Showing results by narrator "Gretchen Rubin" in All Categories

The author of the blockbuster New York Times best sellers The Happiness Project and Happier at Home tackles the critical question: How do we change? Gretchen Rubin's answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

During her multi-book investigation into understanding human nature, Gretchen Rubin realized that by asking the seemingly dry question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so using this framework allows us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively.

Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of our stuff makes us feel more in control of our lives. By getting rid of things we don't use, don't need, or don't love, we free our minds (and our shelves) for what we truly value. With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what's realistic for most people, Gretchen Rubin suggests dozens of manageable steps for creating a more serene, orderly environment - one that helps us to create the lives we want.

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. 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. 

Joining us in the Audible Studios to discuss her latest book, The Four Tendencies, is New York Times best-selling author and happiness expert Gretchen Rubin. Author of international best sellers The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin has made waves with her insights into habits, happiness and human nature. With more than 600,000 people having taken her online quiz and a hugely successful podcast and blog, Gretchen delves further into personality traits with her latest title, The Four Tendencies. 

Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry’s last great charge and inventor of the tank - Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war. Like no other portrait of its famous subject, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill is a dazzling display of facts more improbable than fiction, and an investigation of the contradictions and complexities that haunt biography.

Gretchen Rubin explores one of her key secrets to happiness: that for most of us, outer order leads to inner calm. A messy desk or a cluttered cupboard might seem like a trivial matter, yet Rubin has found that by simply organising our stuff, we free up space for what we truly value (in our lives and in our homes). Do I need it? Do I love it? Do I use it? This new volume, with over 150 concrete ideas, approaches the problem of how to best organise our possessions with Gretchen Rubin's characteristic clarity and humour.

Best-selling author Gretchen Rubin ( The Happiness Project and Happier at Home) explores habits - the invisible architecture of everyday life - and how they can make us more likely to be happy, healthy, productive, and creative. When we change our habits, we change our lives. Gretchen Rubin, author of the blockbuster New York Times best sellers The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, has helped millions of readers get happier.

When writing about habits for her last book, Gretchen Rubin stumbled on the biggest discovery of her life - the Four Tendencies. The tendencies describe how a person responds to motivation and how that affects family dynamics, happiness, work and organisations. Investigating the Four Tendencies quickly became the most challenging and important project Gretchen had ever embarked upon.

In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin 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. And what does she want from her home? A place that calms her and energises her. A place that, by making her feel safe, will free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wants to be happier at home, she wants to appreciate how much happiness is there already.