Gretchen Rubin assigns each month of a year with a theme and plans actions and attitudes to increase her happiness. She keeps track of her successes and failures on a chart, with checks and x's. By December, she's trying to do all eleven previous months' worth of stuff and keeping track of it on her little chart. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I cannot imagine an activity less appealing to me than recording the daily completion of dozens of things that are supposed to make me happy with a check mark! And worst of all, this "Resolution Chart" is the tool that she thinks brings her the most happiness over the course of the year. Nope, that's not for me.
I also didn't love the writing style. I guess it seemed so earnest that it felt like I could have written it--and I dislike reading books that I feel like I could have written.
But there were some bright spots. I got some interesting ideas and tidbits from the book that I think I might implement. For instance, she discusses heuristics that we follow unthinkingly and one of her personal ones was "I am always in a hurry." Ahhh, I could relate to that, and it was not pretty, envisioning myself shooing my child (one is as yet too small to be shooed) into the car while saying, "We're late! Hurry!" It's time to change that heuristic to "There is no rush."
I also like her blog a lot. It seems like more of what I would have liked to see in the book.
And now, if I were smart, I would increase my happiness by going to bed earlier.
