Happiness by Design

The key to being happier is to pay more attention to what makes you happy and less attention to what does not.

the AREA model. Events in life are attention-grabbing to begin with. You then react and, if you can explain the event, you will withdraw attention and adapt to

Attention devoted to one stimulus is, by definition, attention that is not devoted to another.

we need to move away from global snapshots of overall life satisfaction and instead focus more directly on our day-to-day feelings.

imagine that voice calls were invented after text messaging. “Do you really think,” he said, “that anyone would be sending texts? Of course they bloody wouldn’t—they would be bloody marveling at their ability to actually have a conversation.” I think he is bloody right.

DRM-type data on your own experiences of pleasure and purpose can also help you avoid mistaken beliefs about how you use your time and what brings you happiness.

If you are not as happy as you could be, then you must be misallocating your attention. You will be the happiest you can be when you allocate your attention as best as you can.

It can be helpful to state what the overall goal is, break it down into more manageable chunks, and then ask yourself what you can do right now to work toward

Nonetheless, there are many scholars who believe that attending to certain goals, such as achievement, bring happiness in themselves and others who maintain that there are objectives, such as authenticity, that transcend happiness. I consider these to be mistaken desires, for the reasons outlined below.