I started reading the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, who is essentially the person who inspired my blog, and it basically chronicles a year in Gretchen's life as she actively pursues happiness.. The book has been out for awhile and I'm only just getting to read it now. It's been on my to-read list since it came out but ever since I started listening to the Happier podcast and following Gretchen on Twitter and Facebook, I finally decided I needed to take it off the to-read list and dive in.
As I'm reading it, I'm trying very hard not to jump on board and start up my own happiness project. Gretchen covers so many arenas of life that I personally would like to focus on and work toward a happier mindset about. She tackles decluttering, working on her marriage, being more playful, and even rethinking how she looks at money. (I'm only halfway through so there are more topics that I haven't read about yet.)
But I won't do that. I won't start a happiness project.
I can tell right away that there'd be a lot of initial legwork before I could start. There's some soul searching required before jumping in. I'd have to be mentally and emotionally focused on the project for however long I intended to work on it. I'm simply not ready for that (yet).
Right now, I'm content to focus on my one word two words for the year. In fact, I had a burst of activity today regarding simplifying. One of Gretchen's tips is the "one minute" rule. If it takes you a matter of minutes to handle something, just do it right then and don't let it pile up later. Well, I decided to tackle of of the "one minute" tasks that I let pile up.
I filed away papers - which for months seemed like a daunting task and the papers kept piling up. When I finally put them away, it took me 15 minutes tops. I don't know what I was waiting for!
I organized a small part of our kitchen pantry that was mostly storage for random kitchen items. There were things on shelves that I knew I wanted on different shelves, some things that I needed to get rid of, and some things I wanted to actually use. So I finally took the time to move some casserole dishes out of the way, I decided to sell a picnic basket we never use, and I grabbed a bunch of canned items to make soup. That took me maybe 20 to 30 minutes to tackle.
Finally, I'm planning to go through my collection of recipes that I've printed out or ripped from magazines. I'm going to look them up online and if I can find them, I will pin them to my Pinterest boards, since that's where I usually go to look for food ideas and cooking inspiration anyway. Plus I'm sure there are recipes that I once was ambitious enough to think I'd try, but in all honesty, nowadays I need recipes that are quick and easy and simple - but delicious!
It's seriously embarrassing to find out that something you've put off for so long and dreaded so much took no time at all to accomplish. That to-do list that kept growing and getting more daunting could've been tamed so easily, so long ago!
But I won't take away from my minor triumphs! I got things done and the house is a little bit tidier. All is well in the G household!
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