Blog Posts by Gretchen Rubin

Coben

Happiness interview: Harlan Coben.

How did I first make the acquaintance of Harlan Coben? His brother and I went to college together, somehow Harlan and I struck up a conversation by email...it's lost in the sands of time. Harlan is the spectacularly successful author of many #1 bestselling, prize-winning mystery novels and thrillers, one of which was also turned into a movie.

He's a gifted writer and a very thoughtful person, so I was curious to hear what he had to say about happiness.

Gretchen: What's a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Harlan: Writing. I know that sounds a tad hackneyed and sometimes I don't even like writing, but it makes me happy. Yes, that's a contradiction, so let me quote either Dorothy Parker or Oscar Madison: "I don't like writing-I like having written." In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.

What's something you know now about happiness that you didn't know when

Life preserver

I've just started trying to come up with a list of the bare minimum of things we should do every day to be happy and healthy.

This list doesn't include major challenges, like "Quit smoking." Obviously, quitting smoking is very important for health, but it's not easy to add to a to-do list. This list doesn't include items like "Spend less time on the internet" or "Read more" because they aren't universal enough. This list also doesn't include items related to attitude: gratitude, cheerfulness, and the like. These are very concrete, very essential things to do as part of the everyday routine.

Here's what I've come up with so far...
Wear your seat belt
Take prescriptions medications properly
Go for a ten-minute walk (preferably outside)
Put your keys and wallet away in the same place
Take something with you (for instance, drop your dirty socks in the hamper on your way from your bedroom to the kitchen)
Charge your phone
Connect with

2012 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2012 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2012 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome! Each week in a video, my friend Maria poses a question about some Pigeon of Discontent raised by a blog reader. Because, as much as we try to find the Bluebird of Happiness, we're also plagued by the Pigeons of Discontent.

This week's Pigeon of Discontent, suggested by a reader, is: "I feel discouraged by my messy house."

My Messy House

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
10 steps to beat clutter...in less than 5 minutes.
Need a simple way to get your life under control? Try the "one-minute rule."
Fighting clutter? Go shelf by shelf.

How about you? Have you found any simple strategies for staying on top of the mess at home, at work, in the car...?

I hope you enjoy the new format. It's still evolving, so bear with me while it's taking shape.

Blowing-bubbles

My children make me happy for many reasons, of course. But it strikes me that one reason that they make me happy is that they encourage me to engage more deeply with the physical world.

Left to my own instincts, I'd drift absent-mindedly through the apartment, reading, writing, and eating cereal for dinner every night. Through my daughters, I become much more alive to ordinary pleasures-the comfort of our weirdly soft fleece blanket, the vanishing sweetness of cotton candy, the textures and colors of the Play-Doh, scented markers, and velvety pipe cleaners left scattered around the kitchen.

I'm trying to push myself to enter more deeply into childish pleasures. I love blowing bubbles, but I haven't blown bubbles in a long time. I delight in looking at new boxes of Crayons and magic markers, but I almost never do any coloring myself. I've never used our cunning set of animal stamps.

I do make good use of food dye and sprinkles, however. I use any excuse to pull out our

Carlrichards

Happiness interview: Carl Richards.

I initially got to know Carl Richards's work because he and I share the same literary agent, which creates a fellow-feeling akin to having gone to the the same high school. I was very interested in his writing (and drawing), because he often addresses the connection between happiness and money, which is one of the most complicated and emotionally charged subjects within happiness.

One thing I particularly admire about Carl is his ability to sum up large issues in simple, powerful sketches. Seeing a problem that feels very complicated distilled into a napkin-sized drawing helps me understand the essentials.

His book, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money, has just hit the shelves. It's about the "behavior gap"-the distance between what we should do and what we actually do.

I was very interested to hear his thoughts about happiness.

Gretchen: What's a simple activity that consistently makes you

Packing-boxes

One of my key realizations about happiness, and a point oddly under-emphasized by positive psychologists, given its emphasis in popular culture, is that Outer order contributes to inner calm. More than it should.

After all, in the context of a happy life, a messy desk or house is a trivial problem-yet I've found, and other people tell me they feel the same way, that getting control of the stuff of life makes me feel more in control of my life generally. (Even if this is an illusion, it's a helpful illusion.)

But as much as most of us want to keep our home, office, car, etc. in reasonable order, it's tough. Here are some myths of de-cluttering that make it harder than it needs to be.

Myths of Cluttering:
1. "I need to get organized." No! This is not your first step! Don't get organized.

2. "The more organized I am, the better." I fully appreciate the pleasure of having a place for everything, and perhaps counter-intuitively, I find it easier to put things away

2012 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2012 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2012 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome! Each week, I post a video about some Pigeon of Discontent raised by a reader. Because, as much as we try to find the Bluebird of Happiness, we're also plagued by the Pigeons of Discontent.

This week's Pigeon of Discontent, suggested by a reader, is: "How can I keep myself from being overwhelmed by big projects?"

Being overwhelmed by big projects.

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
Frustrated? Stuck? Put yourself in creativity boot camp.
Get rid of things that don't work.
Why I decided to put together a photo album that wasn't as good as it could have been.

I hope you enjoy the new format. It's still evolving, so bear with me while it's taking shape.

You can post your own Pigeon of Discontent at any time; also, from time to time, I'll make a

Before_sunrise

Assay: It has been years since I saw the movie Before Sunrise, but I often find myself thinking about a snippet of conversation from the movie. I finally went back to look up the exact words.

The movie is about two twenty-somethings (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who meet on a train in Europe and the one night they spend hanging out together.

I've never forgotten this scene, because I know exactly what both of them are talking about.

On the one hand, I often have a strange feeling of dress rehearsal, of