Quotes from Gretchen Rubin

Recently I'd been intrigued to read about a self-publishing site, Lulu.com. According to the Web site, I could print a proper hardback book, complete with dust jacket, for less than thirty dollars.

It takes work to be happier, but it's gratifying work.

Once we're ready to begin, begin now.

The Levity Effect

The most important thing is to know ourselves, and to choose the strategies that work for us.

It's a Secret of Adulthood: If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish.

We] often learn more from one person's idiosyncratic experiences than [we] do from scientific studies or philosophical treatises.

One flashy kind of commitment device is the "nuclear option." A friend who enjoys experimenting with strategies of personal productivity used this approach to quit drinking for sixty days. He gave his assistant a stamped, addressed envelope with a check he'd written to an "anti-charity," an organization whose policies he passionately opposes, with the instruction to mail the check if he had a drink before the time was up.

phrase from James Collins and Jerry Porras's book Built to Last: "BHAG—Big Hairy Audacious Goals, all the way. I resisted this for years, thinking that to shoot too high only meant I would fail. What I didn't realize was that shooting high motivated me much more.

There are many compelling reasons to exercise, but study after study shows that weight loss isn't one of them. The way to lose weight is to change eating habits.

With habits, we conserve our [limited] self-control.

Epicurus agreed, albeit in slightly more poetic phraseology: Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.

Exercise for sanity not vanity.

If I want my life to be a certain way, I must be that way myself.

For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we want to make into a habit.

I feel unsettled at any time when I'm not writing. And I mean that. There's a sense of peace, and of being in the right place, that I experience only when I'm writing.

I concluded that the real key to habits is decision making—or, more accurately, the lack of decision making.

Don't grieve limitations

An unmade bed is a common broken window, which is why "Make the bed" is one of the most popular happiness-project resolutions, and in fact, as Charles Duhigg points out in his fascinating book The Power of Habit, the habit of bed making is correlated with a sense of greater well-being and higher productivity.

See the child you have," as the saying goes, "not the child you wish you had.

realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory. Any single happy experience may be amplified or minimized, depending on how much attention

When the Schiphol Airport put the image of a housefly above the drains of urinals, men began to aim at it—a change that reduced spillage rates by 80 percent. "Gamification" is used in the design of devices and apps to help people improve their habits.

My home is a place of unconditional belonging, which is part of its pleasure, part of its pain—as Robert Frost wrote, home is "Something you somehow haven't to deserve." At home, I feel a greater sense of safety and acceptance, and also of responsibility and obligation. With friends, my hospitality is voluntary, but my family never needs an invitation. Although

Andy Warhol wrote, "Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it's exciting, and if you do it every day it's exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it's not good any more.