Try This at Home
Get more benefit from a tool you already use. Often, we can get much more value from a tool that we’re using.
Happiness Hack
As a creative, thoughtful, and inexpensive gift, make a promise to someone—like my friend who promised her new husband, “I will leave for the airport whenever you want.”
Deep Dive: Traditions for the Other New Year
We asked listeners what “new year” rituals they had to usher in the the fresh start after the end of the summer.
Listener Question
A listener asked if I ever felt jealous of Elizabeth’s relationship with her writing partner, Sarah Fain.
Demerits & Gold Stars
Elizabeth’s Demerit: She hasn’t been adding her #GoOutside23in23 photos to her Photo Log in the Happier app.
Gretchen’s Gold Star: I give two gold stars to my daughters, Eliza and Eleanor, who both love to run errands and so often do errands for me.
Resource
Join me for a virtual workshop and Q&A to learn how my Four Tendencies personality framework can make the workplace work better. We’ll discuss common conflicts that can derail the workweek and how to use the Four Tendencies to identify solutions.
This virtual workshop will be held via Zoom, on Tuesday, September 26th, 2023, at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET. To register, go to happiercast.com/workshop, add it to your cart, and check out.
What We’re Reading
444
[Music]
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about ideas and suggestions for bringing more happiness into our everyday lives. This week we’ll talk about why and how we might try to get more benefit from the tools that we are already using. And we’ll talk about suggestions from listeners about traditions they have for the other New Year of September, because for many of us, September is the other January.
Gretchen
I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, the five senses, and human nature. I’m in New York City and joining me today from L.A. is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. My sister, whose one word theme for 2023 is scale and who has been scaling Fryman Canyon many times this year so far.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.. And yes, Gretch. I’m going for my Fryman 80. It was Fryman 50, but I’ve upped it to my Fryman 80.
Gretchen
So before we launch into this week’s Try This at Home suggestion, we got some interesting comments from listeners about some previous ideas.
Elizabeth
Yes, this one comes from Kate. She says, Love the show. As I type, I am listening to episode 442 where you’re talking about taking over a disliked task. My sister did this for me recently and I appreciated it so much. I really hate clothes shopping, especially for specific occasions and having to go into physical stores and look for things and figure out what I want is very stressful for me.
Elizabeth
A little while after I got engaged, my sister told me that she knew I would be stressed about dress shopping. So when I was ready to start thinking about it, I should let her know because she had started researching the various terms for dress styles and materials, etc. and she could talk me through it. She knew it would add an extra layer of stress for me if I was in bridal stores and wasn’t pre armed with the proper terms and had to try to get my head around this while shopping.
Elizabeth
It was so thoughtful and has really taken some of the anxiety out of the process for me. Oh, nice sister Gretch. I could see you doing that for me or me doing that for you.
Gretchen
Yes, a perfect example of how something is much more stressful for one person, but for somebody else, it’s not that hard. And it can really, really make something easier for somebody.
Elizabeth
And Gretch, this came from Marjorie. She said, one July, my daughter in law was talking about how much she dreaded shopping for school supplies with her three daughters. It was chaotic to manage them all running around the store. Frustrating because a specific supply was always unavailable and substitutions had to be decided on. And just completely exhausting. I love office supply stores and have always loved school supplies shopping.
Elizabeth
She couldn’t believe I volunteered to take the girls from then on, and a wonderful annual tradition with my granddaughters was begun. The trips were never a burden, but something I look forward to every year. Even scouting out the stores with the best selections before our annual excursion. My oldest granddaughter is really into design, and one year we had spent quite a bit of time choosing a color scheme in coordinated notebooks, folders, etc..
Elizabeth
Then she saw a pencil case in a completely different color scheme and said, Oh, I wish I would have seen this one first and gotten those colors to her surprise and delight. I said, No, it’s fine, we have time. You could start over. One of the delights of being a grandmother is having the time and patience. you well remember being in such short supply when you are a mom.
Elizabeth
One year I heard that the nonprofit organization in our city that helped settled new immigrant families was having a school supply drive. I downloaded the wish list for elementary, middle and high school students, and off we went. This time with six kids, to buy for. Each granddaughter picked a student to shop for and decided whether it would be a boy or a girl and what style of backpack they like to pack all the supplies in.
Elizabeth
In August, I volunteered at the picnic where the supplies were distributed and later had such fun telling the girls about the children I had watched excitedly choose the backpacks they had packed. So many wonderful moments and memories started with my daughter in law voicing her dislike.
Gretchen
I know this is just a perfect example of how something that one person might actually really enjoy and appreciate and someone else finds it burdensome and also it’s a good example of express this to someone because you might be just suffering in silence where someone else might be very happy to help you. And so I think part of it is saying, Hey, this is something that I don’t like.
Gretchen
This is this something that you might want to help with? So ask for help. Why is it often so hard for us to help? This is a great example.
Elizabeth
Yeah, well, and it’s a great example of how one little thing can lead to bigger things. You never know what’s around the corner. So yeah, love this.
Gretchen
So great suggestions. And this week to try this at home suggestion is to get more benefit from a tool you already use.
Elizabeth
All right, Gretch, explain this. We all have our various tools and devices. What does this mean exactly?
Gretchen
Well, one of the things that I’ve noticed in my own life is that there are all kinds of tools that we use. Maybe you use maps apps to find maps or you use Google documents or I use word all the time. And what I’ve been realizing is that there are a lot of things that I could do that would make things more efficient, easier, would be very, very handy, would help me do work well, but that I just don’t know about.
Gretchen
And part of it is that I’m not that good. I think some people are really much better about poking around and like, what happens if I pick this button or what happens if I try hitting this navigation and I usually don’t do it. I don’t experiment that much, but I’m finding that there’s a lot of things I can do to make my work easier if I take the time to explore and investigate.
Elizabeth
Gretchen A classic of this is that there are those people in life who when they get a car, they sit with the person and have them show them every single car feature. And then there are those of us who just drive away and don’t want to deal with any of that.
Gretchen
Absolutely. And I think I’ve read that that is a problem with cars, is that there’s all these features that it has, but that people don’t know about it. And Elizabeth weren’t you telling me about how you got a magic keyboard so that now you can use it’s much easier for you to use your iPad?
Elizabeth
Yes. Perfect examples. So I had an iPad, but I wasn’t using it to its full effect. Sarah really used her iPad like she did all of her scripts on it and wrote on it and did all these things. And I only was basically, you know, reading emails and like looking at the Internet and then I got a magic keyboard, which is a very cunningly designed keyboard that goes with the iPad and it’s totally transformed my use of it.
Elizabeth
And now I use it for everything. Right?
Gretchen
Right.
Elizabeth
So that’s a perfect example. But I had to be push and prodded.
Gretchen
Well, I think a lot of times other people will say like, Oh, I found this thing that works really well, or why don’t you try this? But it’s easy to just ignore that. Well, this is a place where going into the office helps, because if you’re working with people, a lot of times they’ll point out, Oh, you could do this or you could try this and you learn about it.
Gretchen
Whereas if you’re working from home, you’re not seeing how other people are going about it, or maybe you’re someone like me where I’m just doing the same thing I’ve always done. It’s easy not to realize that there are really excellent things that can make my work more efficient or more just easier to do.
Elizabeth
So what are things that you have discovered Gretch?
Gretchen
Well, I can’t even describe this because. But what I found is that in word. Yeah, and I use this thing where I use the headings navigation so that I can go between different parts and I can very easily move things around. It’s it’s a really great thing. I sort of accidentally figured out how to do it. And since then I’ve really started thinking like, Well, what happens if I use this or are there shortcuts?
Gretchen
One thing I found out is that there’s a way to return to the last place you made an edit, which again is like a very specific thing but is very, very helpful for me. And so the larger thing is if there’s something that you use often, don’t just limit yourself to the most obvious ways that you use it.
Gretchen
But to say, are there things that I could use? Can I identify a problem or a challenge that there might be a solution to it that I just haven’t even tried to find?
Elizabeth
Yes. And the key to this is often this only takes about 30 seconds. It’s not like you have to spend an hour. Yes. In 30 seconds, you can likely find one feature to make your life easier.
Gretchen
Yes. And then it’s just that good feeling of getting the most benefit that you can find out of something that you often use.
Elizabeth
Yeah. Gretch back to the iPad. Sarah and I, my co-host of Happier Hollywood and writing partner have talked many times about how we absolutely refuse to use Google Docs on the iPad. This was several years ago, and our assistant at the time, Boafoa just would not give up pushing us to use Google Docs and thank goodness because it totally transformed how we work.
Elizabeth
Yes. And has allowed us to work together so much more easily. And then after that more recently, Sarah discovered on Final draft, which is the the program we use to write scripts. Sarah discovered that we could collaborate, meaning we could each be working on the same document wherever we were, which is totally, totally revolutionized how we work together because we used to have to look over each other’s shoulder if we were trying to write together.
Elizabeth
Now we can just be on the phone and see what each other is typing. Right?
Gretchen
Right. Also, what this means is we may not need to buy as much stuff. For instance, I realize that since I use the app genius scan, I don’t need a scanner. So that’s just a thing that I don’t need to buy and I don’t need to have and I don’t need to spend money on it, which is satisfying.
Gretchen
And also it just it makes us feel good to be able to work more efficiently and better. It’s just it’s a way to just improve the quality of our work and also our creativity.
Elizabeth
Yeah, you were saying it can unleash your creativity. Like if you know how to use your printer. Yeah, well then you can print invitations, which yes, my mom does.
Gretchen
Yeah, exactly. So let us know if you do try this at home and how you’ve managed to get more benefit from a tool that you already use. Let us know on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com Or as always, you can go to the show notes at happiercast.com/444 for everything related to this episode.
Elizabeth
Coming up we have a cheap gift happiness hack. Everybody loves an inexpensive gift. But first this break.
[Music]
Okay, Gretch, it’s time for this week’s Happiness Hack. And it is a cheap gift idea. I love this.
Gretchen
This is a friend of mine. I was just so charmed by this. So my friend got married. And as often happens with a couple, one person really wants to get to the airport with lots of extra time and then the other person isn’t as interested as having so much lead time. And so this was something that was because they had a conflict about how quickly they should leave for an airport.
Gretchen
And so after they got married, she for a gift, wrote on a piece of paper, I promise that I will leave for the airport whenever you want. So it took away all the stress. She was the one who wanted to cut it shorter. He really wanted to have plenty of leeway. And she just thought, you know what? You can just decide if you want to get there 3 hours early.
Gretchen
That’s okay. I’m just I’m not even going to worry about it. It’s up to you. We’ll leave whenever you want. And that was just that was her gift. And I thought that was so hilarious. And also probably added a lot to the harmony in their relationship.
Elizabeth
Yes, right. That is a gift I would love to receive from Adam, my husband, let me tell you.
Gretchen
Well, it’s one of those things where probably it works better for the person who wants to be early than the person who wants to cut it. Yes, but there’s probably a lot of things that you could do. It’s kind of related to the idea in episode 442 about when you agree to do a chore that someone especially dislikes.
Gretchen
It’s kind of along the same lines as that, but I think it’s an easy way to find a gift that would be inexpensive yet could be very valuable.
Elizabeth
Everybody has their certain issues and if you look at resolving the issue as a gift, it undercuts the conflict in a nice way. So rather than having conflict, you’re just saying, well, this is my gift. So we don’t need to fight about it. So I love this approach. It’s always about the reframing. It’s a great yes.
Gretchen
Frame Yes, absolutely. And now for a deep dive, we asked listeners for the traditions that they have related to September as the other New Year, because for many of us, the end of the summer is the other New Year and people have a lot of ways of marking the end of summer and the return to school routine, work routine, whether or not it’s the summer for you, depending on where you live in the world.
Gretchen
But that’s the feeling of the return to ordinary routine. Yes.
Elizabeth
So let’s go through these, Binay says. Speaking of school supplies, Gretchen, school supplies or office supplies aren’t supplies just something fresh for my creativity collection?
Gretchen
This is wonderful. From a teacher, Mandy says. My students come back to school this week, so I always get New Year’s hats and horns. Happy New school year. That’s fun. Thinking about the new school year is New Year, but I love that. Tiffani said.
Elizabeth
Our school starts middle of August, so I use those two weeks as a testing slash experimenting ground for new schedules and routines. I find out what works and what doesn’t. So when September hits, we are running smoothly.
Gretchen
That’s a good idea. Aaron says, September is my new Year, working at a university. Something I started when I returned to in-person work was to get a plant for my office windowsill At the start of every year. I’d like to add one each year, at least for a while. I also like to get a new outfit kind of a throwback to when I was a kid.
Gretchen
I love that new outfit, new plant.
Elizabeth
Jamie says, We go to the same little town on Lake Michigan every Labor Day. The first part of vacation, there are lots of tourists. The second part, the town is a ghost town. We’ve been going several years, so it’s a known place. No new planning needed. It’s comfortable. It’s a perfect way to end summer for us, and because I work at a university, the end of August / beginning of September definitely marks a new year for me. Jennifer said.
Gretchen
With the start of the school year and Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year, it’s our time for introspection and making plans. Not around January 1st, always in the fall. I think a lot of people feel that way.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Jennifer says, cars get a good, deep clean from the summer sand and fun right before school starts. Gretch, Sam Sterling says, resume my outdoor morning walks.
Gretchen
Oh, that’s great. Rhea said, Start writing in a new diary.
Elizabeth
Alison says, My ritual is to get my haircut.
Gretchen
That’s a good one. And then finally, John says, trying to get a good night’s sleep. It will be the last time until Christmas break. Okay.
Elizabeth
That’s like, Oh, yes, that’s good, Gretch. I think for those of us with kids in school or who are teachers, definitely September feels like the New Year. But I mean, even for people who don’t have that, it can be just nice to think of fall as a fresh start. Exactly.
Gretchen
And now for a listener question, we got an interesting question from someone who wants to be anonymous.
Elizabeth
Yes. And this is a question for Gretchen. Just wondering if you ever get jealous of your sister’s relationship with her writing partner. Seems like you guys are very close, but that she also has a special and long relationship with her writing partner. Has there ever been any feelings that have bubbled up over this? Maybe I am insecure, but I think I might feel a little competition with her writing partner.
Gretchen
Well, I would say no, I do not feel jealous of your relationship to Sarah. I think it’s wonderful that you have somebody to work with and to have accountability and who really understands everything you’re trying to do. I think I’m envious of you because I think it would be great to have somebody who’s deeply involved in all the things that I’m doing, but I don’t feel it undermines our relationship.
Elizabeth
And. Gretchen Yeah, you often wish that you would have someone who would spend hours and hours talking nonstop. Sarah spends hours talking to me, but I usually fill that role for you. All talk. Yes.
Gretchen
Yes, you do. You do. Yes. But it’s a very interesting question. Very, very thought provoking. Okay, Gretch.
Elizabeth
Coming up, I have a photo related demerit. But first, this break.
[Music]
Gretchen
Okay, It’s time for demerits and gold stars. And Elizabeth, this is your week to talk about a demerit. What’s your demerit?
Elizabeth
Okay, Gretchen, so this year we’re doing #outside23in23, you know, going outside 23 minutes every day. And I’ve been very good about that. Part of that for me is logging it every day in the Happier app with a photograph. I’ve been keeping a photo log, and my demerit is that over the summer I have completely fallen off putting my outdoor photos into my the happier app and I can’t seem to get back on track.
Elizabeth
And part of it, Gretchen, is I’ll even take a picture and then just forget to put it in the app.
Gretchen
But did you know you can take a picture in the app, you can be in the app and take the picture there so you don’t have to do it that way. Would that be easier?
Elizabeth
Oh, so I could take it in the moment? Yeah, directly in the. I didn’t know that. Well, they’re right. There is a good example of something, a tool I could be using better.
Gretchen
Exactly right. Yeah. Sometimes you’re just so in the practice of doing it a certain way, you don’t realize that there are other options. So yes, do that. That’s how I do it. It’s much easier.
Elizabeth
Okay, I want to do that because in addition to just liking the Gold Star of logging my photo, it’s a visual Diary of the year, so I really don’t want to fall off. So I’m going to try that method. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Gretchen
Excellent. Yes. Try it in the happier app, everyone. It’s a fun way to use that out.
Elizabeth
Okay. Gretchen, what is your gold star?
Gretchen
Well, I want to give a gold star to my daughters, Eliza and Eleanor, because one thing I love about both of them is that they love to run errands, both of them. So if they’re going out and about and I say, Hey, if you’re doing your thing and you feel like stopping by the grocery store, would you buy X, Y, and Z for me?
Gretchen
Or if you’re just feel like doing an errand, would you pick up this for me? They’ll do it. They just like doing errands. And it’s such a lovely thing to have your people want to do for you. It’s it makes my life a lot easier.
Elizabeth
That is a nice quality.
Gretchen
And the resource for this week, you can join me for a virtual workshop and a Q&A to learn more about my Four Tendencies personality framework and how to use it to make the workplace work better. We will talk about common conflicts that can derail the work week and how to use the Four Tendency to identify solutions, understand how people might have a different perspective.
Gretchen
The virtual workshop will be by Zoom and it will be Tuesday, September 26, 2023 4:30 Pacific Time, 7:30 Eastern Time. And if you want to learn more or register, go to have your cars.com workshop added to your cart and check out. I am really looking forward to this. I love talking about the Four Tendencies.
Elizabeth
Yeah.
Gretchen
And what are we reading? Elizabeth? What are you reading?
Elizabeth
I’m reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Gretchen
And I’m reading Being a Dog, Following the Dog into a World of Smell by Alexandra Horowitz. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home, get more benefit from a tool you already use. Let us know if you tried it and if it worked for you.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Tik Tok and Threads at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and Threads at Liz Craft. Our email address is podcast@gretchenrubin.com.
Gretchen
And if you like the show, here’s something you may not know how to use a tool in order to forward an episode of the podcast to others or how to write and review. This is something that’s very easy to do and we certainly appreciate it. It’s a tool you can learn how to use.
Elizabeth
Until next week. I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward.
Gretchen
So, Elizabeth, have you noticed how now I have started to much more frequently forward you podcast episodes of different podcasts that I listen to. I feel like I’m sending them to you constantly. Like Elizabeth. I think you would like this episode.
Elizabeth
Yes. And I was just listening to one this morning that you forwarded me. So I am a fan of this.
Gretchen
Yeah, it’s a, it’s a tool that keep doing it. Yeah, we love it.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.