Update

If your book club is reading Life in Five Senses—or any of my books—you can request signed, personalized bookplates for your book-club members. U.S. and Canada only, sorry.

Or feel free to request bookplates for yourself, and for any reason. Ask for as many bookplates as you want — within reason.

Try This at Home

Re-think your daily routine.

Elizabeth asks, “At what age should children be expected to get themselves out of bed and ready for school, without prodding?”

Happiness Hack

If you’re having trouble untying a knot, don’t try to untangle it; instead, pull the loops wider and looser. 

Four Tendencies Tip

Many listeners responded to the question: “What are the warning signs that tell you that you’re approaching the stage of Obliger-rebellion?”

You can take the “Four Tendencies” quiz here, and you can learn more general information about the personality framework here.

What is “Obliger-Rebellion?”

When Obligers feel exploited, over-taxed, unappreciated, ignored, or disrespected, or when the weight of expectations feels unbearable, they begin to feel mounting anger and resentment. If expectations continue to press, the Obligers’ anger builds to the bursting point. Then they rebel.

Obliger-rebellion kicks in to give the Obligers an exit.

This rebellion can be small (refusing to answer someone’s emails) or it can be huge (quitting a job, getting a divorce).

If you don’t know about the pattern Obliger-rebellion, the behavior can be very puzzling, but when you know about it, you see it building.

If you’d like to read more, I wrote this post about identifying and dealing with Obliger-rebellion.

If you’d like to read about fictional examples of Obliger-rebellion, read here. If you’d like to read an example where beneficial Obliger-rebellion might have have provided life-changing protection, read here.

Listener Question

A listener asks if we do actually read a book each week. Short answer: usually.

If you’d like ideas and suggestions for how to get more reading done, check out:

• 13 Tips for Getting More Reading Done
• Episode 310: Very Special Episode! Great Hacks, Tips, Tools, and Suggestions for How to #Read21in21.
• Frequently Asked Questions: How Do I Read So Much?

Demerits & Gold Stars

Elizabeth’s Demerit: Until the last minute, she ignored all the reminders from school about the back-to-school tasks.

Gretchen’s Gold Star: I gave a gold star to my daughter Eliza for taking a cake-decorating class, just for fun.

I mention my most recent book, Life in Five Senses (can’t resist mentioning—instant bestseller).

Resource

I’m kicking off a limited LinkedIn Newsletter series about how we can better understand our work selves. This series will cover two useful frameworks for work: my “Four Tendencies” profiles and Kim Scott’s  “Radical Candor” approach// to feedback.

Follow along all month long, and read the first newsletter here.

And follow me on LinkedIn.

What We’re Reading

• Elizabeth: Back to reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Amazon, Bookshop)
• Gretchen: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (Amazon, Bookshop)

Gretchen

Hello and welcome to Happier! A podcast where we talk about ideas and strategies for making our lives happier, healthier, more productive and more creative. This week we’ll talk about why it’s a good idea to rethink our daily routines, and we’ll talk about listener’s answers to the question: “What are the signs that you’re entering obliger-rebellion?” I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, The Five Senses, Human Nature.

Gretchen

I am away from my usual office. I am in beautiful Montana outside Big Timber. And joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister, Elizabeth Craft.

Elizabeth

That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.. And Gretch, I’m in my office in Encino holding it down.

Gretchen

But hey, it’s easier when both of us aren’t traveling at once, that’s for sure.

Elizabeth

Yes.

Gretchen

Before we launch in one update, I am getting the impression from what I’m hearing from readers, that a lot of book clubs are reading my book, Life in Five Senses together. Sometimes families are reading it together, but it seems like this is a thing book clubs are doing together, which of course delights me. I am in many book clubs myself, and I love the idea that one of my books would be under discussion.

Gretchen

I sometimes will get requests from someone in a book club who’s getting a personalized signed bookplate for everyone in their book club as sort of a surprise which is very nice. And if you would like to do that, I am happy to do it. I can only do it for US and Canada, unfortunately, because of mailing. You can sign up for signed book plates at happiercast.com/bookplate and you can tell me the names of the people and where I will mail these.

Gretchen

These are actual physical book plates that I will mail to you. So go to happiercast.com/bookplate and get all the information about what I need to get those sent to you. It’s a nice surprise that people give for their book club. So I get a big kick out of playing my part. Yes. And thanks for reading it.

Gretchen

It’s nice to hear people are enjoying it.

Elizabeth

I love that.

Gretchen

So this week our Try This at Home suggestion is to rethink our daily routines.

Elizabeth

And why is this something we should do, Gretch?

Gretchen

Well, you know, our routines make our lives. Our routines are a reflection of our habits. And if our routines work for us, we are just much more likely to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative. About 40% of everyday life is made up of habits. And so, you know, things change. And so taking a moment to rethink our routines and make sure that they are everything they could be is a way to make sure that our lives are working for us in the best way possible.

Elizabeth

Yeah. And now, I mean, for me, as school starts, this is a great time to rethink routine.

Gretchen

Well, one thing is school starts, children get older. And so what they can do and what they need, changes are own lives change your work changes. Maybe your work going to work or work from home patterns have changed. So other routines have to change. Sometimes your values change. Maybe you are really excited about recycling and composting and so your routine has to change to reflect that or you’re getting much more committed to exercising.

Gretchen

Sometimes situations change or values change, but our routines don’t keep up because when something’s in a routine, it’s very easy to just take it for granted and not rethink it.

Elizabeth

Yeah, I know for me, I just need to have a bedtime routine and I think we have talked about bedtime routines many times and I still feel like I don’t have one. I mean, yes, I always brush my teeth. Yeah, but I don’t have that methodical thing where I brush my teeth. I floss my teeth. I do my face creams without, you know, I don’t have that and I know I would benefit from it.

Gretchen

Well, also, what research shows is that when you have that, that helps you fall asleep more quickly because you’re signaling your body. Okay. This is the kind of nasa like countdown ritual that we go through.

Elizabeth

Yes.

Gretchen

And it helps you prepare. And it’s funny how sometimes a little change in routine can make your life a lot easier. A friend of mine was just telling me this and I thought, this is hilarious because if you ever read parenting advice about helpful routines, this is the one that they always say. It’s like the most conventional wisdom is, have your children lay out their clothes the night before because it will make the morning so much easier.

Gretchen

And so my friend has a first grader and she said, sure, she’d heard that, but a friend of hers was like, Yeah, we’re actually doing this. And it’s actually making a change. And so she tried it and she was like, This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to us. It’s such a better way to have a routine.

Gretchen

And she was very surprised by how big a difference it made. It was a pretty small change, but it made a big difference. And so I think as much as we sometimes hear like, oh, have a bedtime routine or it’s easy not to do it or not to rethink it as our lives change.

Elizabeth

Yeah. Now, Gretchen, I have a question for listeners in the routine world. Okay, so part of my morning routine has been dealing, of course, with Jack’s routine. Okay, so my son is 13 years old, and a big part of my morning is dealing with him, getting him up, getting him fed, getting him ready for school. And my question is, when is the time when he needs to just get himself up and get his clothes and get into the bathroom to brush his teeth all of that on his own, where his alarm goes off and he gets up and I’m not sitting there checking on him every 5 minutes, you know, pushing and prodding.

Elizabeth

Yes. I’m very curious what people think because I feel like people are all over the map in terms of how they deal with this. Yes.

Gretchen

So some people will say you absolutely should be able to do this. Others will say, oh, teenagers need their sleep,and so, of course, teenagers have to be rousted out of bed. It’s probably different. You have to know your kid. But this is a good question. It’s a it’s a wonderful day. I don’t remember when it was for Eliza, Eleanor, but I just it is great when you’re just.

Gretchen

I’ll see you in the kitchen when I’m pouring myself a cup of coffee and you’re wandering through and they’re doing it on their own. That is a great day. But I can’t remember when that happened.

Elizabeth

Yeah, because it’s hard to have a routine when I’m constantly interrupting it to check on him.

Gretchen

Well, and it’s interesting. Like when we got our dog Barnaby, how much my morning routines had to change because of that. I mean, I’m sure your morning routine also involves your dogs. Yeah, The minute you sort of feel like you’ve got it figured out, usually something’s changing or even like the way Elizabeth you were telling me about how because of the weather, you couldn’t hike.

Gretchen

So the weather can affect our routines. You might have a winter routine and a summer routine. So here’s the thing that I and maybe this is the upholder in me that just really gravitates to regularity and predictability and doing things the exact same way all the time is I feel like my problem is not following through with routines, but not rethinking routines when they aren’t serving me well and being able to say like, Oh, maybe if I walked Barnaby first thing instead of waiting an hour, my whole morning would be smoother.

Gretchen

Or maybe if I did my hardest work mid-morning instead of first thing in the morning, maybe that’s actually when I’m more mentally alert to just notice how things may change or there might be a better way to do something instead of just sort of getting locked into like, This is the way I’ve always done it. And it just feels so good for things to unfold smoothly.

Gretchen

But Elizabeth, you got me to floss because of your whole thing about trying to do evening flossing. I hadn’t been flossing at all, so I had to get that into my routine. But now it’s locked in there.

Elizabeth

So you being an upholder, you’ll floss every day the rest of your life.

Gretchen

But the thing is, it fell out of my routine for, like 25 years. Right? So how did that happen? It’s easy to, you know, forget what’s there and what’s not there.

Elizabeth

And you can make a change that makes a big difference. I know, Happier In Hollywood, we had a listener who put a coffee machine like in her bedroom, and that changed her whole morning routine.

Gretchen

There you go. Oh, yes.

Elizabeth

So examine what’s working and what’s not. And you may be able to enhance your life.

Gretchen

Yes. And send us, send us your suggestions, because this is a place where we can all learn from each other. What are these little tweaks that you’ve made or things that you’ve noticed fell out or could come in? Let us know on Instagram threads. Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com.

Gretchen

As always, you can go to the show notes for every episode. You can go to the show notes by just knowing the number of the episode this is happiercast.com/446 for everything related to this episode.

Elizabeth

All right. Coming up, we have an extremely practical happiness hack. But first, this break. Okay, Gretch, time for this week’s Happiness Hack. And this is one of those little things that can make life easier.

Gretchen

Yes, this is so, so, so small. It’s not even really about happiness. But I would say it it can lessen frustration, which is if you’re having trouble untying a knot let’s say you have necklaces that are tangled together. What I often would try to do was to untangle them, like figure out, loop it through there and pull it through there.

Gretchen

No, don’t do that. Pull the loops wider and looser. Just pull what’s tight. Try to make it as loose and open as possible. And then it’s much, much easier to see how to untangle the knot so. This is very little, but I have found myself using it often ever since I learned this, so I thought I would pass that along.

Elizabeth

That is a good tip and I have to say I have learned to just be so vigilant about not getting them tangled. Oh, yeah, that’s better.

Gretchen

Yeah.

Elizabeth

Yeah.

Gretchen

Avoid it altogether.

Elizabeth

I’ve taken necklaces to a jewelry shop before and had to have them untangled. So.

Gretchen

Professionally. Yes.

Elizabeth

Yes, professionally.

Gretchen

And now for a Four Tendencies tip. This is about obliger-rebellion and we won’t go into the whole four tendencies framework. But if you want to know if you’re an upholder, questioner, obliger, or rebel, you can take the quiz at gretchenrubin.com/quiz. The biggest group for both men and women is obliger. That’s the group that the biggest number of people belong to.

Gretchen

Elizabeth, you are a proud obliger.

Elizabeth

I am an obliger.

Gretchen

So one of the patterns that you see with the obligers is that when obligers feel exploited, overtaxed, unappreciated, neglected, ignored, or when the weight of expectations feels unbearable for them, they begin to feel a mounting anger and resentment. And if these feelings continue, if these expectations continue to press down on them, their anger will build to the bursting point and then they rebel.

Gretchen

And it so it’s sort of like, I will do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, and bang, now I won’t do it. And sometimes that small like I’m not going to answer your emails for two weeks, but sometimes it’s really big. Like quitting a job. And so if you don’t know about obliger-rebellion, this behavior can feel very mysterious.

Gretchen

It feels like it’s happening out of the blue. Obligers themselves will say they’re acting out of character. They don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing to the people around them. They’re like, everything seemed fine. And then we have one little conversation, and now a 20 year friendship is over. It’s very mysterious and upsetting. But if you know about obliger- rebellion, if you can feel that it’s coming, you can head it off.

Gretchen

You can take action to address these feelings of anger and resentment and exploitation and being ignored and all that. So because obliger-rebellion is such an important pattern and it’s all over movies and TV. And I’ll post links in the show notes if you want examples of it. It’s really helpful to learn the warning signs because, as I say, if you don’t know about it, you might not realize that it’s coming.

Gretchen

But if you know, if you know about it, obligers, you start to say like, Oh yeah, yeah, I know that it’s coming. So I thought I want to ask obligers, how do you know that obliger-rebellion is approaching. What are the signs that you have that can signal to you that you are entering into the zone? And there were so many really helpful answers.

Gretchen

And I think this is something that is really helpful to know if you are an obliger, but it’s also helpful to know if you have any obligers in your life, which you certainly do, because it’s such a big group, because this pattern can be beneficial, but it can also be destructive. And it’s definitely something that you want to understand instead of just having having it wash over you.

Gretchen

So I think it’s really helpful to hear from listeners about how they key in to the feeling of obliger- rebellion.

Elizabeth

Yeah, so let’s dive in, Gretch, Kelly said lack of motivation, lack of energy. I am like a stubborn horse who stops and won’t move. I also do things that aren’t in my best interest, rebellion against myself. The first sign for me is physical inertia. The first emotional clue is resentment.

Gretchen

Okay, so that is a great summary. A lot of people talked about lack of energy. Jennifer said. Even things I am skilled at and enjoy feel like a burden, or every text or email even from friends with what’s a usual or simple question feels like too much suddenly.

Elizabeth

There are those people who suddenly just are M.I.A. on text chains and I wonder if that’s a form of obliger-rebellion. Mhm. Andrea said, Ha. I just experienced that today. A friend called me saying she had no time to make a charcuterie board for her husband’s birthday party. As this is my area of expertise, I would normally say I will do it as I know that was what she was hoping, but instead I directed her to another catering option.

Gretchen

Well, that sounds like a very constructive form of obliger-rebellion. This is. I’m choosing not to do it, but this is another way you can get it done. Christie, this is very vivid, she writes of physical sensation of the walls closing in around me, tension in my shoulders and jaw apathy, procrastination or wasting time on my phone.

Gretchen

Lots of warning signs there.

Elizabeth

Yeah. And again, that sort of apathy feeling. Yeah, Kelly said. For me it’s always anger, frustration, feeling overwhelmed and lack of gold stars slash acknowledgment. Usually my rebellion is directed toward my family. I will suddenly and drastically stop doing or helping members with tasks that I previously didn’t mind doing. Sometimes this triggers me to have conversations with my family, and sometimes it helps me set a boundary I didn’t realize I was missing.

Gretchen

Well, again, this is an example of the constructive or beneficial consequence of obliger-rebellion because this is leading to positive change. It doesn’t always lead to positive change, but this is a good example of how it does sometimes lead to positive change. If you understand it and use it as it’s intended to be used. Nathalie says. The warning signs for me that I’m going to rebel are feeling put upon and not appreciated or respected.

Gretchen

When I notice I’m traveling down this thought pattern, I have to stop and think why I’m feeling this way. Oftentimes it’s because my own inner expectations are pushing me on not necessarily what someone else is expecting from me. This is a very, very important point. Obligers will sometimes imagine or assume that others are expecting things from them when in fact this just isn’t the case.

Gretchen

So somebody was like, Well, everybody in my office expects that I’m going to be the one to maintain the conference rooms. But she sort of stopped and examined that. She realized that she just let that idea come over her. Yeah, she took that on and says, and I’m stopping and saying, where is this expectation coming from? Is it truly coming from the outside?

Gretchen

Or is this just something that I’ve projected?

Elizabeth

Susan says procrastinating simple things is my tell hmm.

Gretchen

That’s a helpful one. Sara says, I get a lot of thinking like nobody cares anyway. If I start worrying about being late or missing a deadline or not putting in 100% on a task, I pull away from people because being accessible to people means being asked to do stuff. Oh, okay. So this is this is one pulling away, retreating. 

Elizabeth

Again, that goes to me, to the person who suddenly drops off the text chain. Yeah, I’m just not going to deal with anybody.

Gretchen

Yes, right.

Elizabeth

Barb says after a few events and comments, I realized that there was a lack of appreciation or respect by a couple of key stakeholders for what I had been doing in my practically full time volunteer position. I would say that the warning signs were that I started getting feisty. I started looking for an exit door, and when I found it, I announced I would be done June 30th.

Elizabeth

So, Gretch, that’s exactly what you were talking about with a pretty dramatic. Yes. Change.

Gretchen

And this is a good example of why obligers are often outstanding employees, team members, leaders, because they’re the people that go the extra mile. And this is a good example where in pure self-interest, you might want to watch out for a large rebellion and make sure that those people do not feel exploited and taken advantage of and not acknowledged.

Gretchen

Because here’s somebody who’s clearly extremely valuable and she stated she’s had enough. She’s walking out the door and that’s it. So it’s a great example. Carolyn said, it took me a long time to realize I was in obliger-rebellion. I was no longer able to do the things that I was obliging before. I am angry and frustrated even after explaining it to some others.

Gretchen

A few just refuse to believe. I have not totally blown up my life yet, but I’ve come close several times. Okay. It’s building. It’s building.

Elizabeth

Yeah, Jody said, I start isolating myself, go into self-protection mode. Yeah. So again, that’s not pulling away.

Gretchen

Amy says I do things to deliberately push the envelope in breaking whatever the ridiculous rule or whatever will annoy them.

Elizabeth

That’s like getting a little rebel. That’s interesting.

Gretchen

Getting a little mischievous there.

Elizabeth

Ginger says, before I rebel, the thing upsets me. But once I am in rebellion, I’m amazing, really calm, but have a sense of relief and clarity. Boy, that’s interesting.

Gretchen

Yeah. Again, there are constructive outcomes for obliger-rebellion, but not always. And so it’s just something that we all want to understand and recognize and take account of. So I wrote a post about identifying and dealing with obliger-rebellion, and I’ll post a link to that in the show notes. And that includes some ideas for how to deal with it once it starts.

Gretchen

That’s a question that a lot of people have, but anyway, this was absolutely fascinating. You know, this is something that comes up all the time, obiger-ebellion, because again, it’s a very common pattern once you know to look for it. So it’s very helpful to know these warning signs from obligers. So thank you, everybody who sent in your responses.

Elizabeth

Okay, Gretch, now we have a listener question, and this comes from Holly. She says, I have one question that I’ve been wanting to ask. I am also a questioner. Every week you and Elisabeth tell us what book you are reading that week. Is this really true with your very busy lives and families? Do each really read an entire book every single week?

Elizabeth

Sometimes I can’t even get a book read over the course of a month, and I love to read. Are these books you start but don’t necessarily plan to finish? Are they just promotions or plugs for certain authors? Would love to understand this mystery.

Gretchen

Hmm. Okay.

Elizabeth

Gretchen, I mean, I can answer for you. I mean, you read more than anybody I’ve ever met, so you usually read several books a week.

Gretchen

Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. It depends on the week. And often, too, because every week I’ll post a picture of myself with all the books I’ve read that week. But I sometimes might read a book over several weeks, and I just counted in the week that I finished it. So if I had five books, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I read five books from beginning to end in that week.

Gretchen

It means that I finished five books in a week.

Elizabeth

That makes sense.

Gretchen

But Alissa, I will say the way our rule for the podcast is that we will list a book if we have started it or we’re about to start it, but we don’t necessarily finish it.

Elizabeth

Although we usually finish most books.

Gretchen

I think I abandoned more books than you do is my impression.

Elizabeth

Yeah, I think I still have the obliger  thing of even though I tell myself I don’t have to finish a book, I feel very guilty. If I don’t finish a book and I have a hard time starting another book when I haven’t finished a book. So I do tend to finish them and a lot of them I’m listening to so I can listen when I’m brushing my teeth.

Elizabeth

I listen in the car, I can listen when I’m walking the dog. So that’s how I get a lot of books read. And I mean, my reading has increased dramatically since I got into audiobooks. So that would be my answer to that. And then there are times, if you listen to the podcast where I’ll still be reading a book for more than one week, I’ll say, I’m still reading Dutch House by Ann Patchett or something.

Elizabeth

And I, you know, it will take me more than a week or if I’m really busy showrunning, often times, that’s when I’ll go several weeks with the same book. So that would be my answer.

Gretchen

To me, the great mystery of my life is when do I read? Because I feel like I have almost no time to read except for sometimes on the weekend where I will, like, read for many hours if I can. I feel like I’m never reading and yet I do finish books, so I just cannot figure out how that happens yet.

Gretchen

It does happen. But I will say this, we’re never just promoting something or plugging something. These are true. And if you pay attention, you’ll you can see our preferences because we have types. You’re like, Oh, Gretchen’s reading another Diana Wind Jones about magic, whatever universe it is I’m reading, but I will post links in the show notes to a couple of posts that I’ve written and a couple of podcasts that we did about how to get more reading done because we had read 21 and 21 and we know everybody tried to read for at least 21 minutes in 2021.

Gretchen

And we know how much people love to read, but it’s speaking to your routines. It’s very easy for reading to fall out of a routine, even for people who love to read. This is many, many people’s experiences. And so this is a great example of if you love to read and yet you’re not getting any reading done, think about, okay, well, how are some ways that maybe I can incorporate this into my daily life so that I do get that time to read, whether it’s by listening to it or waking up early and reading.

Gretchen

I have a friend who does that, who wakes up an hour early, so he just has time to read for fun every day. Okay, so I’ll post a bunch of links to that, whether Holly or anybody else is interested in tackling that, because reading is so great, it’s something that can make us so happy. That’s why we mention it, to remind everybody how fun it is to read.

Elizabeth

All right. Coming up, I give myself an annual demerit.

Gretchen

But first, this break. Okay, Elizabeth, it’s time for demerits and gold stars. And this is an even numbered episode, episode four for six, which means it’s your turn to talk about a demerit.

Elizabeth

Yeah. So, Gretchen, I find myself giving myself this demerit every year.

Gretchen

We all have these demerits. Yes.

Elizabeth

In September, which is not paying attention to the back to school emails. Hmm. So just not reading the email that says what we need to get and what meeting I need to attend and the supply list and what forms need to be filled out. I don’t know if it’s, you know, the kid in me that just wants summer to continue.

Elizabeth

And so I’m in denial and I don’t want to dive in or if I just don’t like the paperwork of it all. But I really can be remiss with all of this school stuff and I need to get better about it. But I was filling out the, you know, last of the 15 medical forms, like 5 minutes before Jack went to school and getting the supplies the day before and all of that.

Elizabeth

So demerit to me need to put those, you know, write down the calendar, the important dates, all of it.

Gretchen

Well, so here’s what I would say. First of all, filling out the medical forms. I’m in the open door stage of life. Now, I will say that is one thing that I will not regret not having the opportunity to do, which is to, like, fill out all the medical forms. I love shopping for school supplies. That’s like one of the few things I truly enjoy.

Gretchen

So I was always looking for that list because I’m like, Let’s go to the office supply store and buy school supplies. But can I just say, Elizabeth, part of your demerit, I think, is because it has become so much harder to do all this stuff used to be in the olden days you would get a mimeograph sheet that would tell you what you needed to do and you could just walk around and check it off the boxes.

Gretchen

But now it feels like everything is links within links within links and download this app and sign up, look up your password, and then things are like not loading or this isn’t registering properly. Try again in a few minutes or it just feels like there’s so many layers to it. You can’t just sit down and bang it out.

Elizabeth

Yes, whenever I see the word portal, I’m just like, oh gosh, not another portal, please. Yes. No, you’re absolutely right. If somebody just handed me what I needed to do, it’s the finding it. It’s like a treasure hunt that you don’t want to go on the spot. You’re absolutely.

Gretchen

Right. Yes. So anyway, I give you that. I back you up in that sense.

Elizabeth

It’s not fun.

Gretchen

No. And then there’s the thing where you’re like, Oh, it was there somewhere. I read something about how the first day of school start time was going to be different. Where was it? And then you have to go back through every single thing because there’s like the first day of school, the first week at your child’s school.

Elizabeth

And you know what else? We get emails from different parts of the school. So some are from the name of your school, some aremiddle school. Yes. Yes. You know, some are the parents association. So you don’t even know where you’re looking. Yeah, it is.

Gretchen

I do that thing where I try to see who’s search by sender, but then I’m like, What is the name of the sender? Because it’s not always what you think. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yes. Not to rant on time because it’s a beautiful time of year and it’s yeah, the loveliness of the start of school. But that there are frustrations.

Elizabeth

Frustrations. Okay, Gretch, what is your gold star this week?

Gretchen

Okay, I’m going to be a gold star to my daughter, Eliza, because here comes a photograph in my phone of the super fancy cake, and she’s like, This is the cake that I just decorated. I signed up for a cake decorating class. And just out of nowhere, she had never evinced any interest in cake decorating. Had she heard of it?

Gretchen

I don’t know. But there was like a two hour class to learn how to do cake decorations. And she signed up and went and learned how to make all those swirlies and shells and I don’t know, it  just it looked so fun. Now I want to do it too. And I just thought cake decorating also is one of these things, I’m very interested in the idea of creativity in everyday life.

Gretchen

I think, you know, thinking about Life in Five Senses really got me much more focused on tapping into the five senses and sort of creative expression and colors and textures and all these things. And the case of cake decorating, the idea of taste and food and celebration and cake decorating is one of these ways that you can be creative in your everyday life.

Gretchen

Yes, you don’t have to be a painter in a studio with a set of oil paints in front of you. This is ordinary, everyday creativity and it can add so much pleasure and fun and creative expression to our lives. So I was just delighted that she had the thought to go and did it. So Gold Star to Eliza.

Elizabeth

Yes, Gold Star.

Gretchen

The resource for this week. I love LinkedIn. I am on LinkedIn. You can follow me on LinkedIn at Gretchen Rubin. Now that the fall is kicking into gear and we’re all thinking about the new work routines and work life as everything gears up again, I am kicking off a limited LinkedIn newsletter series that dives deep into understanding our work selves better, and it’s a mix of looking at the Four Tendencies framework and also this amazing framework that Kim Scott has developed called Radical Candor.

Gretchen

That’s all about giving helpful feedback. Kim is an old friend of mine. I’m a huge fan of her work, so we’re going to be collaborating on these LinkedIn newsletters, so follow along all month and read the first newsletter. I’ll post a link to that in the show notes. And again, you can follow me on LinkedIn as Gretchen Rubin. And Elizabeth.

Gretchen

Speaking of what are we reading? What are we reading?

Elizabeth

I am back to reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett speaking of Ann Patchett.

Gretchen

And I am reading Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, by Stephen Millhauser. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home. Rethink your daily routine. Let us know if you tried it and what you learned about your routine.

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 here’s a great thing to add to your listening routine. Every time you listen to the podcast, take a minute to email a link to a friend who would enjoy the show or rate review or follow us in your favorite podcasting app.

Elizabeth

Until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.

Gretchen

And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward.

Elizabeth

So, Gretch, I saw a picture of Eleanor riding a horse in Montana.

Gretchen

Yeah. Yeah. Eliza and Eleanor have been riding a lot. They love it. They’re so happy to be here. I’ve been hiking.

Elizabeth

Oh, good.

Gretchen

From the onward project.