UPDATE
The Happiness Project now has a shop! Visit to find new t-shirts, drinkware, stickers, and more. You can buy a mug that proudly displays your Tendency or a happiness sticker for your laptop. And, by popular demand, we are now shipping internationally to most countries. You asked for it, you got it!
Try This at Home
Keep a journal in the way that’s right for you.
Many people have the urge to keep a journal, but different approaches work for different people.
- One-Sentence Journal – writing one sentence is manageable, so it gets done
- Know Yourself Better Journal – a journal to boost self-reflection
- Don’t Break the Chain Tracker – this tracker makes it much easier and more convenient to monitor a habit—it can also give you that ta-da, gold-star feeling that’s so satisfying
- Memento Keepsake Journal – a convenient, attractive way to collect and curate mementos
Shop here and use the discount code HAPPIERJOURNAL at checkout for 10% off. Still in pre-order—these will ship in early October (delta permitting).
Happiness Hack
Cassy Joy Garcia is the Editor in Chief behind the popular food and wellness website Fed and Fit and the author of several popular cookbooks.
She’s very interested in ways to re-think traditional meal preparation to save time, money, and energy, and to reduce waste.
Her latest book is Cook Once Dinner Fix: Quick and Exciting Ways to Transform Tonight’s Dinner into Tomorrow’s Feast (Amazon, Bookshop). It just hit the shelves.
We asked her to share some hacks for eating healthier, with less effort.
- Leftover veggie bowl: keep a bowl in your refrigerator where you toss partially used raw vegetables throughout the week (half an onion, rest of a bell pepper, mushrooms, etc.). Then, at the end of the week, toss everything into a stir-fry or a soup.
- Sort groceries: as soon as they’re home, sort your groceries into “meal bins.” It’s likely that you had a few meals in mind when you were grocery shopping, keep those ingredients together in the fridge (even the can of beans and other pantry items) so when it’s time to make a certain meal, all you need to do is grab the bin (instead of rummage for everything from an ingredient list).
- Double and freeze: future-you will thank you! Next time you make your favorite stew, soup, or casserole, double the batch. Enjoy one fresh and then freeze the other. Seal it well and label it with the name and date (use within 5 months).
Happier Highlights
In episode 305, we did a call for #Read21in21.
There’s still 108 reading days left in the year—plenty of time to do a lot of great reading! If you’ve fallen off track or never started, now is a great time to start.
For more ideas for getting more reading done, in Very Special Episode 310, we discussed many helpful hacks, strategies, and suggestions.
Gretchen’s Demerit: I’m not doing any of the “reading review” that I listed on my “21 for 2021” list.
Elizabeth’s Gold Star: Elizabeth saw her husband Adam’s extended family, and all of them are watching Fantasy Island!
Resources
- Last week, I gave a gold star to teachers, and back in episode 324, we celebrated the wisdom of teachers with some “Proverbs of the Professions.” I’ve created a free PDF with great insights collected from listeners. To download, or share with a teacher in your life, click here.