Can Money Buy Happiness
Photo by Taylor Simpson on Unsplash
Do you ever feel like it’s all too much? Every Thursday, I share one action, habit, or project you may want to undertake in order to improve your health, happiness, and sense of well-being.
PROJECT OF THE WEEK
Can Money Buy Happiness?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "Happiness" as a state of well-being and contentment.
Personally, I have found it helpful to differentiate how I define happiness from joy.
Joy is an emotion that comes and goes,
while happiness is a state of mind.
There are many ways we can support ourselves and the people we care about in order to lead happier lives.
With this definition in mind, I do think investing in ourselves and our loved ones can make a difference.
Getting Started
How do decide what investments of time, money, or things will have the greatest impact on your daily life.
Two questions to ask yourself are:
How can I create more time for myself and to connect with those I care about?
What tasks on my to-do list do I really dislike?
I would focus your brainstorming on two categories:
Tools that can save you time
Tasks that take up valuable time or that you dislike
A Few Tools to Consider:
A laser wireless printer that works well - I promise, they do exist!
While we don't print a lot these days, there are times we need to. Is it really worth going to Staples each time you have to print. or worse, spending 30 minutes figuring out why the printer is not working or that the ink is dried out.
A quality scanner.
There are phone apps that do a great job scanning. I personally love Scannable. However, depending on how often you scan items and how many systems you use, having a quality scanner may save you a lot of time. A quality scanner can easily scan multiple pages at a time, such as your tax forms, as well as scan directly into multiple systems, such as Dropbox and Evernote.
A shredder
I would recommend most households have a shredder. You can purchase a small one that is relatively inexpensive. It's common for clients to think that they don't need a shredder because there are so few items that they feel need to be shredded. I can't even count the number of times I have helped clients create a shredding box, with the plan of dropping off the papers that need shredding, once the box is full. In the end, it takes longer to drop off the box of shredding than it would to shred the papers at home, it ends up costing more than purchasing a small shredder, and the box of shredding takes up as much space as a small shredder would.
A few to-do items you may want to invest in by delegating:
Hire someone to clean your house.
This is a task that many feel overwhelmed by. It's important to remember that it's not all or nothing. Hiring someone to clean your house monthly may be enough to greatly impact your happiness. You can also identify which parts you dislike the most. If you hate changing the sheets, you can have someone wash and change the sheets, while you continue to do the rest of your laundry. I had one client who liked doing laundry, but hated folding it. For just a little more money each week, his cleaning person was happy to fold his clothes and put them away.
Hire a professional organizer
If you feel like you are always looking for things and the job of "picking-up" never ends, this might be a valuable investment. A professional organizer can help you let go of extra items, which will reduce how much you have to "pick-up", as well as create homes for each item, so that it's easy to know where to put each item away and then find it the next time you need it.
Purchase meal kits
You may love to cook, but hate meal planning. Meal kits are an amazing way to keep doing what you love, without the part you don't.
Grocery delivery service
I have worked with a number of clients that enjoy grocery shopping, but the only time they are able to do it, is time that would be better spent on themselves or with the family. If you are grocery shopping on a Monday evening, while your partner watches the kids, and this is the only time you have to yourself all week, how much happiness would be gained if you met up with a friend instead?
Hire someone to run errands
If you feel like you are constantly running errands, this may add a lot of time back in your life. You could hire a high-schooler or college students for a few hours once a week and have them run most of your errands.
Schedule 20 minutes to brainstorm on the questions above.
Write down all the tools you think may add value to your life and all the tasks that you think you might consider delegating. Then choose one tool or task you want to try first.
Block off time on your calendar to implement the tool you chose or to plan out how to delegate the task you chose.
I would recommend also blocking off time on your calendar, about one to three months in the future, to evaluate if the new tool is adding the value that you expected. If it is, amazing! If it's not, take a few minutes to think about why it's not.
Did you hire someone that is not right for the job?
Did you not take the time to learn how to use the new tool?
Or, is it just not saving you enough time to be worth the cost?
Adding new tools and delegating to-do items is only going to contribute to your happiness, if you are intentional about what you use the extra time for.
If you implement this strategy, but just spend the extra time siting alone watching Netflix, it's likely you will not be much happier.
Additional Resources
You may want to checkout the book, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. By reading about Gretchen's journey to find increased happiness, I am sure you will think of ideas that would add value to your life. Happiness does not just happen, you have to create it.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
We understand how challenging and scary it can be to start something new. If you feel excited about implementing this strategy, but worry that it’s just too much to start on your own, the It’s All in the Planning Started Pak was designed for you!
A Note from Happy Spaces
The goal is to add value to your life. If you think this project will add value:
Estimate how long you think it will take. I would recommend doubling the time you estimate.
Look at your calendar over the next week and pick a date and time to get started.
Make an appointment on your calendar for the estimated time.
If you estimate that completing this project will take longer than one hour, I recommend doing it over multiple days. This will support you in getting started!
Prior to starting this project, take a few minutes to make a step-by-step list of EVERY action you need to take to complete this project.
It's not all or nothing. You can choose to implement only the parts of this project that add value to your life.
An Accountability Partner can be a great support in following through on your goals and commitments.
We understand how challenging it can be to implement new habits and systems. For additional support please go to HappySpacesBySarah.com.
Creating a life you don't need a vacation from! ®
Sincerely,
Sarah Weingarten
Meet Sarah
Growing up as the oldest of nine siblings in Upstate New York, I learned to use organization to create sanity among the chaos. Today, I work together with individuals, families, and small businesses to create habits, systems, and spaces that support their needs, goals, and dreams. Clients often refer to our work together as "life-changing" and "better than decades of therapy". What I love most about my work is the lasting impact it has on real people's lives. Nothing makes me happier than hearing the many success stories of clients I have worked with.