Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast that gives you strategies and tips for how to build happier habits into your daily life.

This week we'll talk about a strategy, the strategy to stop talking, and we'll hear from the brilliant Joanna Coles about some new book Love Rules.

I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer whose studies happiness, good habits and human nature. I'm in New York City and with me is my sister, Elizabeth Kraft, and Elizabeth Kraft is just a few days to your birthday, happy early birthday.

That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer living in LA, and yes, Gretchen May has my birthday, my anniversary, and Mother's Day, so May is my month.

It's a good month. Yes, I love May.

So, listen, before we jump in for our try this at home, summer's approaching here in the United States, and for the past few years, we've talked about this idea to plan your summer.

Yes, we talked about it first in episode 67 for 2016, and then in episode 118 for 2017, and we're bringing it up again, so it's time to be thinking about your summer, how to plan your summer to make it great.

Yeah, and years ago, the quotation that really got me focused on design your summer, because this was an idea that was really important to me, was from a book called The Enthusiasm of Robertson Davies, I love the work of Robertson Davies, his fiction and his nonfiction, and in this essay he writes,

Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with professional concern for the weather. Circumstances have not allowed me to make a good summer for myself this year.

My summer has been overcast by my own heaviness of spirit. I have not had any adventures, and adventures are what make a summer.

Every summer, it's like, okay, plan your summer, think of your summer, what's going to make your own summer, and of course it doesn't really have to be summer, it could be your winter.

It's this idea of taking a season and trying to make the season distinctive, rich, special, so that when you come to the end of it, you're not like, oh gosh, I thought I was going to do all this stuff, and none of it got done.

Yes, I love this idea of planning adventures.

So we'd love to hear your ideas, let us know.

Yes, and to get you thinking, here's something we heard from our listener, Lauren, she said, I live in Michigan and traveled daily for work.

This puts me near one of the great lakes three to four days a week and near smaller lakes every day.

For the last six years, I have been on a quest from May to September to have lake at lunch as many times as I can.

I enjoy the beautiful Michigan beaches and summer weather while doing a normal work day activity.

The change of scenery and natural beauty makes working on a beautiful summer day a bit happier.

And this is a great idea, like of course most of us could not do that because we don't live near a bunch of lakes, but it's sort of like, well what could I do as part of my ordinary day,

this part of the year, apart and make it feel special and kind of make it feel more rich or if the weather is better to take advantage of the weather, if whatever it might be.

This is always a challenge for me, Gretchen, because as you know, my summer is usually very busy with work, but I still love the idea of planning an adventure and making summer its own special thing.

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