Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 244: Small Ways to Improve Your Everyday Life Right Now | Gretchen Rubin

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

I call Gretchen Rubin the "Swiss Army Knife for Happiness." Present her with a problem, and she will flood you with practical, customized solutions. I love having Gretchen on this show not only because she's smart and funny and we're friends, but also because she provides some compelling counterprogramming. Most of our guests come from the meditation world, but Gretchen approaches happiness from a very different angle. She's a lawyer by training - she began her career clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - who went on to write a series of books that examine small, doable ways to boost our happiness in everyday life. Her books include her breakout memoir The Happiness Project, and then follow-on bestsellers such as The Four Tendencies (which is a fascinating look at how different kinds of people form habits). In this interview, we explore a bunch of ways to improve your day-to-day life in this pandemic. We talk about: family relationships, decluttering, setting priorities, managing your relationship to technology, treating yourself without overindulging, and going easy on yourself versus expecting more from yourself. Where to find Gretchen Rubin online: Website: https://gretchenrubin.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gretchenrubin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GretchenRubin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gretchenrubin/ Book Mentioned: Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin / https://gretchenrubin.com/books/outer-order-inner-calm/about-the-book We've been nominated for two Webby awards. If you love and want to support our work, please vote for us via links in the episode description. Vote for us in the health & fitness app category. / https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2020/apps-mobile-and-voice/apps-mobile-sites-general/health-fitness Vote for us in the voice category. / https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2020/apps-mobile-and-voice/general-voice/health-fitness-lifestyle Other Resources Mentioned: Susan Kaiser Greenland / https://www.susankaisergreenland.com/ Some Good News / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOe_y6KKvS3PdIfb9q9pGug The Four Tendencies Quiz / https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/ Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide We want to deeply thank and recognize teachers, warehouse workers, grocery and food delivery workers, and healthcare workers for the essential role that they play in our lives. For FREE access to the app and hundreds of meditations and resources visit https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gretchen-rubin-244 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, as you know, we've been sort of systematically unveiling free access to the 10% happier to various groups of people throughout this pandemic. We began with healthcare workers. We had a tremendous response. Tens of thousands of people signed up for free access

to the app. And then we rolled out access most recently to people who are working in grocery stores or doing food delivery. And now we wanna unveil access to teachers who are engaged in the monumental effort of educating our children under deeply, deeply suboptimal circumstances. So big shout out and salute to our teachers.

Free access to the app is available at 10%.com slash care. That's 10% all spelled out in one word, t-e-n-p-r-c-e-n-t. com slash care. That's 10% all spelled out in one word TNP or CNT dot com slash care. If you are in any of these groups, just go there and sign up. It's quick. We'll take care of you. And if you know somebody who's in one of these groups, please send them the link. One other quick announcement.

We have been nominated by we. I mean, the 10% happier app have been nominated for a pair of webbie awards I think the podcast got a webbie award last year or the year before anyway You can vote for us in the health and fitness app category or in the voice category We put links in the show notes do us a solid go vote because you know why not all right? Let's get to the show I call Gretchen Rubin, and she's okay with this. She assures me, the Swiss Army knife for happiness. The presenter with a problem,

she will flood you with practical, customized solutions. I love having Gretchen on the show, and she's been on here many times, not only because she's smart and funny and we're friends, but also because she provides some compelling counter-programming. A large majority of our guests come from the meditation world, but Gretchen approaches happiness from a very different angle. She's a lawyer by training. She started her career

clerking with the Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and then she went on to write a series of books that examine small, doable ways to boost our happiness in everyday life. Her books include her breakout memoir, The Happiness Project, and then a whole series of follow-on bestsellers, including a book called The Four Tendencies, which is a really fascinating look at how different people form habits. In this interview, we explore a bunch of ways to improve your day-to-day life in the midst of this pandemic. We talk about family relationships, decluttering, setting priorities, managing your relationship to technology, treating yourself without overindulging and going easy

on yourself versus expecting more from yourself. So here we go, Gretchen Ruben. All right, well, thanks for doing this, appreciate it. Shall we dive in? Yes. All right, you know, so let me just start. I'm curious, you kind of broke into the collective consciousness by writing a memoir about your own happiness. And here we are in this national global trauma. And I'm just curious, you know know what is your happiness level now what are the issues that are most salient to you personally.

To me personally I have to say that kind of my idiosyncratic mix of. probably helped me during this time. Like I'm well suited to this time. Like some people love to travel. And I love to travel. I pretty much stay in my same neighborhood. Some people love to do, you know, a variety of things, go to live concerts, do stuff like that. I mostly spend my time reading and writing, hanging out with my friends. And now I can do that through Zoom. I have a daughter in college and she's home. So that's a real kind of like silver lining for me, just spending so much time with my family. My daughters don't fight very much.

I have two daughters and they're six years apart, so maybe that's part of it. And I like not a day goes by when I'm like, oh, I'm so happy I'm home with two daughters who get along really well. So I feel like, of course, I'm so concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of our country. I worry about all the businesses around me. I live like, of course, I'm so concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of our country.

I worry about all the businesses around me. I live in New York City and I see all the stores that are closed. And I wonder, is this story going to reopen? How is this shop doing? Are these folks going to come back? And I worry about that, of course, in the healthcare work. It's in New York every day at 7 p.m. There's just like, every day, it's louder, this cacophony of gratitude for the healthcare workers

and the frontline workers. So all that is happening, but in my own little world, I kind of have the personality for this, I would say. It's so interesting. So you're sort of wired for this particular emergency. And there are other emergencies, and I think about this all the time, where I would be so badly suited like if we had to like

Figure out some way to flee the country and get into another country and be really resourceful I would be terrible. I'm not at all resourceful, but I can stay home very easily During this period of time you've been writing and podcasting and thinking During this period of time you've been writing and podcasting and thinking Hearing from the folks in your orbit before we started rolling I asked you some of the issues that have popped up to the top of the list in terms of what you're Seeing out there abroad in the land and thinking about in your own mind and the number one thing you said or at least the first thing that came to your mind was Relationships. Yeah. Why that? That's because ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that relationships are a key to a happy life, maybe the key to a happy life.

And when you look at people who are happier, it's the people with the stronger and bigger number of relationships. And what I'm experiencing, you're experiencing, we're all experiencing is that all of our habits and routines of relationships have been broken. And what I'm experiencing, you're experiencing, we're all experiencing is that all of our habits and routines of relationships have been broken. And so we're having to reimagine how to connect with people. And so how do I connect with my co-workers when I'm not like going into my podcast studio and seeing all the people

that I usually run into and just have casual conversations with, how do I stay in touch with my parents who are off in Kansas City, you know, self-isolating, and I want to make sure that they feel attached and supported. And so how do I connect with them? My friends, like usually I see friends of my neighborhood, I see people I work with, how am I connecting with them. And so I think really thinking about this as one of the number one priorities during this time, which is how do I maintain my relationships? How do I maybe broaden my relationships by thinking

about reaching out to people who maybe, or nearly I wouldn't feel like I needed to watch out for? But maybe now there are people like neighbors or coworkers who you think, I don't know if this person's gonna feel so comfortable connecting. I don't see them this person's going to feel so comfortable connecting. I don't see them on this group text. Maybe I need to make a special effort to reach out, make sure that they're sort of still part of the social world. Because, you know, everybody keeps saying, it's physical distancing, not social distancing, but we're happy to figure out new ways to do that. I love my daughter is doing Zoom classes, right? That's a huge thing too.

Students doing Zoom classes, both my daughters are doing Zoom classes. So my daughter in college, she has this huge lecture class and one kid shows up every day in costume. Maybe this is a thing and I just didn't know about it, but one day he's a baseball player, one day he's a firefighter. It doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything extraordinary. Just shows up, or like people are starting to do very whimsical things with their backgrounds. Like, this is a funny way that we can just connect in a lighthearted way and sort of, you know, say,

hey, I see you, you see me. Let's try to create that community feeling, as best we can. I was talking to somebody yesterday and she used the term and on intimacy. There's an anonymity, a distance that's happening because I'm looking at you through glass here. But if you can create intimacy,

there's also an intimacy because I can see into your home office that I've never actually seen. It's true. And people who are, I'm zooming with now, I see their kids, I see what their home is like. I recently anchored Good Morning America from home. And I actually did it from a borrowed apartment here in this building, our, my neighbors,

Greg and Liz, shout out to Greg and Liz, let me use their apartment because they're not living in it right now. And I, and then I saw on Twitter, there is a whole account called room rater and and they rate people's room oh my gosh i'm writing that down i just i just want you to know i got a nine out of ten but all the great great great good night and well you know did you see when um

on john kris skis some good news all the folk the the original cast of hamilton saying the song, Alexander Hamilton. And I watched it to see the performances and then I rewatched it to see all of their homes to see where they were because I was so fascinated. Like, where is David? Like, what's his background? So I exactly know that feeling.

It's a new kind of connection. Right. And so leaning into that is a way to create connection at a time when you can't shake hands or hug anymore. Yes. Well, that's a great idea. Like, yeah, trying to think of maybe how to style your background so that it shows something

about you or not worrying too much of a kid wander through or your dog jumps into your lap or something. Yeah. No, you're right. It is a different kind of energy. I thought you were talking about the kind of feeling that you get. And I've heard from so many people who are yearning for this kind of connection, which is when you're sitting by yourself in a crowded coffee shop or you're walking down the

street, looking in the store windows and everybody's passing by you or you're standing in a museum and there's the crowds all busy. No one's paying attention to you or talking to you. If you just have that companionship of feeling with other people, and I think some people really treasure that kind of connection and that kind of companionship, and that's something that we can't have right now, and you can't fake that. So it's interesting, relationships, it's not a simple straightforward thing, there's so many shades to relationships, and they're all under enormous pressure right now, which is kind of fascinating. I certainly feel like I understand the value

of human connection. I always intellectually understood it, but now I understand it so much more deeply than I ever had before. What about you, you're locked down with your two daughters in your husband. I'm locked down with a five-year-old and my wife, and also in an act of total mercy, our longtime nanny as a member of our family is living with us too, which is amazing, and shout out to Eleanor, who I love. But relationships, when you're in a tight quarters in New York

City, as you are are and as i am those relationships because it's it's trickier so i wonder what you how that's going for you and what thoughts you have on that score well it is a whole different way one of the things that i i am a person who loves routine and loves like kind of making a plan to stick into it and i was very fast about bedtime so i've have a 21 year old and a 15 year old,

and they were just staying up, before they were back in school, they were just staying up so late. And I was like, this isn't healthy, they shouldn't do it. I was starting to badger them. And then my sister and I were hosted a happier podcast and we do an Instagram live. And so I asked the audience,

should I let them just, they're on their spring break for whatever is worth, should I let them just stay up as on their spring break for whatever it's worth? Should I let them just stay up as late as they want? Or should I really do what I think is the healthiest thing for them to do overall for their health and their good spirits and all that and could have been in a decent hour? What should I do? What should I think? And someone commented, you should do whatever's best for the relationship.

And I thought, oh my gosh, that's the biggest moment of clarity, 100%. And so right now, I'm really trying to always think, what's the best thing for the relationship? Like, my husband has a practice. He's on the phone all day long. I really do feel sorry for him. He's on a phone or on a conference call or a video chat all day long. But he likes to just have it out loud,

not using headphones and just kind of march around the apartment, talking at the top of his lungs, with these tiny voices talking back to him. And I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna let that go. That's the way he likes to work. I have a home office. He doesn't have an dedicated home office.

I am just gonna let that go, because that's how he wants to work. And for this relationship at this time, I'm just going to accept that. And so I've been doing a lot of self talk about, I maybe I think you should do this or that, but I'm going to let you do it your way because as much as we can, let people have the slack to do things in the way that feels most comfortable to them, the better right now. What that he's bringing to mind is I was talking to Susan Kaiser Greenland recently. She's a been a pioneer in teaching meditation to parents and children, but she was also talking

about the relationship between parents. And one of her pieces of advice was, and I think this is not exactly the point you were making, but related, is you're going to have arguments. And it's a tug of war. And sometimes the best move is to simply drop the rope. Absolutely. Well it's interesting that you say that because one issue that I've seen over and over for myself and for everybody I'm talking to is this craving for outer order, not for everyone,

but for a lot of people outer order contributes to intercom at the best of times. And right now when people are really stressed out, I think a stress response, almost like an emergency response, is to try to create order in your physical environment. You feel more prepared, and it's also kind of like, it's something you can control. I can't control the world. I can't control the virus, but I can control what my coach lies. It looks like it's sort of a way to calm yourself. And a lot of people

just takes the form of making your bed. And my sister who's incredibly messy and clutter blind never makes her bed, even after me. Clutter blind. Clutter blind. These are the people who just don't see it. They don't see it, they don't care. You know these folks if they're in your life clutter blind.

I may be one of them. And she, even she's making her bed. But then I've heard from people like, oh, you know, this is a thing every day. I tell my kids to make my make their bed. They'll feel so much better. They'll, you know, it's a good start for the day. And but they won't do it.

How do I get them to make their bed? And I'm like, to me, this is a classic drop the rope. It's not that big a deal. It's a nuisance. You know, do you want to use your nagging points at this time on that? To me, that's a drop the rope situation. Now, if you've got three kids in one bedroom and it's driving one of them crazy, then you've got to allow them to kind of come to a situation that works for all of them.

But often, there are tasks that can just be left undone. I've had some discussions with my wife where our son is acting up. He's otherwise a perfect little angel, but occasionally he likes to. As they always are. Yeah, just in case he's listening. So he was doing something and I was like, all right, I'm telling you,

I'm like, we gotta just start giving him time outs. And she said this probably right now, but a micro level, but also at a macro level, is not the time to be teaching this particular lesson. Yes, good point. Well, we kind of had a version of that with our dog barn to be. Our dog barn to be is one of these super social dogs he loves and gets with other dogs. And usually in his life, he sees tons of other dogs and is playing with dogs.

He goes out for a dog walking thing where they play. And so he was sort of acting up and needing a lot more attention, sort of being more like he's usually very easygoing but he was just sort of more demanding and I was like it's not because he's changed it's because he's bored he doesn't see his dog pals you know and so it's really related to an innu-tual situation rather than something that needs to be fixed in some sort of permanent way. But so I hear all this that you have to make allowances for people the people in

your life because you're all quarantined or cocooned together. I'll just speak for myself. I have less capacity to do that because I too am feeling all the various strains. Yes. So this gets to one big question that I've talked to people about so often, which is, in a time like this, is it wrong to think about your own happiness? Is it morally appropriate to think about your own personal happiness in the context of so much suffering and uncertainty?

And I think you put your finger on a reason why it isn't selfish to think about your own happiness. The question of like, am I as calm and as happy and as energetic and as focused as I can be under the circumstances, that is really, it's going to be good for me, but it's also going to be good for the people around me. Because when I'm feeling that way, then I'm gonna have more to give. I'm gonna have more emotional wear with all

to tolerate frustration, to keep a sense of perspective, to be able to laugh at something. So your kid drops a jar of flour on the kitchen floor, and it's a gigantic mess, and you can laugh at it and take a photo instead of like losing your mind and losing your temper. It's just that old cliche about put on your own oxygen mask first. And then I know from you like a lot of what you talk about with meditation is that it allows us to have that kind of self mastery that can give us the strength to

deal in a more constructive and loving way with other people. And so I do think that things like worrying about like, am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting some exercise? Am I getting some downtime? Am I getting moments of, if I'm very, very, very stressed about something, am I finding ways to get myself even a half an hour break by distracting myself with a rerun of the office or something? When everything is going so wrong, it can feel selfish or trivial to think about doing things like that, but I really think that that's how we really

are better able to serve others and the world when we try to keep ourselves in our best form, because that's what allows us to extend that kind of compassion and patience for other people. In terms of taking care of ourselves, what do you think are the top must-do's? A, and then the second part of this question, and if you forget the second part, I'll remind you of it, is where do you draw the line between healthy indulgences and unhealthy indulgences? Oh, yes.

I would say, like, if I was just gonna to say the basics, I would say sleep, exercise. And that's not, you know, extreme exercise, but even something like 20 minutes, there's research on that if you even just like walk around your apartment, like very late, just moving around for as little as like 20 minutes, you're going to get a boost. I also boost your immune function, which is important to everyone right now. So sleep, exercise, healthful eating, trying to create order really does help for most people. That's why I think it does kind of just make everyday life kind of less noisy

when you've got stuff under control. Connecting with other people, that's probably the number one thing. Are you reaching out to people? Are you responding when people reach out to you? I don't know about you, but I've noticed a lot of people aren't responding to the emails the way they usually do. And I'm sure there's many, many reasons for it, but I've just noticed, wow, this person

usually responds to an email and now they're not. So that's interesting. If somebody's on a group text, some people are saying they need to mute group text and only check them every so often because they're getting overwhelmed by them or they feel like they're too distracting. So I think with technology, it's a great servant right now. It's serving us so well, but be the master of it and turn off notifications if you need to mute group texts

at certain times, if you need to, only check social media at certain times. You know, think about how you can set it up so that it's supporting you and helping you and not distracting you or draining you. So your second question, I thought about that a lot because two things are true at this time. And I think sometimes people feel like it's a, they kind of set up a false choice.

And the false choice is, I can either tell myself, look, this is a global pandemic. Nobody's done this before. You need to take it easy on yourself. If you want to reach for that extra cup of coffee, if you want to have that couple cookies, if you're going to have an extra glass of wine, you know, you should get a stand till 3 a.m. binge watching something, you know, that's okay,

because you need to go easy on yourself. Okay, then there's, if not now when, I'm not commuting. I'm lucky enough that I have some time to work on this project or that project and I feel like I should be doing it right now. And, you know, this is the time that I'm going to like, you know, get myself back in shape or get back into meditating. I'm going to do it every day. And so it's sort of like go easy on myself or expect more for myself. Treats often fall into that line because it's like, oh, well, give it all the stress I'm under. I deserve to have a chocolate chip cookie or whatever.

I think that both things are true and I think it's important to keep both things in mind. First, we do want to show compassion for ourselves. We do want to give ourselves treats. We do want to cut ourselves slack because truly this is an unprecedented situation. Also, research shows that people who show compassion of themselves actually do better. And you might think that beating yourself up mercilessly for some night snacking or something would make you better.

It actually research shows that people do better when they say, well, you know, I'll do better next time. Or I learned that lesson when they show compassion to themselves. You know, maybe you're not at your most productive. You're trying, but you've got a lot of things working against you. It's not so easy to focus right now, and that's true, and other people understand it, and you understand it about yourself.

On the other hand, it's also true that what we do now has consequences, and it's not nothing stays in Vegas, and there will be a beautiful day when the door opens and we all go back out into the world. And we don't know what that's going to look like or what the situation will be. And so that uncertainty is making everything very difficult. But we know the day will come. And you don't want to do things now to try to make yourself feel

feel better that are just going to make you feel worse than. And you don't want to miss opportunities now if you can avail yourself of them that might set yourself up for a better future. There might be things that you could do now that would make your future self happy and grateful. It's important to think about treats and also kind of projects in that way. I want to be compassionate to myself, but I also want to try to do what I can do, whatever that might be under my circumstances. For some people that might literally be nothing.

There might be nothing that they can do except just like get through the day, in which case that's exactly what they need to do and they shouldn't feel bad about that of course. But for some people, there are opportunities. And I just think it's good to think about that future self. You know, I find this balance very hard to strike because I think you're right. Both things are true. We need to treat ourselves.

I'm thinking about those great scenes. I don't know if you ever watched that. So far so right, yes. Yeah, treat yourself. far. Yeah, yourself. Yes, Donna and Tom. Yeah, that show has been my go to at the end of the day. I just rewatched the entire show during the course of this pandemic.

I just finished the finale the other day. And I'm going to go back to the beginning because I like so much. Anything with Ron Swanson and a Tammy. I'm like, I've watched it. I know she's here. He just starts sniffing the air. Yes.

And that's what I'm talking about. But sometimes if you need a distraction, it's like when things get too much, maybe you're like, okay, I'm just gonna watch an episode of Parks and Rec and it's just gonna give me that little mental break that I need to take a deep breath. And like I get my sets of humor back.

Laugh. I love parks and rec. What's so beautiful about that show, I think, is it's a show about love. It's a show about all levels of love. Yes. It is a show about love. It's all about people wanting to do the right thing for the people around them. It's funny, I think it's such, here's a digression,

but in terms of like happiness, it's very hard for happiness, not to seem sentimental or mockish or didactic. I happen to love anything didactic, but not already does. That is a show about goodness and love. And it's so funny, it's a masterpiece and then it managed to do that with such a light touch.

That's exactly right, because I'm writing a book about love right now, or kind of missing a passion, and it's very hard to talk about it without falling back into cliche. That's a show, the density of the humor. I sometimes will just rewind a scene because so much happened that is so funny. So anyway, Parks and Rec is my go-to treat among others.

But I've been thinking a lot, you know, we had a board meeting the other day with our board members at 10% happier, and our board is usually cautioning us. They're really smart investors who are actually really engaged in meditation, most of them, and really take seriously what we're doing and participate in deep ways in the practice. And usually they're counseling us to prioritize and focus.

It's not in this most recent board meeting that they weren't doing that, but we were identifying a number of areas that we could do very exciting and impactful work. And our investors particularly care about impact on human lives. And we were identifying areas where we could really help people.

And we're bumping up against this problem of, there are three things, massive things we could do, big projects we could lean into. And I am super excited, and I think we're all super excited to do all of them. And our future selves would be very happy that we did it for the health of the company and the health of our customers.

And yet, we can't do all of those things. We would not be self-compassionate to do all of those things. And I find like a fear-based part of me, I think if I'm being honest with myself, wants to do all of them right away because I want to do everything to, because it's part greed, it's part fear. But I think below the greed is the fear

and of making myself and people around me safe in some way, fending off chaos in some way. And so I think this is a deep, for me at least, a deep discussion between hustling and crushing it in this moment. And everybody's out there trying to get their Instagram game up and bake sourdough bread and make their side hustle of adventure back, start up and all this stuff. By the same token, run down our mingle is are activated by the ambient anxiety of this pandemic et cetera et cetera so for me walking that line is tough I know exactly what you mean I suffer from the same thing

and I think the end you and I kind of are like that all the time our eyes are bigger than our stomach and in terms of our our ability to execute on creative projects and so like many things like any kind of stress, or this is an amplifier of human nature. So I think whatever you are, it's probably intensifying that aspect of your personality. I mean, for what it's worth, what I'm trying to do is really just like, what are my priorities for today

in this week? Like, what am I really trying to get done? And it is hard sometimes when you're really like trying to get something done to then also have the capacity to step back and try to ask yourself, like, well, what's, you know, it's the urgent versus the important. It's the same, you know, it's the same dilemmas, but just kind of in a context where everything is different, something's easier and quicker and a lot of things are harder and more cumbersome. There's new opportunities, but some opportunities have gone away.

It's a lot of constantly recalibrating. It's like the load symbol is going in my brain a lot, as I'm just trying to weigh what everything means. It's also strange, I don't know about you, but one thing I'm finding strange, and I think a lot of people are finding strange, is a lot of times we do, and this meditation is all about, like, being present in the moment, as I understand it, for me, Dan.

But we just spent a huge amount of time projecting ourselves into the future, and actually, intellectually, I knew this, but I hadn't realized exactly how true that was, until all of a sudden my future just had this giant tentative pasted all over it. And I'm finding that hard because we just naturally think about, project ourselves into the future. And so that uncertainty is making it hard to think about decisions and priorities and plans. And if you're thinking about other people's plans, like family plans or team plans, plans for your work, it's hard. Do you have a system or thoughts about a workable system?

Because the notion of setting priorities and ruthlessly holding to them has become, even before the pandemic, a big, it's become increasingly salient in my mind, not that I'm doing it. I don't know if you ever read that Greg McEwan book, or I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, it's called Essentialism. Yeah. It's about picking the things that are essential and ruthlessly saying no to everything else.

Do you? Let's see, okay. Okay, that's interesting. So let's see here by problem with what's that, is that what is essential? And I feel like a lot of times you don't know until you have hindsight. A lot of times I'll do things and I'm like, eh, I'm balanced that I do this or not. And then it'll end up being something amazing will come of it.

So I feel like I have to maintain in my life some serendipity. And I have to overreach to do things that are not essential, because sometimes the things that seem the least essential end up being really important. But of course you can't order your life that way because I can't say yes to everything because I have no time to do anything at all. I just feel like it's not as simple as saying, paradigm to what's essential because I can easily say what that was. Now, but I feel like I would be closing off my life from so many things that I can't predict and can't foresee because I haven't kind of been in an uncomfortable place where I've sort of I'm juggling too many balls at

once which kind of drags me down and makes me feel lousy, but on the other hand gives me all these opportunities and I meet people I wouldn't have met and have experiences I wouldn't have had experienced. I don't know, that's my struggle with this. What do you think? Well, it's so interesting because I, I think you and I've talked about this and I've mentioned it on this show many times, I had a 360 review, which is where I had all these people,

in my life comment on what I'm doing well and what I'm not doing well, and the big among many big things was, I was pulled in too many directions. And so prioritization has become an increase is such a huge issue for me. And what I'm hearing from you is interesting. Sometimes I'm drawn toward the Greg McEun, like you you pick what's essential and you stick to it and you just everything else is in the trash bin. And I'm drawn to that because it's clean and it's the yes and i what i'm hearing from you is you

don't want to live permanently in a state of harry nissen and over commitment but if you don't test the boundaries of that a little bit you you lose serendipity you lose things that are opportunities that you would never have uh... for scene And so that strikes me as a razor's edge. I think it is. And I think it's probably one of these tensions with the like one tension within happiness is accept yourself and expect more from yourself. Both are true. And I think here it's like focus on what's essential, but make room for what's not essential. It's like it's a paradox. And yet I think both things need to be true and how to find that balance probably is very different for different people at different times.

And it might be that this is one of those times. This might be like a season of life where you're saying, this is not the season of serendipity. This is the season of the few things done well. And maybe that's my job and my family or whatever. Or I'm only going to focus on this aspect. I'm not going to work on that to help get through this time, to just give ourselves more clarity. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Razing kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently?

And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Let's go back to something you've mentioned a few times, but I think deserves a little

bit more love is this idea of outer order. You wrote a great book called Outer Order Inner Com. A great book I had you on to talk about when it came out about what seems like a very superficial issue of decluttering that actually has a lot of impact and I think can have a lot of impact right now. It's just funny how much it matters. I mean, it seems disproportionate and kind of almost silly that cleaning at your closet could really lift your spirits. And yet over and over, people tell me that that's the case.

It just when we get control of the stuff of our lives, we really feel more in control of our lives generally. And if it's an illusion, it's a helpful illusion. And I think also not right now, because people are staying at home, creating more space, organizing, making plans to give certain things away or toss certain things or recycle them. Makes more room than everybody has more elbow room. And I have a friend who realized that if she cleaned up the storage room, she could have she kind of had a kind of a swing room and she used it to exercise and to do phone calls and to meditate.

And so she had sort of a room where she could shut the door and kind of it was just empty for whatever she wanted to do with it. And she, you know, it had been in her house the whole time and she'd just like used it as a dumping ground as one does. You have the place where you just dump everything

you don't know what else to do with. But then she was able by creating order to really kind of give herself a whole new room in her house. I ever since, you know, talking to you about your book and having you on the show just talk about your book and you helped me redo my office, which really made a huge deal. Oh, that was so fun. It was made a lot of low hanging fruit. I did.

I did. And so. And so. Drumset as I recall. That's gone. That's trying to be free. I did. I'm trying to be free. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did.

I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did.

I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. again but now i've decluttered it i i i it always feels spare in a really good way and i noticed this during in particular during this

time where we're all home all the time that when one of us either me or my wife goes through the work to tidy up yeah it just makes a it makes a real difference and i don't know if it's an illusion or what but it it's hard to argue against yeah well here's some ideas for people who are sort of like trying to manage clutter because it can feel like this unending past one is the one minute rules so anything that you can do in less than a minute you do without delay so you hang up your coat set of throwing it over a chair

you're put your shoe in the shoe place instead of just like kicking them off by the front door you put a mug in the dishwasher instead of just leaving them on the counter. And another one is, I call it a 10 minute closer and it's like anytime you're transitioning, take 10 minutes to just kind of tidy up. So like every time I leave my desk to sort of end my work day, I take 10 minutes and just get organized or before I go up to bed at night. I'll spend 10 minutes just like putting the dog toys in the dog basket and you know, putting the pillows back

on the sofa, my daughter's always pulling the pillows to like lie on the floor, you know, putting the newspapers in the recycling because we are old school, it's still actually really only people still getting physical newspapers, put that in the recycling. And just taking 10 minutes every time you're sort of moving from one part of your day to the other, you can do a ton in 10 minutes, just like you can do it a lot in one minute. And then another thing that can work really well is to keep a list of all the nagging tasks

and to have a power hour every weekend. So this is things like replace the light bulbs. Go get something out of the storage unit in the basement. You know, little things that aren't a big deal, but because they can be done at any time, you end up doing them at no time. And so if you just keep a list of these, again, in an hour, you can go get so many little tasks done.

And these are kind of those open things that just drain us because every time I've got coming to the office, I'm like, I should tighten that door knob. And then I don't, and then that goes on for months. So these are some like little easy ways because a lot of times like right now when people feel really pushed to the edge, they don't want to like take out every piece of clothing that you own and put it in a big pile of them. I mean, maybe you do.

Maybe some people want to do that. Maybe it's a good time, but for some people, maybe they need to take it very small. Yeah, I mean, I love this and I don't know that I, maybe I heard that from you, maybe I just started doing it organically, but Saturday is my day. I actually have to work on Saturdays, but Saturday is my day where I save all of the emails that I haven't responded to that require

a little bit of thought, or I just didn't have time. I do those on Saturday and then I do some, you know, household or personal chores that I have been annoying me for a while. I just keep that list and check them off. And that is such a relief. It feels so good.

And I've heard of people also, if you don't like the idea of power hour because some people don't like the idea of scheduling something, I've heard of people doing gamifying it. So there are apps that you can use where it will make make it like a spin the wheel and you like get a Thing or I've heard of people writing it on slips of paper and then they just pull it out of a jar And I think for some people that kind of randomness or that you know the kind of playfulness of it Then they're like oh, I have I feel like doing like crossing something off my list right now What did I do pull it out of the list? Oh, I should clean out the toilets or whatever it might be. So there's no one right way to approach it, but the idea of sort of keeping a list so that if you have the time or the energy or you want to get it done, you sort of know what it

is and can tackle it. Let's talk about another of your books, The Four Tendencies. What relevance, first of all, maybe you'll talk about the basic idea there behind the four tendencies and what relevance this schema this rubric has right now. Well, the four tendencies is a personally framework that I devise that divides the world into a pollers, questioners, obligers and rebels. And I think it's of enormous help right now because people are working in close quarters in a new ways and that's what a lot of times

conflicts and frustrations and procrastinations start cropping up. And the four tendencies really shows you how to communicate with other people and also with yourself to address that most effectively. So you're not just like throwing spaghetti against the wall to try to solve a problem. So the four tendencies, it sounds very boring

when I start, but it gets juicy. So what it looks at is how a person responds to expectations. And we all face two kinds of expectations. Outer expectations like a work deadline or a request from a friend, and then interact expectations like my own desire to get back into meditation, my own desire to keep a near-to-year resolution. And depending on how we respond to outer

and interact expectations, that is what makes us an appolder, a questionnaire, a blitzer, a rubble. Now there is a quiz, a free, quick quiz, like 2.8 million people have taken this quiz, is at quiz.cretchenrooven.com. People can take a quiz and like get an answer. But most people know what they are when I just describe them briefly because they're so blatant. So appolders readily meet outer and inner expectations.

They meet the work deadline, they keep the nearest resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. So their motto is discipline is my freedom. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They do something if they think it makes sense. So they resist anything arbitrary, ineffective, unjustified.

If something meets their inner standard, they'll follow through no problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will resist. So their motto is, all comply if you can convince me why. Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations.

And I got my glimpse into this, what a friend said to me, I don't understand it. When I was in high school, I was on the track team, and I never missed track practice. Why can't I go running now? Well, when she had a team and a coach expecting her to show up, she had no problem doing it, but when she was trying to go on her own, she struggled. And so what obligers need to realize is, if there's something that they want to meet as an interact expectation, they must have a form of accountability. If you want to meditate, you must create a form of outer accountability.

That is what allows obligers to follow through. So their motto is, you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me. Then finally, 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 typically, they don't like to tell themselves what to do, like they won't tell themselves, I'm gonna sign up for a 10 a.m. meditation class on Saturday morning because I don't know what I'm going to want to do on Saturday and just the fact that somebody's expecting me to show up is going to bug me. So their motto is, you can't make me, and neither can I. So those are the four tendencies.

And I mean, I think this has been very helpful because it helps you understand yourself and it helps, as you said before, helps you understand people around you so you have a kind of an owner or user's manual for the people you have to deal with. That sounds a little negative, but you know what I mean. So here we are in this crisis, in what ways do you think these four tendencies are becoming especially useful now? Well, I think it's just because we're all just trying to deal with each other in all these new ways.

For instance, I've been hearing from a lot of parents who are dealing with schoolwork and their children and trying to get their children to do it, because that has, you know, in a new way, in a new structure. And so, like, for rebels, if you have a rebel child, something to keep in mind is, rebels like a lot of choice, they like a lot of freedom, they like to do things in their own way, in their own time. But obligers tend to like deadlines and supervision. So if you had an obligatory child,

you might say like, well, how about at four o'clock every day, you're gonna sit down and do your worksheets. And then at the end of it, we'll go for a walk outside together or whatever. So it's like accountability, deadline, put it on the calendar, and I'm watching you. And when we're done, we're gonna go, right? That would work for an obligatory. For a rebel child, a it on the calendar, and I'm watching you and when we're done, we're going to go, right? That would work for the pleasure. For Rebel Child, Rebel Child, apart from the work,

the child wouldn't like that setup. They're like, oh, I don't like having to do something at four. I don't like the fact that you're telling me what to do. I don't want to do what you tell me what to do. You're not divisive me. I'm not going to do the homework, right? So you've set up the spirit of resistance where you could say something like, you could appeal to their identity, which is a very high value for a rubble. And then you could just let them do it their work in their own way. And so like, you know what, you're a very conscientious student. I know you want to learn and you are ready to learn, but you want to do it in your own way and your own time. So, you know, when the time is right for you, do it.

And, you know, it's got to get done, but I'll leave that to you. And then see if the child does it. It might very well be that the rebel child will do it. They might do it in an unconventional way. They might do it the night before where you wish that they would do it with plenty of time or they might do it all at once and one big long sprint. And you think, Oh, why don't you do a little bit every day? That'd be more efficient. Let them do it in their own way, in their own time, and you tend to get better. And as much choice right now, what do you feel like doing? Do you feel like watching the documentary? Let them do it in their own way, in their own time, and you tend to get better, and as much choice. Right now, what do you feel like doing?

Do you feel like watching the documentary, or do you feel like doing the worksheets now? Let the child choose as much as possible. Whereas for another child, that might not be an issue. Questioners are like, what? Why, why, why, why? Why do I have to do it now? Why do I have to do this?

Why do I have to do this worksheet? The teacher knows that I know, why do I have to do this worksheet? You need an answer for that child if you want them to follow through. You know, sometimes people are like, because I say so. That doesn't work for question or adult or question or children,

because I say so, it's not convincing. You have to have a reason. And the fact is if there is no good reason, then why should they do it? They're perfectly right. So I definitely see how, I mean, going through the, to the extent that my kid is in preschool has schoolwork and he does going through that, it resonates just hearing what you just said. But also for those of us who are just listening and thinking about ourselves, whether we have

kids or not, this goes back to what we're discussing before in many ways around the voice it in our many of our heads telling us to be productive right now right oh yeah well this comes up a huge amount with a blighters because in a blighter might be very productive at work because there's deadlines there's a boss there's the team there's the deliverables and be spinning out at home when all that stuff is taken away and so if you're in a blighter and you're like, I don't understand what my problem is, why am I not getting anything done? Maybe what you need is outer accountability.

And there's a million ways to create outer accountability once you realize that that's what you need. Or like Rebels, sometimes Rebels say, what's my problem? Everybody else can use it to do list. Nobody else has a problem with the calendar. Why am I not a grown-up like everybody else? It's like, no, that's just a rebel thing. Rebels don't like that.

So maybe now that you need to coordinate with other family members, you feel like you're locked into what time you can use the computer. Whereas it used to be used at whatever you wanted, and now you sort of have a slot, and that's just making you crazy. Well, that's a really helpful thing to understand. Like, okay, what I don't like is having the scheduling, because sometimes you can't work around something, because sometimes you can't work around something, but sometimes you can. And I think being aware of yourself, kind of what works for you and what

doesn't and why, you're better able to mindfully set up circumstances that will allow you to do your best work with like the least friction. Because sometimes we just assume people work well in the conditions that work well for us. And so we try to encourage them to have those conditions. I'm as an appholder, I love routine, I love deliverables, I love execution, I love to do lists. And I was trying to badger my whole family into doing that because living that way gives me comfort and energy and makes me feel in control and reassured. Well, they let me know very quickly. They did not

share that view. And I had to put down my clipboard and let them do their work in their own way. Because I was just instinctively trying to shape their lives to suit me out of love. Because I was like, well, if it works for me, it'll work for them. No, that's not the case. So we had a list of, right before we started formally recording here, we came up with a rough list of things to talk about. The last thing on the list, and we can go beyond the list if something else occurs to you, but the last thing on the list was imitate a spiritual leader. Yes, yes, spiritual master.

Master. Yeah. What does that mean? Oh, so this was an idea that I came up with for my book The Happiness Project because what I realized is that, you know, you can clean your closets, you can quit sugar, you can exercise, but we really also need to have transcendent values brought into our lives. And I think for many people meditation is a way to bring transcendent value into our lives, like loving kindness, meditation, damn, which I know you often are a big proponent

of is a way to bring in transcendence. And I was trying to think of ways to bring the transcendent into my everyday life in a way that was sort of practical and manageable. And so to imitate a spiritual master, you have to identify your spiritual master. And this is fascinating. It's so creative. It's so interesting to think about who would you choose to be your spiritual master? I think some people might pick somebody they actually know, some people might pick a figure out of history, some people might pick somebody who's alive today. For me, I read this book, Story of a Soul,

and instantly St. Teresa of Luzio became my spiritual master, even though I'm not even Catholic. I didn't even know about St. Teresa, even though she's a doctor of the church, so she's like a mega celebrity super star thing. I didn't even know about St. Louis, even though she's like, she's a doctor of the church, so she's like a mega celebrity superstar saying, I didn't really know anything about her, the little flower. But I read this number on, I'm like, this is my spiritual master. So you first do identify your spiritual master. And that tells you a lot about yourself. Like, what does it say about me that I picked St.

Louis? I think it tells you a lot about me. And I learned a lot from myself by the fact that I picked her. Well, wait, wait, can I stop you on that? Tell us about her. What about her resident? Okay. So, St. Perez, she died of the age of 23 from tuberculosis. She spent much of her life in a cloistered convent with a very, like, small number of other sisters, several of whom were her actual biological sisters that she grew up with. And at one point, her biological sister was also her mother in religious life. And her mother ordered her under the bowel of obedience to write the story of her spiritual life, the spiritual memory. So under obedience, Terez wrote the story of a soul,

which is her spiritual memoir. And the thing about Terez that I love is that she is a saint of little things. And so she's like ordinary life done with heroic virtue. And so it's about just finding the ways in everyday life to be good, be right, to serve others. And she also had a great sense of humor, which you don't think of as saint as being very funny, but she's very funny. In story of a soul, she's very right. she's very realistic about human nature, she writes about happiness, and she's also kind of like mind blowing, like a lot of what she says is very, very thought provoking, really took me to a place in my head that I had never been before. So,

but then I also love Julia Child, who is a different kind of spiritual master, but also like a one, Benjamin Franklin is another one of them. Winston Churchill, I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill. Absolutely. He's one of my spiritual masters. So I would say Saint Francis, my principal spiritual master. So you identify your spiritual master. They have to learn about your spiritual master. So what are your spiritual master teach? What do they stand for? And then the most interesting thing is like given that, how do you translate those teachings into your everyday life? Because for most of us, the teachings of our spiritual master, they lived in a very different context from us,

and they were probably were talking about very different situations and conditions, and so then you have to adapt it. If Mother Teresa says, choose your own Calcutta, what does that mean for me? That's a different Teresa, by the way, Mother Teresa. Or Winston Churchill said, give us the tools and we will finish the job. What does that mean today?

And so this is a creative way to get in touch with your own most transcendent values. And then also to think about, how would you put that to work in your own life? And I think for each of us, that answer would be very different, but it's very illuminating. And it's also, it's very creative. Speaking of illuminating, I was struck by what you said about the saint of little things and how that resonated with you and that.

That is a great encapsulation in some ways of, of some, one of the major themes of your work. You know, I mean, well, a lot of the guests we have on this show, not all of them, but a lot of them are, you know, people who spend 50 years meditating or maybe, if not 50, 25 or, you know, people who've gone 25. Right. And when I say 25, I mean, you know, times when they've just been on silent retreat

for months and months and months at a time, they've been deeply immersed in Buddhism. You know, they've gone to the deep end and they come back to talk to us about it. And that's why I've had you on, I think more than anybody else, you and Sharon Salzberg are, I think are the most frequent guests on this show,

because I think you're a great, corrective isn't the right word, but a great bit of counter-programming because you really do focus on these not mundane is not the right word but just quotidian aspects of our lives that you know many people would place outside of the quote-unquote spiritual or the transcendent to use a sort of a less syrupy word and to show how meaningful and impactful this stuff can be. Is that some fair to you, would I just send? Yeah, I think that's exactly where I'm very interested in everyday life. Just sort of the what can we do in everyday

life to be, you know, happier, healthier, more productive, more creative. And yeah, I've always been drawn to the very concrete. I have been, yes. That's why I call you the Swiss Army Knife of Happiness. I know. I got to make myself a teacher for that. Thank you very much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Oh, thank you.

Big thanks to Gretchen. If you want to learn more about her, I recommend her website, GretchenRubin.com. You can learn about her podcast, her books. She does all sorts of stuff on social media as well. And more, check out the website, wretchenroobin.com. We'll put a link in the show notes. A reminder, if you're a teacher or if you know somebody's a teacher,

we are unveiling free access to the 10% happier meditation app. Just go to 10%.com slash care. Please share that widely in the education world. We'd appreciate that. We would love to just get this out there to as many teachers as possible and of course, health care workers and people in the grocery store or food delivery business as well. Big thanks to the team who work really, really hard to put this show together several times a week now. Samuel John's running point as our producer Matt Boynton at Ultraviolet audio. He's our editor Maria Wartell. He's our fearless and ruthlessly efficient production

coordinator. We get a lot of really really deeply helpful wisdom and input from our colleagues Nate Toby, Jen Poion, Ben Rubin. Also big thank you to my guys at ABC Ryan Kessler, and Josh Cohan. We'll see you on Wednesday with another really great episode, the Reverend Angel Kyoto. Williams coming up on Wednesday. We'll see you then.

Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey. perfect.