Blog

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Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here.

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Living a good life means managing your time. Problem is, we don’t understand time at all. Go ahead, explain time to me; I’ll wait.

(Eric hums to himself and drums fingers on the tabletop.)

Don’t blame yourself. To be fair, the nature of time has been a matter of some debate for, oh, a few thousand years now. Aristotle said time wasn’t real. (I know some people who live like this but they tend to get fired a lot.) Aristotle thought time was just a measurement of change. If nothing changes, there is no time. That simple.

Then Newton showed up on the scene and said the exact opposite: time is not only real, but it’s also objective, independent and universal. Be at work by 9AM — and your 9AM better be the same as work’s 9AM.

It took Einstein to break up the fight. He said they were both kinda right. Newton was correct that time is real. But Aristotle was on to something when he said it’s not universal. Einstein realized time is warped by gravity and speed. A universal “now” doesn’t exist. Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli says that asking what “now” is for someone light years away is like asking which football team won the basketball championship. The question doesn’t even make sense.

And when we get down to the level of quantum mechanics, hoo-boy, time is weirder than the love child of Salvador Dali and David Lynch. At the quantum level there is no difference between past, present and future. No cause and effect, only probabilities. Only one thing matters in the quantum realm: how things relate to one another.

I know, I know, with the exception of that Newtonian clock time, this sounds like it has nothing to do with real life. But it does. I swear. Because there’s another kind of time, one that doesn’t fall under physics, and one that is even more important than clock time: internal time. Time in your head.

And that can be weirder than anything physics has come up with. But, in the end, it’s the only time that matters.

Follow me down this rabbit hole, won’t you, Alice?

We Live By Internal Time

Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

The worth of a great day is not measured by the space it occupies in the calendar.

Does time on the clock have any relationship to how meaningful the moments of your life are to you? Barely at all. March wasn’t a better month because it had 31 days to February’s 28.

The Newtonian clock ticks by consistently but inside our heads, well, “time flies when you’re having fun” or something “takes forever.” And we’re not crazy. Subjective perception of time is real. When you’re in a car accident, time does seem to slow down. And, yes, time really does seem to speed up as you get older.

All due respect to Sir Isaac, it’s the other forms of time that are more like the one in our heads. Per Aristotle, if nothing is happening in your life, if there’s no change, you forget those moments. Time collapses. And like Einstein, our internal time is not universal. A moment can be very meaningful to me and be irrelevant to you. And, like quantum mechanics, when you look back on your life, all that matters are moments in relation to other things: to our feelings, to our values, to other people.

But Newton isn’t letting us off that easy. He’s still there. If we don’t make the most of those hours on the clock, we don’t create the moments that will matter to us internally. And clock time so often slips through our fingers. So how do we control time?

Well, we can’t. But we can make time special so it registers with us internally.

Heschel wrote:

We can only solve the problem of time through sanctification of time… We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.

Heschel was writing about the Sabbath. A ritual. He said:

The Sabbath itself is a sanctuary which we build, a sanctuary in time.

We can’t control Newtonian time, but we can use it to create moments that are meaningful to us internally. And once there, time can stop for us to savor it. We can reverse time, as in the pleasures of nostalgia. And we can project forward in time through anticipation and hope. Rituals create this magic.

So how do we get started?

Rituals

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the number one ritual we need to do each day is… more rituals.

Rituals are not so much about what you do; they’re about the meaning you give to what you do. They don’t have to be tied to religion or spirituality. They can be subjective and personal. They’re sacred because you decide they are, to you.

But what makes a ritual? Ministry innovation fellow at Harvard Divinity School, Casper ter Kuile says there are three elements:

• Intention
• Attention
• Repetition

Sounds kinda like we talking about habits. But habits are the opposite of rituals. Habits are an effort to make things less conscious, less intentional, more automatic. But with rituals we want to increase intention. We want to pay more attention. We don’t want to do these things robotically, sleepwalking through life. Habits are forgotten in internal time. Rituals are not chores on autopilot; they are miniature celebrations. We don’t engage less, we engage more.

When building habits, you’re doing something new. But we want to take what you already do and ritualize it. To give your current moments of external time more internal meaning.

That zoo of odd little things you do every day can be taken to a higher level. Reading, taking a relaxing bath, going for a run, going to see grandma, they can all be something special with intention, attention and repetition. Heck, turn that afternoon nap into something meaningful.

Don’t be afraid to take little things a little more seriously. Allow them to be special. Give them your full attention. Savor them. A new perspective on any activity can transform it. Suddenly, it’s brand new. And when you do it, you feel like a million bucks, like you’re in an “Irish Spring” commercial.

The banal can become the sacred with intention, attention and repetition. You don’t need someone else to tell you what the meaningful practices of your life are. Is a family tradition of watching “Shrek” any less significant because you came up with it yourself?

(To learn more about how you can lead a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.)

The possibilities are endless, only constrained by your imagination — but it’ll be easier to get started if we’re more concrete. Let’s begin with a hard one. Can work benefit from a ritual? You better believe it…

The “Getting To Work” Ritual

Work is rarely fun. Often, just thinking about it can make you feel like Eeyore on a bad day. You don’t even want to get started. But a “getting to work” ritual can actually reduce procrastination.

When I spoke to Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit, he suggested we try a “getting to work” ritual. Here’s Charles:

One way to use habits to fight procrastination is to develop a habitualized response to starting. When people talk about procrastination, what they’re usually actually talking about is the first step. In general, if people can habitualize that first step, it makes it a lot easier.

Yeah, he said “habit.” But actually, it’s more like a ritual. He suggested you do something fun. Not robotic but engaging. Something that puts you into the right mood. Yeah, even surfing the web or playing video games. A little bit of whatever makes you feel good. Just get the momentum going and then direct that toward the day ahead.

And rituals aren’t just something that helps kill the pain of work. When I spoke to Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, she told me her research shows that a little ritual before you get started can actually make you perform better.

Athletes are known for having some crazy rituals they do before they play to boost their confidence. Guess what? Those rituals work.

Here’s Francesca:

Some of the pregame routines that some of the players have are kind of funny. What we studied in this project was whether these rituals are really of beneficial effect in terms of bringing you confidence and potentially impacting your performance positively. That is actually what we found.

(To learn the two-word morning ritual that will make you happy all day, click here.)

So a little ritual can help you get more done. But rituals are also powerful when it comes to doing less…

Try A “Secular Sabbath”

These days we hear a lot about taking a “technology sabbath”, a break from the chitter chatter of the social media maelstrom. (One of the worst parts about the internet is it has given the dumbest people on the planet direct access to one another.) Too much time online can make you crazy.

But we can take this to another level by not limiting it to technology and having a full-on secular sabbath. Designating a time away from all of the frantic hullabaloo of life. No errands, no goals, no checklists. It’s not deprivation; it’s celebration. Playtime. There used to be these things called “hobbies” before the internet came along and swallowed them whole. They’re fun. Trust me.

This is critical for maximizing internal time. Chip and Dan Heath looked at the science and found that “The most memorable periods of our lives are when we break the script.” What’s that mean?

Research shows that when older people look back on their lives, a disproportionate number of their big memories happened in a very narrow window: between ages 15 and 30. Why? Because after 30, life can get pretty darn boring. After their third decade has passed, most people don’t do anything as novel as falling in love for the first time, leaving home, going to college, or starting their first job.

We need novelty to make more smile-worthy memories and fashion a meaningful life. But it’s not all about looking in the rear-view mirror. Neuroscientist David Eagleman found that when you inject novelty into your life, internal time expands. Surprise stretches time. So break the script. Do new fun things. This is how you create more moments worth remembering.

(To learn the 4 harsh truths that will make you a better person, click here.)

So far we’ve discussed solitary rituals. But as we saw with quantum mechanics, the universe is fundamentally about the relations between things. You’re no different. So what’s the best type of ritual to have with others you care about?

“Struggle” With Friends

No, don’t get in a fight. But the Heath brothers looked at the research and saw that what deepens connections with others is struggle – the good kind.

Anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas (say that three times fast) found that groups that went through “high-ordeals” bonded far more than those that went through “low-ordeals.” Struggling together made people closer. This is why fraternities haze. Why soldiers feel like they are kin.

Now you don’t have to do that much struggle. But consider a ritual less like movie night and more like board games with teams. Fewer coffee catch-ups and more touch football. If it ends with high-fives, you’re probably in the ballpark.

Or have a ritual where you help a friend accomplish something. Work on their car together or paint their bathroom. Sounds silly but these are the moments we remember. Studies show that, counterintuitively, spending time on others makes us feel less time-constrained.

(To learn how to stop being lazy and get more done, click here.)

So what’s a ritual that we can engage in with friends that is already definitely on the calendar? Hey, ya gotta eat…

Mealtime Rituals

The Japanese tea ceremony. Saying grace before dinner. Breaking the Ramadan fast. Rituals around meals go back forever and have profound meaning across almost all cultures and religions.

So take a second before a meal with friends and acknowledge how special the moment is. Any such gesture can become a ritual — just add intention, attention, and repetition. And they make a difference…

Ever do a toast before you drink? It made your drink taste better. Yes, really. By focusing your attention on what you drink or eat, studies show those little rituals help you enjoy those moments more. Here’s Francesca Gino again:

Think about rituals that you engage in prior to consumption experiences. What they do, they make us a little bit more mindful about the consumption experience that we are about to have. Because of that, we end up savoring the food or whatever we are drinking more, we enjoy the experience more, and in fact, we’re also more willing to pay higher prices for whatever it is that we just consumed. Once again, rituals are beneficial in the sense that they create higher levels of enjoyment in the experience that we just had.

But mealtime rituals don’t just improve the taste of food. They can also improve marriages, and make your kids healthier. Having regular family dinners is crazy powerful.

Via Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy:

According to a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, “In families with predictable routines, children had fewer respiratory illnesses and better overall health, and they performed better in elementary school.” The article added that rituals have a greater effect on emotional health, and that in families with strong rituals adolescents “reported a stronger sense of self, couples reported happier marriages and children had greater interaction with their grandparents.”

You can also have a dinner party with friends and do a little ritual beforehand. (After a year of pandemic lockdown, I want to hug my friends so close that it might qualify as adultery.)

Intention and attention are critical but don’t forget about repetition. Try and make something regular, even if it’s annual. This is how convention becomes tradition. And it will contribute to the growth of your relationship over time as you can look back (and look forward) to the times you have together.

Organize a group meal like this and you get a twofer: you add rituals that expand your internal time, but you also give that gift to those you love. Ain’t nothing better than that. Do this and your greatness will be sung by bards for generations to come.

(For more on how to motivate yourself to exercise, click here.)

Okay, we’ve covered a lot. (Hopefully the time went by quickly.) Let’s round everything up and find out about the ritual you have just unknowingly engaged in…

Sum Up

Here’s how to use rituals to improve your life:

• Time is crazy. Internal time is what matters: You don’t judge your life as a collection of hours but as a collage of meaningful moments.
• Rituals make time meaningful: “It is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.” Intention. Attention. Repetition.
• “Getting to work” rituals: Do something fun before you get started to get yourself in gear and you’ll reduce procrastination and perform better.
• Try a secular sabbath: Take a time-out from the world and break the script. Novelty expands time and makes memories.
• “Struggle” with friends: Board games and sports. Or work on something together. Ironically, giving time away makes you feel like you have more time (a fact that makes quantum mechanics seem logical by comparison.)
• Mealtime rituals: Make dinner with loved ones special and memorable. Or combine it with some “struggle” and have a food fight. (C’mon, like that wouldn’t be memorable?)

“Time” is the most commonly used noun in American English. We find it, lose it, save it, waste it and spend it. It flies, crawls and stands still. Sometimes we are out of it and other times we claim to have all there is in the world. But just thinking about how much time we waste is enough to rend your soul. Errands and responsibilities build up until the ticks weigh more than the dog.

The external time of the clock isn’t going anywhere but internal time is how we will judge our lives. So use rituals to build meaningful moments that will shape your life for the better. Don’t worry if your rituals seem a little odd or silly at first. As Irwin Kula said: every tradition was once an innovation.

Some of my posts are easy to write but others are harder. The latter take more reading, more thinking, and more editing. For this one, yeesh. Studying the physics of time, the Sabbath and other traditions, the science of rituals and meaningful moments… If I was looking for any sort of direct return on this investment of time and energy, well, this post was unequivocally “ROI negative.” But that’s not why I do it.

Writing is my ritual. Sacred to me in a personal way. A chance to learn, and to share as I learn. To inspire and give hope (or at least try to). It can be a lot of work, but sharing it with you is the best part. I know my time is not going to waste. I hope you find rituals that are as meaningful to you as this is to me.

Fundamentally, time is absolutely bonkers-crazy but that can be a good thing. The weirdness of internal time means the smallest moments can have the biggest impact on your life.

During her journey through Wonderland, Alice asks the White Rabbit, “How long is forever?” And the White Rabbit replies:

“Sometimes, just one second.”

***

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here.

***

Some days the to-do list seems bottomless. Just looking at it is exhausting.

We all want to know how to stop being lazy and get more done. I certainly want the answer.

So I decided to call a friend who manages to do this — and more.

Cal Newport impresses the heck out of me. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked. He’s insanely productive:

1. He has a full-time job as a professor at Georgetown University, teaching classes and meeting with students.
2. He writes 6 (or more) peer-reviewed academic journal papers per year.
3. He’s the author of 4 books including the wonderful “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” And he’s at work on a fifth.
4. He’s married with a young child and handles all the responsibilities that come with being a husband and dad.
5. He blogs regularly about productivity and expert performance.

And yet he finishes work at 5:30PM every day and rarely works weekends. 

No, he does not have superpowers or a staff of 15. Okay, let’s you and I both stop being jealous of his productivity for a second and learn something.

Below you’ll get Cal’s secrets on how you can better manage your time, stop being lazy, get more done — and be finished by 5:30. Let’s get to work.

1) To-Do Lists Are Evil. Schedule Everything.

To-do lists by themselves are useless. They’re just the first step. You have to assign them time on your schedule. Why?

It makes you be realistic about what you can get done. It allows you to do tasks when it’s efficient, not just because it’s #4.

Until it’s on your calendar and assigned an hour, it’s just a list of wishful thinking.

Here’s Cal:

Scheduling forces you to confront the reality of how much time you actually have and how long things will take. Now that you look at the whole picture you’re able to get something productive out of every free hour you have in your workday. You not only squeeze more work in but you’re able to put work into places where you can do it best.

Experts agree that if you don’t consider how long things take, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

I can hear what some of you are thinking: But I get interrupted. Things get thrown at me last minute.

Great — build that into your schedule. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Things will change. But you need to have a plan, otherwise you’ll waste time.

Want to stop procrastinating? Schedule. Here’s Cal:

Assigning work to times reduces the urge to procrastinate. You are no longer deciding whether or not to work during a given period; the decision is already made.

Does this sound too mechanical? Overly structured and not much fun? Wrong.

Research shows that it’s even a good idea to schedule what you do with your free time. It increases quality of life:

This study was designed to identify the relationship between free time management and quality of life, exploring whether the amount of free time or the way people using their free time relates to their quality of life… The result has found a positive relationship between free time management and quality of life.

(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.)

Okay, the to-do list is in the trash and things are going on the calendar. How do you prioritize so you’re not at work forever?

2) Assume You’re Going Home at 5:30, Then Plan Your Day Backwards

Work will fill the space it’s given. Give it 24/7 and guess what happens?

You need boundaries if you want work/life balance. But this also helps you work better because it forces you to be efficient.

By setting a deadline of 5:30 and then scheduling tasks you can get control over that hurricane of duties.

Cal calls it “fixed schedule productivity”:

Fix your ideal schedule, then work backwards to make everything fit — ruthlessly culling obligations, turning people down, becoming hard to reach, and shedding marginally useful tasks along the way. My experience in trying to make that fixed schedule a reality forces any number of really smart and useful in-the-moment productivity decisions.

What does research say prevents you from getting burned out at work? Feeling in control of your schedule.

Anything that increases your perception of control over a situation — whether it actually increases your control or not — can decrease your stress level.

Via Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long:

Over and over, scientists see that the perception of control over a stressor alters the stressor’s impact.

(For more on how to achieve work/life balance, click here.)

You’ve drawn a line in the sand and worked backward, giving all your tasks hours in your day. But how do you handle longer term projects?

3) Make A Plan For The Entire Week

I think you’ll agree that the last thing this world needs is more short term thinking.

You’ll never get ahead of the game by only looking at today and never thinking about tomorrow.

How do you write books, teach classes, meet with students, do research papers and be a good parent consistently? Plan the week.

Here’s Cal:

People don’t look at the larger picture with their time and schedule. I know each day what I’m doing with each hour of the day. I know each week what I’m doing with each day of the week and I know each month what I’m doing with each week of the month.

Are you rolling your eyes? Does this sound overbearing? It’s simpler than you think. What’s really necessary?

Just one hour every Monday morning. Here’s Cal:

Every Monday I lay out a plan for the week. I go through my inbox, I go through my task list, I go through my calendar and try to come away with the best thing to do with each day this week. I write it in an email and I send it to myself and leave it in my inbox because that’s a place I know I will see it every day and I’ll be reminded of it multiple times throughout the day.

And he’s right. Research shows you spend your time more wisely when you follow a plan.

Via What the Most Successful People Do at Work: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Career:

Preliminary analysis from CEOs in India found that a firm’s sales increased as the CEO worked more hours. But more intriguingly, the correlation between CEO time use and output was driven entirely by hours spent in planned activities. Planning doesn’t have to mean that the hours are spent in meetings, though meetings with employees were correlated with higher sales; it’s just that CEO time is a limited and valuable resource, and planning how it should be allocated increases the chances that it’s spent in productive ways.

Maybe you think it’s enough to run down the week’s duties in your head. Nope.

Studies show writing things down makes you more likely to follow through.

(For more on how the most productive people get things done, click here.)

So you’ve got a fixed schedule and a weekly plan — but the math doesn’t add up. There’s just too much stuff. Cal has an answer for that too.

4) Do Very Few Things, But Be Awesome At Them

Maybe you’re thinking: I just have too many things to do. I could never get it all done in that amount of time.

And Cal concedes that you might be right. But the answer isn’t throwing up your arms and working until 10PM.

You need to do fewer things. Everything is not essential. You say “yes” to more than you need to.

Ask “What’s creating real value in my life?” And then eliminate as much of the rest as you can.

Here’s Cal:

You’re judged on what you do best so if you want to have as much success as possible you’re always better off doing fewer things but doing those things better. People say yes to too much. I say no to most things. I’m ruthless about avoiding or purging tasks if I realize they’re just not providing much value.

You feel like you have no time but John Robinson, the leading researcher on time use, disagrees. We may have more free time than ever.

Via Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time:

He insists that although most Americans feel they’re working harder than ever, they aren’t. The time diaries he studies show that average hours on the job, not only in the United States but also around the globe, have actually been holding steady or going down in the last forty years. Everybody, he says, has more time for leisure.

So what gives? It feels like you have no time because it’s so fragmented with little annoying tasks that drain the life out of you.

So do less. And be amazing at those things.

(For more on what the most successful people do, click here.)

Your plans are in order and by doing less, it all fits on the schedule. But one question remains: what exactly should you be doing with your time?

5) Less Shallow Work, Focus On The Deep Stuff

All work is not created equal. Cal says knowledge workers deal with two fundamentally different types of work, Shallow and Deep:

Shallow work is little stuff like email, meetings, moving information around. Things that are not really using your talents. Deep work pushes your current abilities to their limits. It produces high value results and improves your skills.

And what’s the problem? Most of us are “drowning in the shallows”:

People who are the most busy often are getting a lot less done of significance than the people who are able to stop by 5PM every day. That’s because the whole reason they need to work at night and on the weekends is because their work life has become full of just shallows. They’re responding to messages, moving information around and being a human network router. These things are very time consuming and very low value.

Nobody in the history of the universe ever became CEO because they responded to more email or went to more meetings. No way, Bubba.

Cal has it right: Shallow work stops you from getting fired — but deep work is what gets you promoted.

Give yourself big blocks of uninterrupted time to make things of value. What’s the best first step?

Stop checking email first thing in the morning. Tim Ferriss, author of the international bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, explains:

…whenever possible, do not check email for the first hour or two of the day. It’s difficult for some people to imagine. “How can I do that? I need to check email to get the information I need to work on my most important one or two to-dos?”

You would be surprised how often that is not the case. You might need to get into your email to finish 100% of your most important to-dos. But can you get 80 or 90% done before you go into Gmail and have your rat brain explode with freak-out, dopamine excitement and cortisol panic? Yes.

(For more on how to motivate yourself, click here.)

So how do we tie all this together?

Sum Up

Cal’s five big tips:

1. To-Do Lists Are Evil. Schedule Everything.
2. Assume You’re Going Home at 5:30, Then Plan Your Day Backwards
3. Make A Plan For The Entire Week
4. Do Very Few Things, But Be Awesome At Them
5. Less Shallow Work, Focus On The Deep Stuff

Schedules and plans sound cold and clinical but the end result couldn’t be farther from that.

You’ll be less stressed, create more time for friends and family, and make things you can be proud of.

Here’s Cal:

Knowledge work is really just craftsmanship. It’s just that what you’re crafting is information and not carved wood. You’re crafting ideas. You’re crafting knowledge out of raw material and the more you think about it like a craftsman, the happier and more satisfied you’ll be, not to mention more successful.

The offices of the world could use a few less cubicle drones and a few more proud craftsmen.

Tim Kreider got stabbed in the throat.

The knife went in two millimeters from his carotid artery. He describes those two millimeters as the difference between being “flown home in the cargo hold instead of in coach.”

Luckily, he made a full recovery. How does he describe the event?

“It was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

He was so grateful to be alive that for the next year, it was impossible for him to be unhappy.

Via We Learn Nothing: Essays:

Except for the ten or fifteen minutes during which it looked like I was about to die, which I would prefer not to relive, getting stabbed wasn’t even among the worst experiences of my life. In fact it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. After my unsuccessful murder I wasn’t unhappy for an entire year.

This is the power of gratitude.

No, I’m not encouraging you to get stabbed in the neck but we’ve all felt how happy being grateful can make us.

In fact, happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky says gratitude is one of the things the happiest people on Earth all share.

Gratitude is arguably the king of happiness. What’s the research say? Can’t be more clear than this:

…the more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic.

Gratitude is one of the most scientifically validated ways to increase happiness.

Via Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity:

Gratitude has one of the strongest links to mental health and satisfaction with life of any personality trait—more so than even optimism, hope, or compassion. Grateful people experience higher levels of positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, love, happiness, and optimism, and gratitude as a discipline protects us from the destructive impulses of envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. People who experience gratitude can cope more effectively with everyday stress, show increased resilience in the face of trauma-induced stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health.

But there’s one problem with gratitude — it wears off. Inevitably, we all end up taking things for granted.

And Tim Kreider wasn’t any different. What happened after that year of lucky-to-be-alive bliss?

He went back to normal.

Via We Learn Nothing: Essays:

You can’t feel crazily grateful to be alive your whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever— or grieve forever, for that matter. Time makes us all betray ourselves and get back to the busywork of living. Before a year had gone by, the same everyday anxieties and frustrations began creeping back. I was disgusted to catch myself yelling in traffic, pounding on my computer, lying awake at night worrying about what was to become of me. I can’t recapture that feeling of euphoric gratitude any more than I can really remember the mortal terror I felt when I was pretty sure I had about four minutes to live.

We all have moments of gratitude. The question is how can we stay grateful and happy all the time?

You need to build gratitude into your routine instead of making it a lucky accident.

Below are four rituals, backed by scientific research, that can help you stay grateful and happy. You don’t have to do them all and you don’t have to do them every day.

But working one of them into your schedule on a regular basis can go a long way toward keeping you smiling.

1) Count Your Blessings

This technique has been proven again and again and again. Here it is, explained by its originator, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman.

Via Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being:

Every night for the next week, set aside ten minutes before you go to sleep. Write down three things that went well today and why they went well…Writing about why the positive events in your life happened may seem awkward at first, but please stick with it for one week. It will get easier. The odds are that you will be less depressed, happier, and addicted to this exercise six months from now.

That’s it. Just put a pen and paper by the bed, write down three good things that happened to you that day and why they happened. Then go to bed.

Does it really work? Yeah.

Via Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity:

People are 25 percent happier if they keep gratitude journals, sleep one-half hour more per evening, and exercise 33 percent more each week compared to persons who are not keeping these journals.

Do you need to do it every day? Nope. People saw optimal results when they did it once a week.

(For the secret to never being frustrated again, click here.)

So you thought about the good things that happened to you. Know what else can help? Thinking about if good things didn’t happen to you…

2) Absence Of A Blessing

It must feel great to win a gold medal in the Olympics. But surprisingly, research shows it feels better to win a bronze than a silver. Why?

People who win the silver think about how they didn’t win the gold. Those who get the bronze feel grateful to have received a medal at all.

Research shows that when you imagine that an important positive event in your life (like meeting your spouse) never happened, it makes you appreciate it more, makes you grateful — and happier.

Via Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity:

Thinking about the absence of something positive in your life produces more gratitude and happiness than imagining its presence. What would your life be like if you had not met your spouse? If you did not live in your current neighborhood? If you had not had that chance encounter with the stranger on the plane who later became a business associate?… By taking something away in our minds, we become more aware of benefits that we still have but previously took for granted. Mentally subtracting something good from your life can make you more grateful for it. Think of an aspect of your life for which you feel grateful and then write about the ways in which this might never have happened (e.g., “what would have happened if I had never met my wife?” as opposed to “I am so grateful to have met my wife”).

For bonus points you can actually subtract something positive from your life. Not forever, mind you.

In my interview with Harvard professor Mike Norton, author of Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, he explained that taking a break from something you love and “making it a treat” can boost appreciation and happiness:

…if you love having coffee every day, don’t have it for a few days and and then when you have it again, it’s going to be way more amazing than all of the ones that you would have had in the meantime.

Yes, this scientifically validates that Netflix binges make you less happy than watching shows weekly. Sorry.

(For more on the shortcut to bonding with a romantic partner on a deeper level, click here.)

What’s the third ritual? This one will surprise you.

3) Thinking About The Bad Can Be Very Good

The ancient Stoics knew this. So did the Samurai.

Think about something awful that happened. How did you grow from it? How did it make you appreciate what you have?

Via Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity:

Sometimes even when bad things happen they can ultimately have positive consequences, things we can now be grateful for. Choose an experience from your life that was initially unpleasant and unwanted. Try now to focus on the positive aspects or consequences of this difficult experience. As the result of this event, what kinds of things do you now feel thankful or grateful for? Has this event benefited you as a person? How have you grown? …How has the event helped you appreciate the truly important people and things in your life? In sum, how can you be thankful for the beneficial consequences that have resulted from this event?

Every year, Tim Kreider celebrates his “stabbiversary.” He remembers the day he got stabbed in the throat — and how lucky he is to still be alive.

Via We Learn Nothing: Essays:

Once a year on my stabbiversary, I remind myself that this is still my bonus life, a round on the house.

(For more on what you can learn from the Samurai about always being your best, click here.)

Okay, time to bring out the big guns. This one is the thermonuclear bomb of gratitude and happiness…

4) The Gratitude Visit

Tons of research shows gratitude improves relationships:

• Gratitude levels predict marital satisfaction.
• Being grateful improves friendships.
• Showing gratitude gives your romantic relationship “a booster shot.”
• How should you deal with a difficult boss? Show gratitude.

So what’s the best way to show gratitude to people you love — and make yourself very happy?

Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has done something for you. And then read it out loud to them.

This can boost happiness for three months.

Via Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity:

One of the most effective ways to deepen your own gratefulness is to write a letter of gratitude to an important person in your life whom you’ve never properly taken the time to thank and then visit that person to present him or her with the letter. Studies published in the most rigorous scientific publications show that the gratitude visit can increase happiness and decrease depression in the letter writer for as long as three months after the visit!

Bring tissues. You will cry. They will cry. You will both be very happy. And it will be something you will never forget.

(For more on how to write your letter and make yourself and someone you love incredibly happy, click here.)

Okay, let’s round these techniques up — and add in one more little thing that’ll make you happy right now.

Sum Up

Four ways to boost gratitude and happiness:

1. Write down three good things that happened to you that day before you go to bed.
2. Imagine something meaningful to you never happened. Then appreciate how lucky you are to have it.
3. Think about something bad that happened to you — and how it made you feel lucky to have gotten past it and how you have grown.
4. Do a gratitude visit. Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has done something for you and read it out loud to them in person.

I’m grateful for a lot of things. My supportive parents. My friend Gautam’s awesome “interesting people” dinners. My buddy Andy’s weekly Friday lunches…

And you, dear reader, I am grateful that you take the time to read what I write.

Even if you don’t get around to doing any of the four things above, I encourage you — right now — to send a thank you email or text to someone who has been good to you.

In my interview with Harvard happiness researcher Shawn Achor he said this tiny gesture can make a big difference in your happiness. He’s tested it over and over:

The simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking one person that you know. We’ve done this at Facebook, at US Foods, we’ve done this at Microsoft. We had them write a two-minute email praising or thanking one person they know, and a different person each day for 21 days in a row. That’s it. What we find is this dramatically increases their social connection which is the greatest predictor of happiness we have in organizations.

Do it right now, before you forget. Research shows that gratitude isn’t just correlated with happiness — gratitude causes happiness. Simply put:

It’s not that happy people are grateful. It’s that grateful people are happy.