When we change our habits, we change our lives. Gretchen Rubin, author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, has helped millions of readers to get happier. Now she tackles the critical question: How can we make good habits and break bad ones? In a book that's crammed with big, provocative ideas, Rubin shows readers how to create the habits that will transform their lives, even if they've failed before. The secret, Rubin explains, is to pinpoint the specific strategies will work for us. From finding the right time to begin a new habit, to setting up a counter-intuitive system of reward, to using the pleasure of treats to strengthen our good habits - Rubin identifies the 21 strategies that will allow every reader to find an effective, individual fit. Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readers' most pressing questions-oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore: * Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do? * Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can't change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why?* How quickly can I change a habit? How can I get myself to stick to a new habit? * I want to help someone else make a change. But how? * Why can I make time for everyone else, but can't make time for myself? Whether readers want to get more sleep, make and maintain a weight loss, stop checking their phone, or finish a project, habits, make change possible. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will start readers working on their own habits-even before they've finished the book.

In the spirit of her blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin embarks on a new project to make home a happier place. One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already. So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year—September through May—to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.  In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family’s treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster. Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions—and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well.  With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives. 

Product Description: Adapted from Gretchen Rubin’s #1 New York Times bestselling book and lively, popular blog, The Happiness Project is a calendar with a novel and life-changing approach to finding what everyone wants: happiness. Weaving together philosophy, scientific research, history, analysis, and real-life experiences, it’s a year of engaging and effective tips, quotes, lists, insights, and inspiration...read more

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