Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project + My January Goals

So in an attempt to increase my happiness level, my mom gave me Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project" for Christmas a month ago. At first I thought the gesture was a sweet but misguided attempt at her trying to understand why I get lonely at times, what with being in grad school and living alone. But once I started this book and could not stop reading it, my life improved...lol.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Book # 6 of 2012):
While this was an autobiography/self-help book focused on ways that the author herself worked to improve her own personal happiness over the course of a year, I found it to have an incredible amount of tips that were extremely useful in making my own days more fulfilling and satisfying. As I've mentioned before in this blog, my idea for the 4 goals per month, each separated into smaller goals, came from this book. And as any readers have seen, this has been an incredibly successful method for myself of getting things done. A few posts back, I also listed "Marie's Commandments," which was a concept inspired by this book. Inevitably, there will be numerous references to this book as I continue blogging. So all in all, while there were some aspects of her happiness journey that I didn't connect with, that was essentially the overall point of the book - that everyone is a unique individual who must find their own ways to reach happiness. And as a side note, this book is not spiritually or theoretically centered at all, but is much more practical and usable in anyone's happiness journey.

READ IT!!! :-)


JANUARY GOALS UPDATE!! - 3 of 4 DOWN!!
1. Go through my Christmas gifts - COMPLETE :-)
a. make a list of who gave me what - CHECK
b. put items where they go/in places where they will be used - CHECK
c. pull out thank you cards - CHECK
d. write thank you notes - CHECK
e. get addresses - CHECK
f. mail thank you notes - CHECK

2. Financials - COMPLETE :-)
a. find all random financial documents laying around - CHECK
b. stack documents in proper piles - CHECK
c. file away - CHECK
d. place tax pertinent documents in manila envelope - CHECK
e. pull out GrottoFae info and place in above manila envelope - CHECK
f. find last remaining receipt for GrottoFae, was it in Dec though? - No, so CHECK
g. call to make tax filing appointment - CHECK
h. update GrottoFae info - CHECK

3. Closet - maybe a couple more days work...
a. pull out all hanging clothes I have not worn in a year - (only a few more items to try on!!)
b. fold these clothes and place in bags with other give-aways - (I've done this for all the hanging clothes I've gone through)
c. go through non-clothes items on closet floor - CHECK
d. put these things away in proper locations - (still need to hang shadow box on the wall...)
e. go through clothing on closet floor - (bags with future t-shirt quilt materials, clothes I want to keep for my future children) - CHECK
f. try on above mentioned clothes and MAKE DECISIONS - CHECK
g. take all give aways to Plato's Closet -
h. put all items back in closet in an orderly fashion -

4. Memory Box - COMPLETE :-)
a. decide on categories for memory box - CHECK
b. decide on separation method (folders for paper memories and Ziplock bags for 3-d items) - CHECK
c. separate into piles (separated by school) - CHECK
d. file these piles into box - CHECK
e. along with b, I need to find a new box to put the post-college stuff in - CHECK