Happiness Project- Neutral November

I'm starting my happiness project with what I like to call "neutral November". I'm so used to doing everything fast; eating, showering, cleaning, etc. I want to kind of slow down because I think it can cause me some anxiety sometimes. I don't want to be on this weird auto-pilot and not enjoy the things I'm doing everyday; so I'm taking some time to slow down the pace of my life a little and to make room for other things I've been wanting to try. Hence, the "neutral" pace..not too fast to where it's all a blur, but not so slow it's frustrating.

This is the actual checklist I'm using for this month. Believe it or not, writing it down makes me more conscious of it. Every day you're supposed to check off stuff and see the progress. As you can see, I still got a little bit to go but at least I'm trying? lol that's my optimism talking.

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory so I won't go into them. To clear up, the "one-minute rule" is something I got straight out of the book. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, says she'd give herself one minute to do something to avoid clutter build up. So, if she felt lazy but knew she needed to put her shoes in her closet, she'd give herself a minute to get it done. I'm done it so that I can learn to not do things when I want. Sometimes, things just need to get done and I tend to wait until "I feel like it". I can't always do that so this is my attempt to change it.

I don't feel I engage my dogs enough so I want teach them more tricks. They know down, hand, stay, jump, roll over, touch, and turn around (for when it's time to go back home on walks). I still feel I need to bond more. I bought this book and hopefully it'll be an easy process.

The early bird thing is something I feel I need for the future. I have NEVER been an early bird, but waking up earlier will give me more time of my day and keep me thinner. That one will probably be my biggest struggle which is why I've put it in the first month, lol.


I've been doing pretty good about the nightly reading and writing and the nightly 15 minute clean up. Actually, back in September when I was coming up with the 12 traits I wanted to improve, I also wrote down a bunch of goals to rank them. Surprisingly, most of the goals I'd written in August/September were already part of my routine. I am very self-deprecating, so for those couple of minutes, I felt confident. It made me feel a little better about how much I've changed in a year without this checklist.

I'll check in with more progress later!

til next time, stay classy!♥
-M