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" While television is a good servant, it's a bad master. It can swallow up huge quantities of our lives without much happiness bang for the buck. "
Gretchen Rubin
Bad
Happiness
Master
Related Quotes:
" A series of small but real accomplishments gives people the energy and confidence to continue. For instance, a person who wants to write a novel might resolve to write one sentence each day. Or a person who wants to start running might resolve to run for one minute. "
Gretchen Rubin
People
Confidence
Day
" We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, we're free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower. "
Gretchen Rubin
Habit
Need
Power
" Never label anything 'Miscellaneous.' "
Gretchen Rubin
Anything
Label
Never
" Often, the more reliably you perform a task, the less likely it is for someone to notice that you're doing it and to feel grateful and to feel any impulse to help or to take a turn. "
Gretchen Rubin
Grateful
Doing
You
" I embrace treats, but I'm also very wary of treats. Treats help us feel energized, appreciated, and enthusiastic - but very often, the things we choose as 'treats' aren't good for us. The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day. "
Gretchen Rubin
Negative
Day
Help
" When accepting a responsibility, imagine that it's something that you'll have to do next week. That way you don't agree to something just because it seems so far off that it doesn't seem onerous. "
Gretchen Rubin
Just Because
You
Week
" I'd always vaguely expected to outgrow my limitations. One day, I'd stop twisting my hair, and wearing running shoes all the time, and eating exactly the same food every day. I'd remember my friends' birthdays, I'd learn Photoshop, I wouldn't let my daughter watch TV during breakfast. I'd read Shakespeare. "
Gretchen Rubin
Food
Time
Day
" I'm constantly on the hunt for insights about happiness or ideas about how to be happier - which probably makes me a somewhat tiresome companion at times. "
Gretchen Rubin
Me
Happiness
Ideas
" Work done by other people sounds easy. How hard can it be to take care of a newborn who sleeps 20 hours a day? How hard can it be to keep track of your billable hours? To travel for one night for business? To get a 4-year-old ready for school? To return a few phone calls? To load the dishwasher? To fill out some forms? "
Gretchen Rubin
School
Work
Travel
" It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work better. I am ever-vigilant against the passive and against jargon, both of which are so insidious. "
Gretchen Rubin
Words
I Am
Love
" When we don't get any treats, we feel depleted, resentful, and angry, and we feel justified in self-indulgence. We start to crave comfort - and grab that comfort wherever we can, even if it means breaking good habits. "
Gretchen Rubin
Good
Comfort
Angry
" When you're doing a job that benefits other people, it's easy to assume that they feel conscious of the fact that you're doing this work - that they should feel grateful, and that they should and do feel guilty about not helping you. "
Gretchen Rubin
You
Job
Grateful
" I'm a compulsive note-taker, and I used to feel self-conscious about pulling out my little notebook and taking notes during a casual conversation. Then I noticed that people really seemed to enjoy it; the fact that I was taking notes made their remarks seem particularly insightful or valuable. Now I don't hold myself back. "
Gretchen Rubin
Now
People
Conversation
" If you've had something for more than six months, and it's still not repaired, it's clutter. "
Gretchen Rubin
You
More
Something
" Sometimes, counter-intuitively, it's easier to make a major change than a minor change. When a habit is changing very gradually, we may lose interest, give way under stress, or dismiss the change as insignificant. There's an excitement and an energy that comes from a big transformation, and that helps to create a habit. "
Gretchen Rubin
Change
Stress
Habit
" For one person, organized files might be a crucial tool for creativity; another person finds inspiration in random juxtapositions. "
Gretchen Rubin
Random
Inspiration
Creativity
" Enthusiasm is a form of social courage. "
Gretchen Rubin
Courage
Social
Form
" Whenever I'm trying to decide how to spend my precious time, energy, or money, I ask myself a series of questions. 'Will this broaden or deepen my relationships?' 'Will this contribute to an atmosphere of growth in my life?' 'Is this a way to 'Be Gretchen?' and 'Will this help connect me to my past?' "
Gretchen Rubin
Myself
Time
Money
" Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there's no logical connection between them. Most of us aren't superstitious - but most of us are a 'littlestitious.' "
Gretchen Rubin
Behavior
Connection
Influence
" I have a lucky perfume. I love beautiful smells, but I save one of my favorite perfumes to wear only when I feel like I need some extra luck. "
Gretchen Rubin
Perfume
Beautiful
Feel
" 'Potato-chip news' is news that's repetitive, requires little effort to absorb, and is consumable in massive quantities: true crime, natural disasters, political punditry, celebrity gossip, sports gossip, or endless photographs of beautiful houses, food, or clothes. "
Gretchen Rubin
Effort
Food
Clothes
" An enormous amount of ingenuity and creativity goes into commercials, and they can be fascinating if you pay attention. "
Gretchen Rubin
You
Attention
Creativity
" In 'Before and After,' I identify the sixteen strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. Some are quite familiar, such as 'Monitoring,' 'Scheduling,' and 'Convenience.' Some took me a lot of effort to identify, such as 'Thinking,' 'Identity,' and 'Clarity.' "
Gretchen Rubin
Clarity
Effort
Identity
" Whenever I start a new book, I think, 'This is the most interesting subject of all time. It's sad, I'll never enjoy writing another book as much as I enjoy this one.' Every time, I'm convinced. And then I change my mind when I start the next book. "
Gretchen Rubin
Mind
Sad
Time
" Keeping a habit, in the smallest way, protects and strengthens it. I write every day, even if it's just a sentence, to keep my habit of daily writing strong. "
Gretchen Rubin
Habit
Daily
Day
" Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change. "
Gretchen Rubin
Loneliness
Life
Envy
" It was my interest in happiness that led me to the subject of habits, and of course, the study of habits is really the study of happiness. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness. "
Gretchen Rubin
Study
Life
Architecture
" Many people keep photos in their homes, in their office, or in their wallet, and happy families tend to display large numbers of photos at home. In 'Happier at Home,' I write about my 'shrine to my family' made of photographs. "
Gretchen Rubin
Home
Numbers
Happy
" Some kind of clutter is difficult - letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers - but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because I'm always wandering into their rooms to clear clutter. "
Gretchen Rubin
Drive
Value
Letting Go
" During my study of happiness, I noticed something that surprised me: I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. "
Gretchen Rubin
Learn
Me
Principles