The Happiness Project

Try Fun, Quick Exercises to Boost Your Creativity.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of my favorite resolutions, because it’s so much fun to keep, is Read at whim. Instead of trying to be very targeted about my reading, as I once tried to be, I let myself read whatever I want to read.

The other day, at coffee with my blogpals Caren and Leah from the great site, Drinking Diaries, Leah highly recommended Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. She wasn’t writing a screenplay, but she said that the book was extremely helpful for writing any kind of story.

I’m not writing a screenplay, or a novel either, but it sounded intriguing, so I picked up a copy. And she’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling.

Save the Cat also included a terrific exercise to foster creative thinking. Doing these types of games can boost happiness -- even for people who don’t consider themselves to be particularly “creative.”

This kind of playful thinking is – fun! It’s fun to mess around with ideas, to have new thoughts, to come up with a great idea. It’s stimulating. It might even inspire you to write a screenplay or start a novel. (Shameless teaser: in my forthcoming book, I talk about my experience of writing a novel in a month, inspired by the book, No Plot? No Problem!, written by Chris Batyk, also the founder of National Novel Writing Month. Yes, I wrote a novel as long as The Great Gatsby in thirty days.)

Sometimes creativity exercises are a bit boring – what’s the one with the candle, the cup, the matches? – but these exercises by Snyder, meant to jump-start ideas for movies, are very amusing:

1. Funny _____
Pick a drama, thriller, or horror film and turn it into a comedy.

2. Serious _____
Likewise, pick a comedy and make it into a drama. Serious Animal House – Drama about cheating scandal at a small university ends in A Few Good Men-like showdown.

3. FBI out of water.
This works for comedy or drama. Name five places that a FBI agent in the movies has never been sent to solve a crime. Example: “Stop or I’ll Baste!”: Slob FI agent is sent undercover to a Provence Cooking School.

4. _____ School
Works for both drama and comedy. Name five examples of an unusual type of school, camp, or classroom. Example: “Wife School.”

5. Versus!!
Drama or comedy. Name several pairs of people to be on opposite sides of a burning issue. Example: A hooker and a preacher fall in love when a new massage parlor divides the resident of a small town.

6. My ______ Is a Serial Killer
Drama or comedy. Name an unusual person, animal, or thing that a paranoid can suspect of being a murderer.

Feeling creative helps boost happiness, and it’s also true that while people often associate brooding melancholy as the spirit most appropriate to creative outpourings, research shows that people are more creative when they’re feeling happy. If this sort of thing appeals to you, check out Blake Snyder’s website. It has great information and exercises for screenwriters.

* I love this video of a pebble frog. Ah, nature! It looks like CGI, but it's real.

* Ah, that teaser caught your interest, and you want to pre-order The Happiness Project! Great! Here's the link to all your favorite bookstores.

Take Your Time. Especially When You’re in a Hurry.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

A few weeks ago, I posted Eight excellent tips for living that my parents gave me. Soon after, I ran into a friend who said, “I loved the tips your parents gave you. My mother had a great one, too. She always said, ‘When you’re in a hurry, take your time.’”

I thought this sounded like great advice, and now I’m absolutely convinced. Yesterday, as I was rushing to leave my apartment, I ran through the kitchen and pulled out a container of yogurt to gulp down before I left. (I had broken my resolution “Don’t let myself get too hungry.")

Because I was hurrying, I wasn’t careful about pulling out the yogurt, and I knocked over a plastic container of tapioca pudding my husband had left on the shelf. The container fell out, exploded, and tapioca pudding flew all over my shoe, all over the kitchen floor, and splattered back up into the refrigerator. It took me several trips with a sponge to get everything cleaned up. My shoe may never fully recover.

If I hadn’t been in such a hurry, I would have left my apartment much faster.

Looking back, I realize how much hurrying slows me down. I forget to bring my Filofax if I leave in a rush. My husband lost his wallet in a cab because he was running late. Hurrying makes me forget things, drop things, mess up.

I find with email, too, if I have a “Faster, faster, faster!” frame of mind, I answer too quickly. I don’t address every issue raised in the email. I don’t attend carefully enough to who is sending it. I have trouble, later, remembering the exchange. I delete emails I should keep. In the end, rushing consumes more time.

Of course, I don’t want to poke along, either. I’m reminded of Miyamoto Musashi’s observation from A Book of Five Rings: “Speed is not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast….Of course, slowness is bad. Really skillful people never get out of time, and are always deliberate, and never appear busy.”

So now when I feel myself rushing, I’m going to remind myself, “Wait, I’m in a hurry -- I need to take my time.” Again, the elusive (for me) but ever-important quality of mindfulness!

What about you? Have you found that it helps to take your time when you’re in a hurry?

* Yes, I love time-lapse photography of nature, and here’s a beautiful sunset over a lake. I love it, but it makes me melancholy too, in a pleasant way. I think there’s a Japanese word for that – for the bittersweet beauty of time passing. Anyone know it?

* I'm trying to figure out the level of interest for a book tour. If I did a book event in your town, and you'd come, it would be very helpful if you'd either post a comment below or drop me an email at grubin[at]gretchenrubin[dot com]. (Sorry about the weird format – trying to thwart spammers). Just write "tour" in the subject line, and be sure to include the name of your city! Thanks very much to all the people who already answered; the information is enormously helpful.

Act the Way You Want to Feel.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of the most surprising, and useful, things I’ve learned from my happiness project is my Third Commandment: Act the way I want to feel.

Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. More than a century ago, philosopher and psychologist William James described this phenomenon: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.” By acting as if you feel a certain way, you induce that emotion in yourself.

I use this strategy on myself. If I feel shy, I act friendly. If I feel irritated, I act lovingly. This is much harder to do than it sounds, but it’s uncannily effective.

Lately, I’ve been feeling low. I had various justifications for my blue mood, but just last night it occurred to me – maybe it’s due to my persistent case of viral conjunctivitis (which has been on my mind a lot).

As a consequence of the conjunctivitis, my eyes well up constantly, and I wipe tears off my face many times through the day. Maybe that’s contributing to my feelings of sadness.

It sounds far-fetched – that I feel sad because my eyes are watering as a result of eye inflammation – but I have indeed caught myself wondering, “Why am I feeling so emotional, why am I tearing up?” My mind was searching for an explanation that justified such a tearful response.

Actions, even involuntary actions, influence feelings. Studies show that an artificially induced smile can prompt happier emotions, and an experiment suggests that people who use Botox are less prone to anger, because they can’t make angry, frowning faces.

Usually, however, I invoke the act-the-way-I-want-to-feel principle not in the context of involuntary action, like tearful eyes, but in the context of self-regulation. When I’m feeling an unpleasant feeling, I counteract it by behaving the way I wish I felt -- when I feel like yelling at my children, I make a joke; when I feel annoyed with a sales clerk, I start acting chatty.

It really works. When I can make myself do it.

How about you? Have you ever experienced a situation where a change in your actions has changed your emotions?

* Last weekend was the New York City marathon, which is a very big deal for everyone living in New York City. It creates a festive feeling, even when you’re not running, or watching the race, or even following it on TV. It’s a very happy event. I loved watching this time-lapse video on Gimundo of a single city block during the race.

* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 28,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format – trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.

A Fundamental Secret to Happiness? Get Enough Sleep.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I’ve written before about my resolution to Get more sleep, and I’m bringing it up again, because I’m truly convinced that this is one of the first aspects of life to tackle when you start a happiness project.

It’s easy to become accustomed to being sleep-deprived, but it’s not good for you. Many researchers argue that not getting enough sleep has broad health consequences, such as raising your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even obesity, but in addition to those, it has a profound effect on your happiness.

One study showed that a bad night’s sleep was one of the top two reasons for being in a bad mood at work (the other? Tight work deadlines). Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for your daily happiness than getting a $60,000 raise.

But here’s another reason why I think sleep matters so much for happiness: exhaustion makes the mornings tougher.

The morning is a hard time for many people.

First, a lot of people try to exercise early in the morning. This is a great idea -- you check it off your list and get the mood boost all day long. My weight-training instructor told me, “I’ve noticed that people who exercise first thing are much more likely to stick to an exercise program. If you roll out of bed and exercise, you get it out of the way. If you try to do it later, you come up with excuses for yourself, or other things interfere.”

Second, a lot of people face a gruesome commute. A bad commute is a real happiness challenge, and one to which people don’t adapt. If you’re sleepy, you’re going to be crabby and inattentive, and that’s a bad combination in a driver.

Third, a lot of people have to get their kids off to school. This is why I need a lot of sleep. Every single morning tries my patience to the uttermost. If my big one isn’t complaining, my little one is whining. Remembering to put everything in the backpacks, picking out clothes, finding the right mittens, leaving on time…it’s hard, every day. A lot of my resolutions, such as Sing in the morning and Observe the evening tidy-up, are aimed at improving the morning experience. (Here are some tips for keeping school-day mornings cheery.)

I’ve also resolved to “Get up at 6:00 a.m.,” so I have an hour to get myself organized before the rest of my family wakes up. And what does this mean? It means I have to go to sleep earlier.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of my friend Erin Doland’s excellent new book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week. It has lots of great information and tips, and I was quite struck by her observation:

“Experience has taught me that to get out of bed just fifteen minutes earlier each morning, most people need to go to bed thirty minutes earlier. To wake up and feel refreshed thirty minutes earlier in the morning requires going to bed a full hour earlier.”

I’d assumed this had just been my idiosyncratic experience, so I was surprised to see that someone else had found the same thing. Alas, I think this is absolutely true.

The fact is, I resent having to go to bed so early, just at the beginning of one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. I finally have an opportunity to read for fun, call my sister in Los Angeles, cruise the internet, or watch TV. Instead, I have to turn out the light.

It’s strange that turning off the light is so hard. You’d think, “What could take less effort than going to sleep?” and yet I find that it sometimes takes a lot of effort to put myself to bed, even when I’m actually feeling sleepy. It’s just so much fun to stay up -- or sometimes I feel too tired to take out my contacts.

Getting enough sleep really pays off, though. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or listless, or irritable, try getting more sleep for a week. That might help more than you expect.

What do you think? How much is your happiness affected by the amount of sleep you get?

* On Gimundo, I read about a fascinating study that suggests that being in a clean-smelling environment makes people behave in a more fair and generous way.

* If you’re in a book group and think you might choose The Happiness Project as a reading selection, please let me know. I’ll send you a discussion guide, plus I plan to give away some free advance copies of the book, and I’ll choose addresses from these emails.
--Email me at gretchenrubin1[at]gmail.com (don’t forget the “1”) with the message “book group"
--include your name and address if you’d like to be eligible for a free book
--if you’re willing, I’d love to know a little about your group: how many members, what you read, etc. No particular reason, I’m just curious about book groups!

A Secret to Happiness: Don’t Try to Keep That Resolution.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of my Secrets of Adulthood (cribbed from Niels Bohr) is “The opposite of a great truth is also true.” So whenever I’m very convinced that something is true, I ask myself, “Is the opposite also true?”

The main strategy for my happiness project is to make and keep resolutions. I’ve made dozens, maybe hundreds of resolutions, and I have Resolutions Chart where I score myself on the most important resolutions. I constantly remind myself, “It’s important to keep that resolution! It will make me happier!” and usually it does.

But I have at least one resolution that I just can’t seem to keep, and I’ve decided to resolve to do just the opposite, to “Give up that resolution.”

I’m giving up my long-standing, often-repeated resolution to “Entertain more.” Fact is, I’ve never really committed to that resolution: I never broke the goal down into steps that I could follow and pushed myself to keep them. Well, why not? Why was I able to keep resolutions like Stop gossiping and Read more and Don’t expect praise or appreciation, but not this one?

I want to entertain more, but clearly, I also do NOT want to entertain more. Finally I realized – I need to give up this resolution for a while.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. The Happiness Project book is finally about to hit the shelves, and that means a lot of work – not just writing work, which I’m used to, but other kinds of work. My children need a lot of attention. My husband has been traveling a fair amount. When I have some spare time, I want to just hang around the apartment and read; I don’t want another to-do list, even for something fun. Some people like party errands (flowers, food, fixing up the house, figuring out whom to invite), but I don’t.

So I’ve decided to abandon that resolution for a while.

Starting an exercise routine. Learning Italian. Cleaning the basement. We all have longstanding resolutions hanging over our heads – resolutions that we want to keep, but we don’t really make much progress towards, and which can therefore give us a feeling of powerlessness or failure. As important as it is to try to keep resolutions, sometimes you need to give up a resolution.

Sometimes, too, I think a resolution can block you. You don’t have any nice clothes because you want to lose weight. You don’t read any novels because you’ve promised yourself to read War and Peace. Letting go of one resolution might make it easier to keep other resolutions.

The thing is, I know if I’d keep the resolution to “Entertain more,” it would make me happier. But I’m going to admit to myself how happy it will make me not to keep that resolution.

How about you? Have you ever boosted your happiness when you gave up a resolution?

* I loved watching this video of starlings' flight patterns.

* Zoikes! More than a week has gone by since I mentioned the fact that The Happiness Project is available for pre-order! Act now! If you need any convincing, look here and here.

Take a Look at Some Other Happiness Projects. It's Not Just Me!

One of the most exciting things about working on my happiness project is seeing other people start their own happiness projects.

I get a real kick from seeing these happiness-project blogs, where people have taken my basic idea and run with it themselves -- taking the concept in so many different directions. Every happiness project is different; every one is fascinating. Check these blogs out yourself:

If you have a blog that's not on this list, please add yours to this simple form, and your blog's name and URL will be added to the chart. That way, all of us can see what you're doing.

If you'd like to start a happiness project, but don't want to do it using a blog, here are some ideas for getting started. Happiness projects for everyone!

* How can I resist a column on Money & Happiness? I can't, so I'm a big fan of Laura Rowley's writing Yahoo! Finance.

* For more discussion about happiness, join the Facebook Page. Lots of people, lots of fascinating insights and conversation.

Stop Expecting to Change Your Habit in 21 Days.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

In my research on happiness, I keep running into the assertion that it takes twenty-one days to develop a new habit -- but I’ve always had my doubts about the validity that number.

First, when it comes to developing a bad habit, two repetitions is probably enough. Order a doughnut with your coffee on Monday morning and Tuesday morning, and you’ll probably find it very hard to resist ordering a doughnut on Wednesday.

Second, at least for me, twenty-one days isn't nearly long enough to form a good habit. For my happiness project, I tried for many weeks to get in the habit of keeping a food journal, and I failed and gave up, and then tried again, and I never could get in the habit. Flossing is a challenge – though all the suggestions from these commenters has improved my flossing rate, I must say. Even writing in my one-sentence journal, which I enjoy doing, isn't really quite habitual yet.

Because I’ve always questioned that often-repeated statistic, I was very interested to read Oliver Burkeman’s article, How long does it really take to change a habit?

According to a recent study, a daily action like eating fruit at lunch or running for fifteen minutes took an average of sixty-six days to become as much of a habit as it would ever become.

However, there was a lot of variation, both among people and among habits – some people are more habit-resistant than others, and some habits are harder to pick up than others.

I found this study reassuring. My difficulty in picking up certain habits wasn't unusual. Fact is, habits are hard to alter, and that’s why developing a good habit is really worth the struggle; once you’re used to making your bed each morning, or going for an evening walk, or flossing, you don’t have to exert much self-control to keep it up.

The study also showed that if you miss a day here or there when you’re trying to develop a habit, it doesn’t derail the process, so don’t get discouraged if you can’t keep a perfect track record. But the first days seem to make the biggest difference, so it’s worth trying to be particularly diligent at the beginning of the attempted-habit-acquisition process.

What do you think? What has been your experience in developing habits? How long has it taken, and what tricks have you found to help yourself acquire -- or kick -- a habit?

* I've always been fascinated by bees and ants (also slightly terrified of ants, having read The Once and Future King at an impressionable age), and was amazed by this video of fire ants forming a raft to float down a river.

* 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 grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

A Happiness Lesson from Actors: Find the “Yes.”

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One thing my happiness project has taught me is to follow my instincts when reading. I’m a voracious reader, and I used to spend a lot more time worrying about what I “should” be reading. Instead of just reading the book that appealed most to me at a particular time, I’d ask myself – should I do more research for my book? Should I read something for the first time, instead of re-reading, as I love to do? Should I squelch my love for children’s literature? And while I’m reading, should I spend so much precious time taking notes?

But now I worry more about my First Commandment, to Be Gretchen. I read what I want to read. This makes me very happy, and funnily enough, even when I’m reading something that seems completely unrelated to my research, it often does end up being useful.

For example, recently I’ve been plowing through a lot of books about acting and directing. Why? I like movies, but I’m not passionate about them, yet I love reading about directing. I’m enthralled by any description of the creative process, in any medium, and right now, I’m particularly attracted to how the people in this arena talk about what they do.

That’s why I found myself reading Michael Shurtleff’s Audition (I think it was recommended to me by the incomparable Colleen Wainwright after I asked her for a list of good books about acting.)

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of drift, and Shurtleff made a point that has many implications for happiness:

Negatives are always written in a play and it is the actor’s job to provide the positive.

This means that the no is strongly and literally written:
No, I don’t want that
I want to leave
Leave me alone
I won’t do what you want

It is the actor’s job to see through the negative to the other side…to find the yes that is also in the scene:
What do you want?
Why are you still here, if you say you want to leave?
If you want to be left alone, why are you still having this relationship?
What do you want to do?
…
Actors must learn to remember an important thing: you [the character] always have a choice. If you really want to leave, then why are you still there having this scene with this other person? Answer that question and you [the actor] will be able to do the scene.

This strikes me as a good happiness-project approach. When you feel trapped in a negative, ask yourself the positive question, and maybe that will shed light on how to change it or at least change your mind. The reason for “no” is easy to identify and express; the answer to “yes” can be elusive and upsetting. Why aren’t you trying to leave a job you hate? Why are you staying in a relationship that’s making you crazy? If you don’t want to do this, what do you want to do? In my own case, I can think of plenty of examples where I saw the "no" very clearly, and even enjoyed proclaiming the "no," but the "yes" proved much more of a struggle to discern.

What do you think? Can you think of an example where you found it easier to find the "no" than the "yes"? Somehow seeing this question raised in the issue of acting a scene and portraying a conflict in a play makes it clearer to understand.

* I can never get enough time-lapse photography of nature – here are clouds moving above the San Francisco Bay area.

* Interested in launching a group for people doing happiness projects? More and more of these groups are forming – recent additions include Atlanta, Toronto, Oklahoma City, and Williamsburg and, yes, Kuala Lumpur. The leader of the Inspiration Club of West Midlands, UK, has integrated the Happiness Project into their daily activities -- photos from their first anniversary here.

A Secret to Happiness? Don't Get Organized.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of my favorite things to do is to help my friends clear their clutter. It’s less emotionally taxing than clearing my own clutter, plus I don’t have any delicious, horrible piles left to tackle (okay, maybe I do have one messy pile of shirts in my closet). As a consequence, I’ve seen a lot of clutter and heard lots of people talk about their thoughts about clutter. And I’ve reached an important conclusion:

Don’t get organized.

When you’re facing a desk swamped in papers, or a closet bursting with clothes, or counter-tops littered with piles of random objects, don’t say to yourself, “I need to get organized.” Your first instinct should be to get rid of stuff. If you don’t keep it, you don’t have to organize it.

A huge amount of clutter is the result of keeping things you don’t use. “Well, I don’t have that problem,” you might think. “Why would I bother to keep something I don’t use?” But it’s easier than you think for this stuff to accumulate.

In fact, there are a surprising number of reasons to hang on to something you don’t use. Maybe you used this object in the past, and it has sentimental value – your ten-year-old’s old sippy cup. Maybe you wish you used this object, even though you never do – a set of hand-weights. Maybe you want to pretend you live a life where this object would be useful – linen cocktail napkins. Maybe you’ve never used this thing, and you feel guilty about having wasted the money buying it – a bottle of decoupage glue. (All items that I held onto for years, without using, by the way.)

It can be painful to admit that you aren’t going to use certain possessions, but all that junk just gets in your way. Be honest with yourself.

When I’m helping people clear clutter, they often say, “I refuse to give that up! It’s got too much sentimental value to throw away.” I’m a big believer in keeping things for sentimental reasons, but it helps to admit that that’s what you’re doing and to act accordingly.

For example, a friend was keeping a huge pile of t-shirts she loved in college, but no longer wore. She wanted to buy a special set of plastic shelves to put in her closet to organize them.

Instead, I asked her, “Do you need to keep all these t-shirts, or can you pick a few to jog your memory?” With some coaxing, she got rid of most of them. Once she was down to two t-shirts, I asked her, “Do you actually wear these t-shirts?” She didn’t, so we moved them out of the precious real estate of her closet and stuck them on the top shelf of little-used closet.

People also say, “No, I’ve never used that, but maybe I will! It might come in handy!” Maybe it will – or maybe it won’t. Ask yourself: how easy would it be to replace this item? Have I ever used it? What else in my life would have to change for me to use this?

For example, my sister had huge amounts of paper clutter, and when we started going through it, I saw that she was hanging on to all sorts of statements and receipts. She wanted to buy a file box to file it all away neatly, but I disagreed. “You should just throw these papers away,” I said, “why do you them at all?” “Maybe I’ll need them,” she objected. But she’d never needed them in the past, and it wouldn’t have been hard to get copies, if she would ever need them. So we tossed all of it. Much easier than organizing it!

No surprise, I’ve noticed that it’s the people with the worst clutter problems who have the instinct to run to a store and buy complicated hangers, drawer compartments, etc. I love and use that stuff, too, but now I never let myself buy an item until it’s absolutely clear that it will help me put objects in order that are truly necessary – rather than act as a crutch to move clutter around or to jam more clutter into place.

So the next time you have the urge to get organized, and especially if you feel tempted to buy organizing doodads, first push yourself to throw away or give away the things you don’t actually use. (Here are 27 bonus tips for keeping your house in order.) You may find yourself left with nothing to organize.

Have you ever realized that you’ve been hanging on to something that you didn’t use? Why were you keeping it?

* Tonight I saw Marci Alboher, which reminded me how much I love to read her Working the New Economy blog. And oh, how I love stop-motion video -- I watched this funny video on Gimundo.

* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 28,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format – trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.

Choose the Bigger Life; No Pressure Knitting.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I love visiting this blog’s companion site, the Happiness Project Toolbox – it’s fun to add to my own Inspiration Board, keep up with my own One-Sentence Journal (mine is a journal of what I’m reading), check my Lists, etc.

But I’m really addicted to the site because I love looking at what other people are writing. I can’t get enough of reading other people’s favorite quotations on the Inspiration Boards, seeing other people’s Personal Commandments, and all the rest. (To see what other people have added, you can click on the Tools listed across the top, or on the “more” running down the right side.)

Today, instead of proposing one of my resolutions for your happiness project, I gathered six of my favorite resolutions from that section of the Toolbox. These are resolutions posted by other people that I’m going to start to follow myself:

1. Say “I love you” every day
2. Choose the bigger life
3. Read books with my children
4. Laugh with my wife daily [ok, I’ll change this to “husband”]
5. Kindness
6. Put clothes away

I don’t knit, so I won’t follow the resolution “No pressure knitting,” but that resolution gave me such a clear picture of that person and that happiness project! I laughed out loud; I know exactly what that means.

One note: I see that a lot of people have the resolution to “Drink more water.” It’s not clear that this is a helpful resolution. Maybe you don't need to drink more water. If you love drinking water, then by all means, drink water, but from what I can see, the benefits are quite overblown, so you don’t need to worry about this too much.

We all have a limited capacity for sticking to resolutions, so make sure you’re getting the biggest happiness bang for the buck. You'd probably be better off using your precious resolution-energy toward going for a ten-minute walk instead of trying to drink water.

What resolutions have proved most helpful in your happiness projects?

* Ashby Jones at the Wall Street Journal law blog did a two-part interview with me this week. We had a great time talking about happiness, lawyers, and career choices in general.
Part I
Part II

* Join the discussion on the Facebook Page. Lots of interesting commentary there.