The Happiness Project

9 Questions To Ask About Someone's Big, Life-Changing Trip.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 9 questions to ask about someone's big, life-changing trip.

One of my resolutions is to Enter into the interests of other people's lives. When you think of people getting along harmoniously – whether in a family, or among friends, or in an office – people make an effort to enter into the interests of each other’s lives.

My friend Michael Melcher (author of the terrific book The Creative Lawyer -- which isn't just for lawyers) pointed out to me an area where this is often an issue: with travels. It's quite common for people to come back from big, life-changing trips, and feel let down because no one seems very interested in what they saw or thought or experienced.

Part of being a good friend, colleague, or family member is to show an interest, but this can be challenging. Often, people need help finding ways to talk about their travels in ways that are interesting to people who weren't there.

I'm not much of a traveler, myself, but Michael is, and he suggested nine questions that you might ask, to enter into the interests of a newly returned traveler. The point, of course, is not to fake an interest, but rather to find a way to be sincerely interested.

1. What was the best moment of the entire trip?

2. What are two interesting things about China [or wherever] that the average person doesn't know?

3. Tell me about one person you met.

4. Now that you've been there yourself, when you think of China, what's the first image that comes into your head?

5. What was the hardest or most frustrating part of the trip?

6. Did anything go wrong that seems funny now? [I often remind myself of my Secret of Adulthood that "The things that go wrong often make the best memories."]

7. What little, ordinary thing did you miss from your usual routine?

8. What did you learn about yourself?

9. Now that you've been to China, what are two other places you'd like to go?

What am I missing? Have you identified any questions that are good at invoking interesting conversation? And travelers, when you come home, what questions are interesting to answer, and that show interest in what you've experienced? Have you ever been frustrated by the fact that people don't seem interested in hearing about a trip or adventure that was very significant to you? Because I'm not much of a traveler, myself, I know that I haven't shown as much interest in people's travels as I should have. Something to work on.

* Because I've been thinking a lot about "home" for my next book, Happier at Home, I've spent time cruising around Design * Sponge -- "your home for all things design." Good stuff!

* Volunteer as a Super-Fan, and from time to time, I'll ask for your help. Nothing onerous, I promise! Sign up here or email me at gretchenrubin1 at gretchenrubin dot com.

Happiness Is...Being Back at Home.

Home again! No matter how much I enjoy a trip, I'm always very happy to be home.

In the past, I often felt bad about my lack of a deep enthusiasm for traveling. Didn't my love of hanging around my own apartment show a lack of adventurousness, a limited curiosity about the world, a cramped sense of possibility? (Not to mention an over-dependence on morning coffee prepared a certain way.)

To show myself that I had good company in this attitude, I collected passages from eminent thinkers who showed similar preferences. For example, in his essay Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still...

As part of my happiness project, I've made a much greater effort to follow my personal commandment to Be Gretchen. I must remain stay true to my own nature. What's fun for other people may not be fun for me -- and vice versa.

At the same time, however, I remind myself that novelty and challenge do make people happier -- including me. Traveling away from home gives me new perspectives, new insights, lots of fun -- as well as a renewed appreciation for my ordinary life, and the pleasures of staying home.

* If you've never visited Lifehacker, check it out. A huge amount of great information there, presented in an engaging way.

* Sign up for the Moment of Happiness, and every weekday morning, you’ll get a happiness quotation in your email inbox.

Secrets of Adulthood...For a Family Vacation.

Good-bye, I'm off for vacation! Right now, I'm in that stage where it feels like so much work to get away, I'd rather just stay home. But I'm sure once we're underway, I'll be glad we undertook it.

As I'm getting ready to leave, I'm reminding myself of my Secrets of Adulthood for family vacations:

• Less is more.
• Start early if possible.
• When packing an item that might leak, put it in a plastic bag.
• Don’t let anyone get too hungry. Especially me.
• Cheerfulness is contagious, and crabbiness is even more contagious.
• Wear sunscreen.
• Carry tissues.
• Remind kids to visit the bathroom—don’t wait for the thought to occur to them.
• Never choose the buffet option.
• Get plenty of sleep.
• There’s joy in routine, but an occasional disruption makes routine all the sweeter.
• Make it easy to do right, and hard to go wrong.
• Quit while you’re ahead.
• Make each of my children helpless with laughter at least once each day.
• Doing a little work makes goofing off more fun.
• The things that go wrong often make the best memories.
• Leave plenty of room in the suitcase.
• As Eisenhower observed, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
• The point is to have fun.

What am I overlooking? What are your Secrets of Adulthood for family vacations?

But wait, you may be thinking, how will I get my happiness fix while Gretchen is away?

Never fear! You can...

Read the book, The Happiness Project (can't resist mentioning -- #1 New York Times bestseller). If you read the blog, but haven't read The Happiness Project, here are some reasons to consider reading the book.
Read sample chapters.
Watch the one-minute book video.
Listen to a sample of the audiobook.
Sign up for the Moment of Happiness, to get a daily happiness quotation in your email in-box.

* I really enjoyed meeting Brene Brown at a conference a few weeks ago, and it was fun to do this interview with her. My favorite question: what's my favorite word?

Be a Tourist in Your Own City.

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 Creativity, and last week’s resolution was to Make something by hand. Did you try that resolution? Did it boost your happiness?

This week’s resolution is to Be a tourist in your own city.

Be a tourist in your own city.MP3 for Audio Podcasting(1)

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
8 tips for sparking your creativity.
Taking tourist photos of my own romance.
Take a field trip. In my case, to cultivate good smells.

How about you? Have you ever tried to have a tourist's frame of mind as you walk around the place where you live?

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 here. For the Challenge, each week I'll post a video suggesting a resolution for you to consider. For more ideas for resolutions to try, check out the archives of videos here.

* I love visiting Brain Pickings -- "curating eclectic interestingness from culture's collective brain." I never know what I'll find, but there's always a lot to see.

* Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel. To get the weekly video by email, right in your email in-box, you can:
-- On the GretchenRubin channel page, after you subscribe, click "Edit Subscription" and check the box, “Email me for new uploads.” Or...
-- Go to your main drop-down box, click “Subscriptions,” find the GretchenRubin channel, click “Edit Subscriptions,” and check “Email me for new uploads” there.

To get the audio podcast of the video:
-- Log in to iTunes
-- Go to “Podcasts”
-- Search for “The Happiness Project.” Free, of course.

Start A Vacation.

It's Friday afternoon, and I just said to myself, "Zoikes, I'd better write my post for today! The day is further along than I thought. And I won't be posting for the next week, because of vacation, so today's post had better be good."

Then I had a thought: "Wait, what if I decided to declare that my vacation begins now, today?"

And I must admit, I found the thought irresistible. Spring break starts now! Back in a week!

* Are you thinking, "But, oh, Gretchen, what will I do without reading a daily post about happiness?" Fear not! To read more about happiness over the next week, you can...
Read the paperback!
Sign up for the Moment of Happiness, the daily email of a happiness quotation (you'll get them even though I'm on vacation)
Sign up for the free monthly newsletter (it will come out at the end of the month, as usual).

5 Tips for Happiness Inspired by a Family Vacation.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: My family vacation reminded me of these 5 tips for happiness.

My college roommate was a dedicated journal-keeper. She once told me, "Every once in a while I have a big insight into myself, or have a major epiphany about life. The thing is, when I look back in my journals, I realize that I had exactly the same idea a few years ago -- but I forgot it."

I feel the same way; it's hard to remember the lessons I've learned. For that reason, because I'm going away on my family vacation next week, I went back to see what I wrote last August's vacation.

1. Fun is important to happiness. Is there such a thing as "fun for the whole family"? I think so, but I've learned that on vacation I need to make sure I make time for the things that I find fun – which in my case means reading. Sometimes I think, “Why am I just lying here, reading, on such a beautiful day? I should be going for a run/playing in the ocean/learning to play tennis.” But it's a Secret of Adulthood – Just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it’s fun for me. I love to read, and now I let myself read as much as I can get away with, given the realities of a family vacation. After all, I still do plenty of other things. And speaking of that Secret of Adulthood, the converse is true:

2. Just because something isn’t fun for me doesn’t mean that someone else won't find it fun. For instance, grocery shopping. It finally dawned on me that my husband loves to make a quick trip to the grocery store. I kept trying to make lists and be efficient and ask if he really had to make another trip to the store, until I realized: he loves to bike over to the grocery store for a few items. One day he went four times. That’s FUN for him.

3. Sleep is important to happiness – the more I learn about sleep, the more convinced I become of that fact. Sleep keeps people feeling cheerier, it strengthens the immune system, it may even play a role in keeping weight off. According to one study, a bad night’s sleep was one of the top two factors that upset people’s daily moods (along with tight work deadlines).

Accordingly, over the last few years, I’ve made a big effort to get more sleep – but during this vacation, there were several nights when I got TEN HOURS of sleep. Yes, I went to sleep at 9:30 p.m. and slept until 7:30 a.m., which I just wouldn’t have thought possible. This suggests to me that I may still not be getting enough sleep in my usual routine.

4. One irksome task can make vacation more fun. Some interesting studies suggest that interrupting a pleasant experience with something less pleasant can intensify a person’s overall pleasure. For example, commercials make TV-watching more fun.

For the last ten months, I’d been procrastinating about ordering a photo album from Shutterfly with our family pictures, and the task had really started to weigh on my mind. For this vacation, I decided to take a break from all work, except to do that photo album. This plan worked beautifully. Not doing my usual work make me relaxed, and having one irksome chore gave me the delicious feeling of goofing off – except when I actually did make myself do it. And I did get that task crossed off my list, which was enormously satisfying.

5. Everyone’s happiness project is different. (This is related to #1-2.) I met a very nice guy who described to me how he’d fulfilled his lifelong dream of buying a farm, where he’s raising some organic crops as well as pigs, cows, and I believe, goats. He was beaming with delight as he described how much he loved every aspect of it. I can think of few things that would make me feel more miserable than having a farm like his. Happiness projects just don’t look the same.

On a less elevated note, I would add that if you’re traveling with children, it never hurts to pack a few items of novelty candy for a long car ride. That, and a Harry Potter audiobook, will take you a long way.

* Have you ever agonized over a book's subtitle? (I sure have!) Don't miss this hilarious chart from Publishers Weekly, Subtitle-o-Matic, about how to generate a book subtitle. It's HILARIOUS because it's TRUE. Martin Kihn also has a website, Subtitle-o-Matic.

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 47,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.

Happiness: There's No Place Like Home.

I'm home from vacation. We had a great time, but ah, it's nice to be home!

The return from vacation reminded me of a significant factor in happiness: the hedonic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation.

People are adaptable. We quickly adjust to a new life circumstance — for better or worse — and consider it normal. Although this helps us when our situation worsens (people are astonishingly resilient), it means that when circumstances improve, we soon become hardened to new comforts or privileges. Scoring air-conditioning, a nicer car, a bigger TV, or a fancy title gives us only a brief boost in happiness before we start to take it for granted. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.” That’s the hedonic treadmill.

Salt used to be a rare luxury! Talking long distance used to be a huge indulgence! But now we take these things for granted.

To offset the effect of the hedonic treadmill, you can remind yourself how much you enjoy something, or how lucky you are to get to experience it – and one way really to feel this is to deprive yourself of something you usually take for granted. Deny yourself something, and your pleasure in it will be re-activated when the denial stops.

One nice thing about a vacation is, no matter how wonderful it was to be away, there are always little homely pleasures that make it lovely to return.

I loved being away from my computer, but now I’m so happy to be back in front of my three big monitors! I loved having breakfast outside in the morning while we were away, but I love being back my own kitchen, with my own weird foods available to me whenever I want. I enjoyed having a break from my usual routine, but now it feels great to be back in the usual swing of things.

So often, we only appreciate things after we've lost them -- even for just a short time.

* I enjoy checking out the Style Maniac blog -- "live laugh learn listen read decorate dress entertain...with style." Addictive!

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail [.com] -- and don't forget the "1". (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Just Hit my Fourth Anniversary -- Now Off for a Few Days!

I just hit my fourth anniversary of blogging, and perhaps appropriately, to keep my resolutions to Make a break from my routine and Take a vacation, I’m not going to be posting here for a few days. We’re going on a family vacation. I’ll be doing some writing work, because I’ve realized that I actually have more fun on this kind of holiday if I do some work – but I’m letting go of the pressure to connect to the internet, write a post every day, etc.

The monthly newsletter will be a few days late, too, but it will appear! (I send out short, free monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 40,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or email me at gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail.com. Just write “newsletter” in the subject line.)

I'll be back next week. Now I'm off to look for the sunscreen.

* If you miss reading the blog this week, try reading the book, The Happiness Project! A #1 New York Times bestseller, now three months on the bestseller list, yay! If you're curious, you can…
Order your copy!
Read sample chapters!
Watch the one-minute book trailer!
Listen to a few chapters of the audiobook!

Eleven Tips for Boosting Your Sense of Quiet Focus.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: eleven tips for boosting your sense of quiet focus.

We all know the feeling of being overwhelmed, of being beset by distractions.

The problem is – too many things are clamoring for your attention. People are trying to reach you, by phone, email, text, Twitter, IM, or old-fashioned yelling up the stairs. There are the interesting subjects you want to learn more about, on the TV or the internet or the newspaper. Noises in the background occasionally catch your ear, from the TV or radio. Your kids all talk at the same time. Colleagues interrupt. You need to update, check in, post, or ping. Ads jump at you from the most unlikely places. Devices buzz, ring, chirp, and vibrate.

It’s enough to drive you crazy. You lose your train of thought, you forget what you’re doing, you have trouble re-engaging in a task, you feel besieged.

But there are steps you might consider to quiet the buzz in your brain – even if you don’t want to take up meditation.

In addition to feeling calmer and more focused, you’ll probably be more efficient, too. Turns out that people aren’t very good at thinking about two things at once. One study showed that when people were interrupted to respond to email or IM, it took about fifteen minutes for them to resume a serious mental task. So consider taking steps like these, at least occasionally:

1. If you keep the TV, radio, or music turned on in the background – while you’re getting dressed, say – turn it off.

2. I have a sticky note in my bedroom that reads, “Quiet mind.” Whenever I see it, I drop my shoulders, relax my jaw, and try to smooth out my thoughts. It actually works.

3. During family time, divide up your children among adults. If possible, have one child per adult. And don’t check your emails or the internet while you’re with your child!

4. Cut down on the multi-tasking. Don’t talk on the phone while you’re doing dishes, don’t check your email while you listen to a conference call, don’t sort the mail while your child explains the school project that’s due next week.

5. Turn your cell phone ringer off. Hearing your cell phone ring – or even imaging that you’re hearing it ring – is a big source of jumpiness.

6. Take a break from doing errands. Keep a list, but don’t try to cram them in throughout your day.

7. Only use the internet to look up specific pieces of information; no jumping from link to link, no browsing.

8. Turn off your email for some parts of the day.

9. Twyla Tharp had an interesting approach: occasionally, for a week, she’d “stop counting.” She avoided looking at clocks, contracts, bank statements, bathroom scales, or anything to do with numbers, in order to let the other part of her brain take over.

10. Exercise. I find that if I don't exercise regularly, I'm too jumpy and restless to sit still and concentrate. I keep popping up and down. It's true that taking regular breaks is good for focus -- but within limits!

11. Flee temptation. I find it hard to work in my home office, because my family, the phone, my email, and the internet constantly beguile me away from my work. So when I have serious writing to do, I go to a library near my apartment which has a study room with a strict rule of silence.

It’s important to have space in which to think. Yesterday, I overheard someone complain, “I left my Blackberry at home, so I was so bored during my cab ride home. I just had to sit there.”

There are few things that I love more than looking out the window of a car, train, or bus. One day, when I was gazing out of a bus window, I was struck by a thought: “What do I want out of life?” “Well,” I thought, “I want to be happy.” It occurred to me that I never thought about whether I was happy or not, or how I could be happier, or even what it meant to be happy. “Zoikes,” I thought, “I should have a happiness project!” If I’d been checking my emails, I might never have had the idea for the happiness project.

What other strategies have you found to help you keep a quiet focus?

* Gratitude is extremely important to happiness, and keeping a "gratitude journal” is an oft-recommended exercise, but my gratitude journal never had much effect on me. I just found it annoying, and my journal was very dull. On this charming site, Thxthxthx, however, the writer manages to be very funny and engaging -- and also show genuine gratitude.

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 39,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
-- Join the 2010 Happiness Challenge to make 2010 a happier year
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
-- Watch the one-minute book video
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.

Vacation time: Six tips for enjoying a vacation that I learned on my recent trip.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Six tips for enjoying a vacation that I learned on my recent trip.

One of my goals for my Happiness Project is to do a better job of learning from experience. How can I do things better, next time? Also, one of my Twelve Commandments is to “Identify the problem,” so I’m trying to be more mindful as I have experiences, so I can take steps to make myself happier, in the moment.

Here are some tips from my recent family trip to Denmark:

1. Start packing early. I made the odious task of packing for myself and my two daughters easier by starting a week in advance (the Big Man packed at 10 pm the night before we left). I brought the big suitcase into my bedroom, and whenever I thought of something (sunscreen, passports, adapter) I put it in. However, if you start packing early, you must…

2. Keep a list. I didn’t, and that was a mistake. Because I was packing over the course of the week, by the end, I’d forgotten what I’d already put in. Had I packed the bathing suits, or not? In the end, I forgot to pack any socks for myself. I’d thought about doing it so many times, but I’d never actually done it. So make a list and check things off. This is a good idea, anyway.

3. Spend money where it helps. I was in utter bliss because I bought a new large backpack to use as my plane bag, which, because I was traveling with my kids, weighed about 100 pounds. Several years ago, my mother gave me a large, attractive bag to use as a plane bag, and I’ve used it ever since. But on my last trip, I realized: I would much prefer to use a backpack, that I could wear comfortably on my back, than to carry a heavy bag that pulls on one shoulder. I looked a bit silly, but I didn’t care.

4. Pack almonds. Several months ago, on a family trip with my in-laws, I realized that my periodic bouts of crabbiness were related to hunger. I seem to get hungry much more often than most adults, and I’m also a very picky eater. For this trip, I packed a bag of almonds, and it made a huge difference in being able to maintain my mood. Almonds made a great travel snack, because they’re light, don’t crumble, don’t stain, don’t need preparation, and are filling and nutritious. The one downside: it’s tempting to eat the entire bag at one sitting. I had to use some self-control to keep the bag going for the whole trip.

5. Return a day early. When I was growing up, we always returned from trips at the last minute, to eke out as much time as possible at whatever place we were visiting. But my in-laws plan their trips differently, and I’ve converted to their approach: they build in a re-entry day. On this trip, we came back on Saturday, so we had a day to sleep late, do errands, catch up on mail and email, re-stock the fridge, etc. The re-entry day made the trip shorter, but it made the overall vacation experience more enjoyable. It’s no fun to go away for a relaxing week, but then find yourself stressed out again a few hours after you’re back at home.

6. Unpack right away. The Big Man is adamant about this. The last thing I felt like doing when we arrived home from a week away was to tackle the unpacking, but he was right, we both felt much better when we’d put that task behind us. It made it a lot easier to unwind and enjoy being home.

What else? What have you learned about how to approach trips so that they’re more fun?

*
I’ve started sending out short monthly newsletters that will highlight the best of the previous month’s posts. If you’d like to sign up, click on the link in the upper-right-hand corner of my blog. Or just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line. I’ll add your name to the list.