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Enjoy Life More - Upgrade Your Chores
Week Four of the How To Be Happy Program

By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., About.com Guide

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Upgrade Your Chores

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This is Week Four of the program. Give the skill outlined below a try for one week. Consider it a one-week experiment. Commit to follow these simple steps every day of the week.

Introduction

What You’ll Do: This week, you’ll pick out seven things that you do routinely and figure out a way to enjoy them more. Getting pleasure out of everyday things is one of the secrets to happiness. We’ll help you figure out how to enjoy your life more than ever before.

How It Works: You will list out seven tasks that you would like to enjoy more and brainstorm ways to do them. Then, each day this week, you’ll put one of your actions in place. This way, by the end of the week, you’ll be able to increase the pleasure that you get from the simple things in life.

Get Motivated: What if you could double, or even triple, the amount of happiness in your life? That is what this program is all about. We’ve already limited your negative thoughts and beliefs – now it is time to really enjoy things.

The Steps

List Seven Things: Make a list of seven tasks that you do every week. You can create your own form by making two columns on a piece of paper, labeled “Task” and “Upgrade.” List one item for each day of the week. For example, your list might include: driving, cooking, doing laundry, writing emails at work, mowing the lawn, talking on the phone and paying bills.

Upgrade: In the second column, write at least one way to make doing that task more enjoyable. Think of a really good way to do this, something that would make you look forward to engaging with this task. For example, if you listed “cook dinner,” you might get excited for doing it by trying a new recipe, buying a new knife, or moving your CD player into the kitchen. Think about ways you can either upgrade the task by using nicer equipment or ways to enhance the environment while doing the task through music or scents. Really take some time to brainstorm how you can make the task better, more fun and more enjoyable. Be creative.

Make It Happen: Each day this week, make your tasks more enjoyable. Go out and get what you need. Make the changes necessary so you can really enjoy the tasks more. It might take a little bit of work and research, but it will pay off every single time you do the tasks.

Commitment: I will upgrade seven tasks this week to make them more enjoyable.

Tips

Make a shopping list and get everything you need for the week at one time. Give yourself a budget and go. Remember that many of the tasks you listed are things that you will be doing regularly – you should have an enjoyable, effective way of getting them done.
You can also use rewards to help make tasks more enjoyable. Give yourself a small reward each time you finish a task.
Remember that your goal is to look forward to the tasks you have to do. If you wrote down “exercise” in the “Task” column, then find a way to enjoy exercising more by listening to a new CD or audio book, or watching a DVD. If you wrote down “cooking dinner,” buy yourself a professional grade knife to work with, or at least get the knife that you use most often professionally sharpened. Enhance the pleasure you take in the tasks you do on a daily basis.

Do an upgrade inventory. Evaluate the things that you use on a daily or weekly basis and consider upgrading them. Is your laundry basket 20 years old? Are your kitchen towels ragged and discolored? Does your mower sputter every five minutes? Look over the things you use and upgrade them to bring yourself more pleasure on a daily basis. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to improve your experience, sometimes cleaning something or rearranging items that you use will make things more enjoyable.

Here is the whole program. Give each one a solid one-week try, and then come back and do the next one. If you want a reminder, sign up for the How To Be Happy E-Course. It is free, and you’ll get short e-mail reminders each day to help keep you on track.