Lemonada.

Lemonada.

Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we discuss cutting-edge science, the wisdom of the ages, lessons from pop culture, and our own experiences for ideas and strategies to make our everyday lives happier.

Today we have a mini episode for Lemonada listeners to give you a feel for our show we're doing a shorter version of our usual

episodes. We'll reveal an easy and fast way to stay in touch with family members that has made a

huge difference in our own family life, and we'll also talk about a hack for getting things done.

Many people have reported that this hack has changed their lives. I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who

studies happiness, good habits, and human nature. I'm in my little home office in New York City,

and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister Elizabeth Craft, my sister whom I call my

sister of the sage. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.

And Gretch, I have to say, sometimes I call you my happiness bully.

Yes, it fits.

What can I say?

Yes.

And I appreciate it, of course.

Yeah.

And this week, I tried this at home suggestion is to have a family update. Now, this idea was

originally suggested by our mother. And Elizabeth, we have adopted it. We've done it for years.

And I think it's changed our life with our mother and father, as sisters with our parents.

Yes. It's a way to stay in touch about all the daily mundane things so that it's not just like you have to share big things. Yeah, because what you realize is that when you talk to people all the time, you have a lot to say. But then when you see people rarely or you communicate with them rarely, you're sort of like, how are you? I am fine. I am also fine. What is up? Not much. But when you're

really into the weeds with people, you have a lot to say and a lot to share. And so we decided that

the motto of update is, it's okay to be boring. Yes. So we just send all of us an email with

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