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Gretchen Rubin

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130
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2018-01-10
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2018-01-10
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  1. “So, how do you change fans into a community? Like, that's a question that we still are thinking about all the time. This is an aspirational manifesto. It's not what we do. It's what we try to do.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Well, one thing is we have interviews, but very sporadically, so not nearly, you know, it's like every maybe fifth episode, if even that often. So that's one way to get in. Sometimes our producer will come in and just make a comment. So you're like, oh, yeah, they're in, you know, there is like other people around. Often we try to have clips from televisions or movies if those are relevant or music, if there's something like that or even sound effects or just something so that the sound is changing. So that's one thing. And so for me, that was very helpful is sort of like, okay, I'm not just having coffee with somebody and having them tell me about their podcast. I'm like, I'm looking for those gems that are like the takeaways or like one thing is fans are great, but a community is better.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Well, I did something which is like one of my favorite things to do, which is I was like, I'm going to have a manifesto. Like I'm really into sort of like taking ideas and trying to distill them. So I went around and talked to as many people I could find who either created podcasts or worked in podcasting or just loved podcasts. And I asked them like, what, like, how do you even think about it? And would hear what they talk. And then whenever they would say something that I was like, okay, it makes the manifesto, you know? And so like one of the one thing that made the manifesto, which I think about all the time is to be consistent and also surprise. And I think about that all the time. Like there has to be consistency. But then you also have to break it up, you know, instead of you and like let the outside world into your podcast. You know, you don't want it to become too insular. You have new people in your podcast all the time, but for us, it's mostly me and my sister. So it's like, you don't want it to start feeling claustrophobic. So how do you get the outside world in?”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Learning how to like podcasts. I mean That's a whole separate skill. Yeah, that was huge. Like entering into that world was huge, huge thing. Yeah.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Anything I mean, like, well, I mean, I just keep thinking laptop, but that's so basic. And so long ago, it doesn't even really count.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “For sure. If I don't get a book review, then this book essentially doesn't exist in the public mind. Or, you know, once it's not in the front table, then no one will ever see it again. It will never be heard from again. So that was a failure that had enormous consequences for me. It did not feel it did not feel like a helpful failure at the time, but looking back, it was a lucky failure for sure.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Now, it looks like indie bookstores are kind of coming back, but for a while it was really scary for indie bookstores. I thought I really do want to be able to connect with people myself, just like with my own Steam rather than depending on gatekeepers.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “And so I feel like if I hadn't had that failure, I wouldn't have, I don't think I would have had as much excitement and interest in the blog because I wouldn't have understood how valuable it is to connect with readers. It's one of the reasons I love having a podcast. It's one of the reasons that I love using social media. I love connecting with listeners and viewers and readers about the subjects that I'm interested in. I get immense value from it because I get all kinds of examples and questions and illustrations. People are like my research assistants, they'll send me links to research and anything they think connects to the things that I'm obsessed with. So it's enormously valuable to me, but I don't know if that book had done fine. I don't know that I would have realized the value of it because I would have been like, oh, I'll just write a good book and people will just naturally know about it. And it's like, but now with like shrinking, you know, coverage in traditional media, there's”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Becoming accessible and up to people who are very untechnical like me. Things like having a blog. And I had already started working on the happiness project. And one of the kind of, and the idea of the happiness project is I was test driving all these things that people tell you about how you can be happier. And one of the things that the research keeps showing is that novelty and challenge make people happier. And I thought, well, that's not true for me. I like mastery and familiarity, but I have to do something because the whole point of the book is that I'm going to do this experiment. So I'm like, well, I'll do something novel and challenging. I'll start a blog. Well, I quickly realized that the blog, which I started thinking that it would be like my gratitude journal and I would quickly abandon it because it wouldn't work, which I did with my gratitude journal.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “That you learned a lot from or steered you in a direction. Absolutely, absolutely. So I wrote a book which I love, I love all my books called Forty Ways to Look at JFK. And as they say in the industry it did not find its audience. So nobody bought this book. Nobody was interested in this book. But what it taught me that was so it was a failure. They didn't even make it into a paperback. So that was my only book that only exists in hardback form. But what I learned was I had this incredible feeling of helplessness that here I was. I had poured my heart into a book. I really thought it was good. And I was totally dependent on others to shine a spotlight on it. Like there was nothing I could do to try to let people know that the book was there. Now, maybe they weren't interested, but I couldn't even try to interest them in it. I had no tools. And it was just at this time that everything was become, all the tools that now exist online were just.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Well, I think it has to come from my own mind. So I think it's about examining my work process and thinking, well, what is it that I is it that I should do that no one else can do and thinking about that? That's what I need to sit down and think about. Yeah. Yeah. Everything from handling email to all that stuff.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Well, see, that's a very good question because I feel like I could do all these sort of little books and I need to sit down and decide, well, which one would be the most fun for me and for other and for readers? Like I have all these one sentence aphorisms, which I love one sentence aphorisms and they're sort of sprinkled in like secrets of adulthood and they're sprinkled all over the place. But I have to sit down and think, is this something that would be a good book? Is this a book? Is this not a book? Is there something else it should be? You know, that's like, that's the work that only I can do. But then once I decide, well, what's that priority? Then I can start thinking about it. Yeah. So it's a whole thing. It's not like something pick up my clothes every night before I go to bed instead of leaving them in a giant pile on the end of the chair at the end of the bed, which is another one of my resolutions, but that's like easy to execute. Right. This one, there's like lots of moving pieces that are very...”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Make something cool out of and say to somebody, go through, look at all my stuff and pull out everything related to self-knowledge and put it in some kind of form and then I'll go through it and polish it and tinker with it and make it into something really cool. But if you would just go through and do that, then my work would take a fraction of the time. It would just be the fun part that only I can do because instead of me thinking, keep thinking, oh, I should go through and like cut and paste. That would sort of be fun, but somebody else can do that. So I'm trying to figure that out. How exactly that's going to, what form that will take. It doesn't come naturally to me, so it's going to be a struggle.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Well, for me, it's asking myself the question what is it that I do that someone else can do? There are many things that I do that no one else could do, but there's some things that I do that other people could do. And I need to be more disciplined in identifying that and delegating it. Partly, it's just like at any one moment, it's easier to just do it myself. It's like faster to just do it myself than to like sit down and figure out, well, who could do it instead and how could I delegate it? Or maybe I shouldn't do it at all. It's just easy. And that's part of being in a polder. It's easier for me to just execute than to step back and be like, well, why should I do this? And is there a better way? That's what questioners are good at. And so I want to do that. And then like last year, my theme was repurposing, but I realized, and I did a very bad job living up to that theme. And I'm like, that's because I need to delegate repurposing, which is I need to find like someone who I can ask to go through, you know, I have a tremendous archive of stuff, but I always want to just be creating the new thing. But I have all this stuff that I could.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “You know, kind of my job is to have resolutions. I feel like I'm like resolving constantly. But I don't really make traditional New Year's resolutions anymore, partly because I do make so many resolutions sort of as part of my ongoing experiment in happiness and good habits. If something occurs to me, I usually like try it right away because. Just, you know, for the fun of it”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “The hospital. I never have time to like cook, you know. I never have time to have a healthy meal because I'm always eating out of the vending machines because I work so hard at the hospital. I do everything for my patients. It's like, okay, well, you're an obliger. So given that, if you do decide that you want to exercise or eat health fully or write a novel or practice meditation or whatever, how could you imagine systems of outer accountability that would permit you to follow through with that inner aim that you have for yourself? And sometimes civilizers don't like the fact that they're reliant on outer accountability. They feel like somehow it's weak. Like who cares? It's the biggest tendency. It's the one that most people belong to for both men and women. A lot of people are in the same boat. Who cares what you have to do to get there? Just figure out what works for you, you know, outer accountability works.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Be so disappointed if I break the chain I've been going so I've been doing so well I need to do it because for future Gretchen Obliger is very dramatically in what kind of accountability structures work for them because like some for some obligers paying for something makes them very likely to feel accountable. For other obligers it's almost like it makes them feel like they're off the hook. Like, oh, I paid for it so that it's like the same as doing it. And you're like, no, it's really not. But that is the thing. When you're an obliger, you want to figure out, well, how can I create a structure of outer accountability around inter-expectations? This is true even for self-care. This is a word, a huge tip-off. If somebody starts talking about self-care, I'm like bing, bing, bing, you're an obliger. Or if you're somebody who's like, well, you know, I don't have time to exercise because I give 110% to my clients. Like, you're an obliger because you're saying I can't meet an inter expectation because I'm always meeting outer expectations. Now you might pride yourself on that and think, oh, I'm such a badass. Of course, I'm always seeing patience.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “This goes back to your original question, which is about accountability. That is the answer for obligers. And I would say everything related to the four tendencies, this is the most important idea that's helped the most people figure out kind of the hidden patterns of their nature, which is that if you are an obliger, by definition, you can meet, you can easily meet your meeting outer expectations, but struggling to meet inner expectations. The solution. The way to fix this, the very concrete and straightforward solution is outer accountability. Outer accountability can work for other tendencies. It is essential for obligers. If you want to read more, join a book group. If you want to exercise more, join a class where they take attendance, work out with a trainer, work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up, take your dog for a run every morning, and he's going to be so disappointed if he doesn't go for a run, plus he's going to tear up the living room. Some obligers can use things like their future self. Like, well, now Gretchen doesn't want to go for a run, but future Gretchen's going to be”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Or, like, I was doing physical therapy, and my physical therapist told me to do it twice a day, and then all of a sudden I found I was doing it four times a day. I'm like, maybe that's good, but maybe that's not good. And then they can also seem very cold. It's funny, the other night I gave a talk in an upholder with somebody was like, oh, she's an upholder like you, and I think it's so great to be an upholder. What's the downside? And I was like, because they can seem cold. And this woman leans into me and she goes, oh my gosh, I am so cold. Because upholders are like, you know, I know that we've got guests coming to stay with us at home this weekend, but I got to go on a 15-mile run because I'm training for the marathon. So you're going to be on your own because I got to go for my run. Or like, you know, oh, you're my colleague and our reports are due tomorrow. And you've asked me if I can proofread your report, but I don't have time for that because I got to finish my report. My report's due tomorrow too. To an upholder, that seems appropriate. I need to meet my inner expectations as well as, you know, my outer expectation of handing this in tomorrow. But to other people, that can seem cold.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “A friend of mine who had a Fitbit, you know, was trying to do 10,000 steps a day. He's like, My wife was asleep in bed. I was locked myself in the bathroom and I'm jogging away next to the toilet at 1 a.m. because I'm going to get to my tent at midnight because I'm going to get to my 10,000 steps. That's tightening. Like, it could be good, but sometimes you can become kind of like the, you know, the mindless bureaucrat of your own paperwork. It's something that really has to be...”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Well, there's a lot of great things about being in a holder, certainly. It's a small tendency. Rubble is the smallest tendency, and upholder is only slightly larger. One of the things, but all of the tendencies have strengths and weaknesses, usually the strengths and the weaknesses, it's like two sides of the same coin. And when you look at who's the happiest, the healthiest, the most productive, the most creative, it's the people who have figured out how to harness the strength of their tendency and offset the weaknesses and limitations of their tendency. And some of the weaknesses and limitations of upholders, when upholders, they can be rigid. Like they will lock into a schedule or a priority list, and then they're like, what do you mean? We have to do something different. Or where it's not clear what expectations are or where it's ambiguous, what's expected of them, or when things change rapidly. They can have tightening, which is when the rules get tighter, which is like.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Then there are obligers, and that's my friend on the track team. Obligers readily meet out our expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations, so they will meet the work deadline, but they're going to have a lot of trouble with the New Year's resolution. And then there are rebels. Rebels resist all expectations outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist. And there's a quiz on my site, GretchenRubin.com, a free quiz, and more than a million people now have taken that quiz. But most people don't even need to take the quiz. They just hear that like little introduction, and they know what they are. And this ends up making a huge difference in how you most successfully go through life and deal with other people.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “They're upholders questioners obligers rebels. Upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. So they meet the work deadline without much fuss. They keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do it if they think it makes sense. So they're turning everything into an inner expectation. If it meets their standard, they'll do it no problem. If it fails their standard, they will resist.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “What is going on? What's different? Because it's the same person, it's the same behavior. At one time, it was effortless for her. Now she can't do it. How do you explain that? And that's what led me to the four tendencies. So accountability is a huge, we will get to that. The four tendencies has, it divides people into upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels, depending on how you respond to expectations. I know this sounds super boring, but it gets really toothy. And it has to do with how you deal with outer expectations, which are things like a work deadline or request from a friend, and then also inner expectations, which is like your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution, your own desire to write a novel in your free time.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “So the four tendencies is this personality framework that I stumbled on basically when I was writing better than before, which is my book about habit change, because I kept noticing patterns in how people could and couldn't form habits that didn't really, wasn't really explained by everything else that I was reading. I was like, I don't get what's going on here. It seemed like there was some pattern there that hadn't been identified. And it almost melted my brain, like figuring this out was definitely the most intellectually challenging thing that I've ever done. The catalyst for it was a very ordinary conversation where a friend of mine said, the weird thing about me is I know I would be happier if I exercised. And when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice. So why can't I go running now? And I had heard many people say similar things like that throughout my life. But for some reason, when she said that, I was just electrified. I was like, I must understand.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “For my kidlip group as a thank you present somebody brought me a Christmas ornament of a polar bear wearing like a banner, a royal banner. And I'm like, I know I know I know I know I'm in the right group because I showed it to everybody. They're like, look, it's Jornik Bernison. And I'm like, of course it is. This is not just some random polar bear. This is like, you know, the Golden Compass.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Because There's many books that have teenage protagonists that I'm just thinking of like title for the time being by Ruth Azeki. Well, half of one of there's two narrators. One of them is like a 15-year-old girl or something like that. That is not a YA book. Yeah. So it's very hard to define what that is. It's so good, right? Aren't you glad you read it? So good.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Such as I love children's literature and young adult, I kind of wish that people didn't see this split because I think a lot of times adults don't read things that they might very much enjoy because they think, well, it's YA, so it's not for me. And it's like these are really, really great books on their own terms. So I'm with you. I don't think that that's what makes a YA book because”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “No, and you raised a very interesting question and one that we talk about a lot and that nobody has a good answer to, which is what makes something YA? And sometimes it's just a feel and a lot of times books are put in YA because the protagonists are young adult. Like Jane Eyre has started drifting into YA. I will often see it in YA or like Catch her in the Rye. Catcher in the Rye was not written to be a young adult book. It's an adult book, but it sort of drifted there because the protagonist is a teenager. And I think you're right. Sometimes it doesn't, but like then there's this, I don't know if you've read Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. That is clearly an adult book, but the protagonist is a teenager. I'm like, someday somebody going to decide that's a YA book. So I think you're right. I think what makes something YA or not is very much on the eye of the beholder and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not sophisticated or demanding. And there's a lot of books, you know, now there's a lot of talk of crossover. Like, are there books that adults would read? And I kind of wish as much.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “What did you think? And people who really know the books. So, you know, it's like if you want to talk about deep into the Louisa May Alcott canon or the great schism in the books is in the groups is Twilight. Some people like this book, some people don't like those books. And so that's like, you know, if I'm ever talking to somebody who's thinking, you know, about the group, I'm always like, well, how do you feel about it? Because you have to have an opinion. You don't have to agree with my opinion. But it's like anybody who's in this area has a viewpoint. It's like on the Twilight series. You can't be like, what's that? I've never heard of that. Or, oh, I thought those were just movies. It's like, no, you've got to have a view. That's how we know you're one of us. You don't have to like it, but you have to think have a thought.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “The motto of the Kidlit groups is no guilt. So you are completely encouraged to come even if you haven't read the book. If you haven't been able to come for a year because you've been too busy and then you want to start coming again, we welcome you back at any time. No explanations necessary. We talk about the book as much or as little as we want. Sometimes we talk about the book a lot because there's a lot to say. Sometimes it's like, oh, you know, it's not that much and we talk about other things that we're more interested in. So it's very loose. It's not a highly structured experience. I hear about some book groups and I'm like, oh my gosh, it sounds like a seminar. You know, like you have to prepare and like you have to give a”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “We all work it out. Like, every book groups, all book groups have different ways, and we just sort of talk about it, and everybody sort of says, like, yeah, that one sounds good. So we don't really have a particular methodology for picking. And sometimes, and usually though now, we're trying to pick a book that at least everyone is talking about it. So it's like a book that's important to read, even if we don't like it, or it's a book that somebody has read and loves. And so they're like willing to say, like, I really love this book because we don't want to read something that is like no one's going to like. But sometimes it's worth reading a book just because it is sort of of the moment. And so you want to know what is working right now or what are people responding to right now. That's always kind of interesting.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “Let's get going on Philip Hullman. And so, and then one of the groups had a tradition, but we've sort of fallen out of it, is that you would serve something related to the books, which was funny. Like we read holes by Lewis Sakar, and the person served donut holes or like one-time, we read Little House in the Big Woods and it was like, you know, cornbread and apple pie and, you know, Red Gingham tablecloth. So that's just sort of like a little fun thing you could do if you felt like it. Who decides who?”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “We all communicate through email. So one of the groups, they're all a little bit different. One of the groups, well, they all meet every six weeks and they all take turns meeting at certain people's apartments. People will take turns. Some people have apartments that are too small or too far away, and so it's not convenient. So those people just don't enter the rotation, which is fine. That's just like whatever. Some people host, some people don't. One person never hosts. So she always brings dessert. That's like her contribution. She brings dessert every time. So fine. One of the groups, we rotate among classic modern and contemporary. So we might read Peter Pan and then Harriet the Spy and then the hate you give. You know, we would do that. The other ones just pick books. We just pick whatever we feel like reading. So like right now, reading Book of Dust by Philip Pullman, which is like the, you know.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “That and then like really bringing it into my really shining a light on it in my life, letting it really kind of take its place as a major occupation in my life.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “Had my annual Christmas party when I get all three groups together. One day a year they all three meet, and I'm a member of all three, but there were so many that there had to be three separate groups. And it's been amazing because I've met all I've met a bunch of like bookish people who I love, so I have more relationships. I have, and these are people who share something that I love. I have a way to talk about and learn about something that I truly love. And the fact is it's like some people like mysteries, some people like sci-fi. It's like some people like children's literature and young adult literature. It's just a different taste that some people have and some people don't. As adults, there's nothing to do with children in these groups. But that was something where I'm like, wow, when I look back on changes that I made that gave me like huge spike in happiness both kind of intellectually and also through relationships because relationships are probably the key to happiness. That was a big one. That was a big one. Kind of acknowledging.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “Well, one thing that I did that added tremendously to my happiness, so I am like this crazy raving fan of children's literature and young adult literature. So I read it as a child and I read it now as an adult. And I realized when I was writing the happiness project that this was something that I loved, but I didn't really make much time for it in my life. It kind of didn't fit with my idea of myself that I was very sophisticated, I was a very kind of advanced reader who read very, you know, kind of like very adult things. But I realized, you know, I don't really have that many true passions and interests. And so I don't have enough that I can just ignore one of the big ones. And I started a group for adults who read and love children's literature and young adult literature. And when I started it, I truly believe that there were no other adults in New York City who had wanted to join this group. And now there are three of these groups.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “Everything about the way that I eat. And for me, it was just the most freeing, energizing positive change. And I also used to get super hungry, like shaking, sweating, hungry, because I was eating like a very low fat diet and not even that much protein. And so, and now I don't have that. It was super inconvenient. So for me, that was a huge thing. I'm not saying that would work for everybody, but that was for me. And it was a very dramatic change. My husband actually gave me a Christmas ornament in the shape of a strip of bacon to like... Memorialized this was the year of the beginning of Bacon because boy we eat a lot of bacon. And so that was a big thing for me. And in the last five years.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Well, one thing that I did was four years ago is I gave up sugar, quit sugar, and basically carbs. So I don't eat sugar, pasta, flour, starchy vegetables. I don't really eat much. I eat almost no fruit. So like the most curvy things I eat are green vegetables and nuts. So I do eat a lot of nuts, which help like a fair amount of carbs. So, and this for me was the greatest thing. I had always had a really terrible sweet tooth, and I hated the feeling of like, can I have this or it's just a bite or it's for free or it's my birthday or, you know, that whole thing. And I just like, I just, and I write about this in better than before that I realized I'm an abstainer. It's easier for me to have none than to have a little bit. And I just gave it up. I read this book, Why We Get Fat by Gary Tobbs. And I'm like overnight. I'm like, I'm completely convinced.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “No. I really couldn't. No, because it's like journalists. They're like, well, I'm in the UK, so I can't talk to you at five because for me, that's the middle of the night. Or I have to record a podcast. So that has to happen at a certain time. I would have to work so hard. To have that kind of, I just don't think it's worth it. I mean, I might kind of enjoy it, but it's not worth fighting for. In my mind, for other people, they might want to really make that a priority.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “Am I talking to a reporter? Am I writing an email? Am I planning? Then the rest of the day is much more unpredictable or it changes day to day. Unfortunately, I wish I had the life of a Benedictine monk because I would love to have every day be exactly the same, but it's not.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “The first hour is because I get up at six a.m. every day, I walk my dog, I get coffee, and then I sit down and do what all the experts tell you not to do, which is I spend the first hour of my day checking my email and social media, which everybody says if you're a morning person, you should do your most intense intellectual work then because that's when you're at your best. I definitely am a morning person. But I realize like I can't focus on anything until I check my inbox and see what's going on, check social media, see what's going on there. I'm just too distracted by that until I get it done. So I do that. And then it's time for my daughter to go to school. So often I'll walk her to school. She doesn't need me to walk her to school, but I do it just because it's fun. It's like a nice way to get out. And then I'll usually, I'll often exercise. So I will either go for a walk in Central Park or I'll go to the gym or I do high intensity strength training or I have a yoga class. And then I go into whatever am I preparing for a podcast? Am I working on a book?”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “Just pretty much talks to me about her day, you know, or like we'll talk about, she's actually very interested in being a writer too. And so sometimes we'll talk about writerly things. I mean, it's funny she was reading this book and we had this long discussion about pacing in a novel. Like this book was very, like, you know, the pace of it was very fast. Did we like that? Like a book that covered 10 years versus a book that covers the summer. And so we'll talk about stuff like that, which of course for me is tremendously fun. But mostly she just tells me about like what happened in her day. You know, she's in seventh grade, so there's a lot of drama to catch me up on. But it's just a really nice way to sit down and really connect at the end of the day. And it's very relaxing. It's a very, very peaceful.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “Well, one thing I have my daughter before she goes to bed often we will have like we'll just sit together and just kind of like it's like time it's meant to be time for her but it's actually time for me too to kind of unwind and because as she's old enough that we we go to bed more or less the same time because I am a sleep doll and so that's one thing but what do you guys”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “Yes, yeah, yeah. So I'm ready. But I'm asleep zealot. I'm asleep zealot. But if you're looking for like what's a habit that will make you more energetic, more immune to illness, higher focus and function, better temper, and just feel better. Getting more sleep. If you don't get enough sleep already, is something that will surely benefit you. And one of the funny is all this funny research that they've done because we really adjust to not getting enough sleep. And so people think that they're fine. They're like, oh, I've trained myself to get by on four hours of sleep. Like that's an scientists study these people, they're quite impaired. Like we lose track of how good we feel when we have enough sleep. And so you might think that you're fine. But actually, if you had more sleep, you might feel a lot, lot better, have a lot more energy, have a lot more focus.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Most adults need seven hours of sleep, most adults know what time they're going to get up in the morning, do the math, give yourself an alarm, give yourself a bedtime so it's not like I go to bed when I'm tired. It's like my bedtime is 10.30. And then you might even need a snooze alarm, just like if you have one in the morning, you might have one at night. And it's like, oh, my alarm went off. Now I have 15 minutes to get myself organized and get to bed. And then the alarm will go off again. And it's my bedtime. And another thing, another habit that can help with this is get ready before your bedtime. I realized that I was staying up late because I was too tired to get ready for bed. Like I was too tired to watch my face and take all my contacts and change my clothes. It's clearly very stupid approach. So now I get ready much earlier. And so once when I'm actually sleepy, it's easy to turn out the light because I'm already ready.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “Ready to tackle the big things. And getting enough sleep, of course, get enough sleep. That is like a huge one. If you have the hat, and here are some, if you're having trouble getting enough sleep, shed an alarm.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “Well, one thing that seems to work for a lot of people is the one minute rule. This is the rule that if there's anything you can do in less than a minute, you do it without delay. So if you can print out a document and delete the email and file it, do that. If you can scan a letter and throw it away, do that. If you can hang up your code instead of dumping it on a chair, do that. If you can put a book back on the shelf instead of just leaving it on the counter, do that. And what this does for a lot of you is just get rid of that kind of scum of stuff on the surface of life, you know, because sometimes it's not that there's any one thing that's so, you know, insurmountable to do, but you just feel like, oh my gosh, just everywhere I look, I see everything's just kind of out of order and I have to sift through everything to find what I'm looking for. And so for a lot of people, they say just doing this just makes them feel like, well, I've got the little things out of the way. And so now I'm.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “Because it's just, you know, one of the things about whenever we're trying to get ourselves to not do something, making it inconvenient, the slightest bit of inconvenience makes it harder to do something, which is, you know, which we can use to try to make our habits better. So I think for me, that's a thing. Once I'm down, okay, it's quitting time, I'm going down my little staircase that kind of creates a barrier, which is very helpful.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Yeah, like, you know, I'll carry my coffee mugs to the kitchen and I'll file anything and throw away anything that needs to be thrown away or like if I get a book off the shelf with the book back, put the caps on the pens, you know, that sort of thing, just to kind of, that makes it a lot nicer to come in in the next morning. And also, it's kind of a visual signal. Like now I'm winding down for the day. I'm kind of lucky because I live in an apartment, but my office used to be a water tower. And the people before who lived in our apartment before us turned it into a storage room. But in a nice storage room with like windows and an air conditioner and heat. And then when we moved, I was like, I could make that my office. So I'm sort of lucky because I have to go up a little flight of stairs to go to my office. And so it's not like I think of your office as like next to your kitchen. It's just right there all the time. Whereas for me, I like, I actually have to open up a door, go out into my service stairs, and go upstairs. And so I think that also makes it a little bit easier.”

    2018-01-10 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #290: Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT