Showing results by narrator "Gretchen Rubin" in All Categories

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.

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.

Most of us have a habit we'd like to change, and there's no shortage of expert advice. But as we all know from tough experience, no magic, one-size-fits-all solution exists. 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. In Better Than Before, acclaimed writer Gretchen Rubin identifies every approach that actually works. She presents a practical, concrete framework to allow listeners to understand their habits - and to change them for good.

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.

The right idea, invoked at the right time, can change your life. Drawing from her long studies of happiness, and also from the challenges she's faced herself, writer Gretchen Rubin has discovered the "Secrets of Adulthood" that can help us manage the complexities of life. To convey her conclusions, she turned to the aphorism - the ancient literary discipline that demands that a writer convey a large truth in a few words.

Gretchen Rubin has spent over a decade exploring the different routes to happiness and contentment. But she realised that by focussing so much on the mind, she was missing out on the physical experience of being human. If we don't engage with our senses, time passes without us fully experiencing it. So this audiobook will take you on a journey through the five senses, to help you get out of your head and into your life.

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.