Blog Posts by Gretchen Rubin

Cb_i_hate_perfume

One of my very favorite new resolutions is to Cultivate good smells. It's astonishing to me how much pleasure my sense of smell gives me, now that I've tuned into it more forcefully.

In the course of my research, along with Demeter Fragrance Library (I love the idea of a "fragrance library"), I discovered a site called CB I Hate Perfume -- and learned that an actual store exists in Brooklyn. Fortunately, I have a good friend who is also a smell enthusiast, and together we made a field trip to the store.

I got the idea for the resolution to Take a field trip from my six-year-old, who gets extremely excited at the prospect of a kindergarten field trip. To her, it's such an adventure, such a treat. Sometimes, I get to go on field trips with her class, and I always enjoy them tremendously, and finally, it occurred to me to look for occasions to assign myself my own field trips.

Visiting the store with my friend was a deeply pleasurable experience. She handed me the wonderful

Good-bad

Everyone has a few tricks for beating the blues. It turns out, however, that several of the most popular strategies don't actually work very well in the long term. Beware if you are tempted to try any of the following:

1. Comforting yourself with a "treat." Often, the things we choose as "treats" aren't good for us. The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day. So when you find yourself thinking, "I'll feel better after I have a pint of ice cream…a cigarette…a new pair of jeans," ask yourself - will it REALLY make you feel better? It might make you feel worse. In particular, beware of…

2. Letting yourself off the hook. I've found that I sometimes get a real happiness boost from giving something up, quitting something, or breaking a bad habit. When you're feeling down, you might be tempted to let yourself off the hook, to think, "I'll allow myself to skip my run today, I need a

2011 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2011 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2011 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome! This month's theme is Time. Last week's resolution was to Suffer...for fifteen minutes. Did you try that resolution? Did it boost your happiness?

This week's resolution is to Observe the one-minute rule.

Keep_the_one_minute_rule.MP3_for_Audio_Podcasting

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
10 tips to beat clutter...in less than 5 minutes.
Try the one-minute rule.
A secret to happiness? Don't get organized.
11 myths of de-cluttering.

Do you follow anything like the one-minute rule, to help yourself from getting overwhelmed by clutter, disorganization, and small nagging tasks? What works for you?

If you're new, here's information on the 2011 Happiness Challenge. It's never too late to start! You're not behind, jump in right now, sign up

Regret

Assay: Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the important role of negative emotions in a happy life.

Some people seem to believe that the purpose of a happiness project would be to achieve a life in which you were 100% happy, 100% of the time. This isn't realistic, and in any event, even if it were possible, it wouldn't be desirable.

Negative emotions are a key part of rational thought and effective performance. Also, up to a point, they can be of great service to happiness. They're loud, flashy signs that something isn't right. Because they're so unpleasant, they can sometimes prod us to take action when nothing else can. For instance, envy and deception have helped me to make useful changes in my life.

I just finished Neal Roese's book, If Only: How to Turn Regret Into Opportunity, and so I've been thinking a lot about the role of regret. Regret is so very painful! But there have definitely been times in my life when I've been able to harness regret to make my life

SelfargumentI've discovered an almost uncannily effective strategy to keep myself from going into downward spirals of resentment, blame, and self-accusation -- when, for instance, I find myself brooding over thoughts like, "I'm not getting enough work done" or "My daughters don't get along very well."

When I realize I'm having thoughts like this (and I'll admit, just realizing that I'm having this kind of thought is a challenge in itself), I "make the positive argument."

As a consequence of a psychological phenomenon that might be called "argumentative reasoning," we're very skillful at arguing a particular case. When we take a position, we look for evidence to support it, and we find reasons that prove our point, and then we stop, satisfied. This mental process gives us the illusion that our position is objective and well justified.

However -- and this is the useful point -- if we try to argue the very opposite position, we can often make that case just as easily. If I tell myself,

Lobelia

One of my idiosyncrasies is my love of taking notes, copying quotations, making odd lists, gathering examples in various categories, and the like. I used to fight this impulse, because I considered it a waste of time, but now I allow myself to take notes without a purpose -- Be Gretchen.

For example, I made this list of what public-art installations, based on classics of children's literature, I would put in New York City. (I was inspired by the luggage trolley halfway through a brick wall at London's King's Cross station.)

Here's the list I made today. It's a list of my favorite two-word phrases that I have actually used in conversation:
-- scintillating scotoma
-- intangible hereditable
-- mystical pigs
-- spasmodic Hercules (from a quotation from Trollope)

Do you ever take notes without a purpose, or make lists like this? Or have any favorite two-word phrases yourself?

* I just heard last night that The Happiness Project will be #1 on the New

Loneliness2The more I've learned about happiness, the more I've come to believe that loneliness is a terrible, common, and important obstacle to consider.

A while back, after reading John Cacioppo's fascinating book Loneliness, I posted Some counter-intuitive facts about loneliness, and several people responded by asking, "Okay, but what do I do about it? What steps can I take to feel less lonely?"

I recently finished another fascinating book, Lonely -- a memoir by Emily White, about her own experiences and research into loneliness. White doesn't attempt to give specific advice about how to combat loneliness, but from her book, I gleaned these strategies:

1. Remember that although the distinction can be difficult to draw, loneliness and solitude are different. White observes, "It's entirely reasonable to feel lonely yet still feel as though you need some time to yourself." Loneliness feels draining, distracting, and upsetting; desired solitude feels peaceful, creative, restorative.

2011 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2011 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2011 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome! This month's theme is Time. Last week's resolution was to Re-evaluate your mantras. Did you try that resolution? Did it boost your happiness?

This week's resolution is to Suffer for fifteen minutes.

Suffer_for_15_minutes.MP3_for_Audio_Podcasting

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
Do you have trouble sticking to your resolutions? Turns out it really does matter.
Get rid of things that don't work.
Photographs make me happy, but they're also making me miserable. (Notice that this post was from three years ago.)

Have you ever had a similar experience -- having a task so huge and daunting that you just couldn't bear to begin it? What strategy did you use finally to tackle it? And am I the only one who has been haunted by my gigantic archives of