe is an invitation to look up: an old tree, a restless sky, something that makes room around the day's worries. You can do it without turning the experience into a purchase or a post.
Sometimes it asks you to reclaim a small choice. Unsubscribe from the shops puts fewer sales pitches in your inbox. Freedom from wanting asks you to look at the wanting itself. What were you hoping the next thing would give you?
The point is to find a little more freedom. A nudge should leave you with something useful to see or do, whether you open the longer reading or simply take the thought outside. It should never send you shopping for the equipment to become a better person.
A simpler life can start with something you already have.
Minimalism starts with a need, not a number
You get to decide what matters. A house full of books can be a source of joy. So can a clear table. Neither needs a score.
Before the next purchase, name the need. Can something you own meet it? Could a repair give a useful thing more life? If you need an object once, is borrowing practical? Sometimes a considered purchase really is the right answer. This is a way to recover choice, without a purity test waiting at the end.
An object that serves you has a reason to stay. An unwanted object doesn't become useful because you've found a clever excuse to store it. Making room can mean passing something on responsibly, or leaving something unbought in the first place.
Why bring GreenLife back?
The first GreenLife reached around 5,000 people. That's my recollection of the original app, not a count of this relaunch. It was one of the things I was proudest to build. People had found a small daily practice worth keeping.
For Hyperdrift's first birthday, I wanted to return to that root. The old content archive gave us a place to begin. Each idea still has to earn its place in the present: does it help someone live with more attention, more resourcefulness, more care for the world around them?
The tools we use to build have changed. The reason to build GreenLife has become clearer. An app can ask for very little of your day and still offer something worth carrying into it.
What can GreenLife honestly claim?
GreenLife offers ideas and a place to practise them. We haven't measured carbon savings from using the app, and we won't attach imaginary impact numbers to a tap.
The environmental reason for caring about consumption is real. UNEP's Global Resources Outlook 2024 connects growing resource use with environmental damage and calls for changes in production, consumption and policy. That is a broader responsibility than any person's daily habits. A daily nudge can be one useful part of how we live; it cannot stand in for that work.
GreenLife remains independent, not sponsored and not for sale. Contributions should make the ideas more useful: a better source, a correction, a lived example. A brand paying for a favourable verdict has no place here.
Signal — a home on your phone. The web already gives this small daily practice a place beside your other apps. GreenLife opens in your browser, can be added to your Home Screen, and offers an optional daily notification at an hour you choose. On iPhone, notifications require the installed Home Screen app on a supported iOS version. WebKit explains how this works.
Come make it with us
Open today's GreenLife nudge. Reading needs no account. Favourites stay in the browser where you save them, so they don't yet follow you between devices. This relaunch is the web app; native iOS and Android apps remain future work.
If an idea helps, pass it to the friend who's trying to make room in their life. If you have something to bring, contribute a nudge, a correction, a photograph or a skill. Participation is how this grows.
One day. One change. A little closer to the Earth.
Film transcript and production notes
Look at that.
A little thread, and your old jacket gets another winter. Someone showed you how. One day, you’ll show someone else.
Outside, the leaves are falling. We can leave a corner for life to carry on. There’s a world under there.
GreenLife began with a small invitation: remember the Earth in your everyday life.
Repair something you love. Follow an idea back to its source. Pass on an idea that helped you.
We’re coming back to that. With our roots intact. Independent. And not for sale.
Bring your curiosity. There’s room for what you know.
GreenLife. One day. One change. Coming back. Come make it with us.
The images were generated with Recraft and animated for the film. Narration uses an ElevenLabs catalogue voice; music and sound textures were generated with ElevenLabs. The scenes are illustrative. The historical audience estimate above comes from the founder; it is not a current analytics result.
Get HyperDrift signal — courtesy of intel.hyperdrift.io