The Dopamine Box is a virtual subscription box. You can order the stuff—if you want to. You can use it to inspire you to make your own box. You can just spy what I’m buying. It’s up to you!
There’s a $25 box and a $100 box, centered around a monthly theme.
My theme for March 2024 is ‘home.’ That’s going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people—especially depending on the season of life you’re in at the moment.
For me, this year, ‘home’ means digging myself out of the depression pit my entire house has fallen into the last year or so.
It’s funny, because I never feel depressed. I’m not sad. But, during my Fresh Start (the week between Christmas and New Year’s) this week and realized that since the COVID shut down, I’ve definitely slid into some kind of funk.
Especially in 2023. So, my major project for 2024 is to ease myself back out of it and to something that feels a lot better on every front.
I have a couple of home-type projects that are ongoing.
A weekly DIY in my house. It can be something small. It can be something big. But every week in 2024, my goal is to do one thing to renovate my big old Victorian house.
A deep + serious declutter. Just—room-by-room. I did some of this last year, but lost the thread of it.
With all of that in mind, I put together a virtual subscription box full of books and other things that are designed to help you build a system for pulling your house out of a funk. If it’s in one, like mine.
First—update on my February box.
Here’s a link to this month’s box. The theme was joy.
I’m listening to The Book of Joy in little sips this month and so far, I absolutely love it. Highly recommend.
I got my chocolate. While I was waiting, I found out that my local grocery store AND Wal-mart both sell fair market chocolate. AND that dark chocolate doesn’t have milk in it. So, there’s that. I’m going to make chocolate chip cookies for Kevin for Valentine’s Day today.
I got my vanilla, too. I need to get some vodka to start my extract brewing. I’ll do that this week.
And I ordered my shoes—they won’t be here until March 5. They’re handmade for me and ship from overseas. I can’t wait, though. I’m so excited.
What I want to get out of focusing on Home in March.
I would like to come away from the month feeling lighter and less buried under a bunch of stuff that isn’t serving me. I’m not a minimalist. Not even remotely. But there’s a line between maximalism and drowning that I’m struggling to maintain.
What I’d like to accomplish in March is setting up systems for the rest of the year. And I think I’m going to give myself a little 31-day challenge of filling one grocery bag full of donations a day.
The $25 Dopamine Box
How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis (Audio): $0 with Audible
A book, of course. I went with K.C. Davis’s How to Keep House While Drowning. I own this book, but I’m going to get the Audible version with my February credit to listen to next week.
If you have Audible, then this is free with your subscription. Yay! If not, click the link to sign up. You get free credits when you do.
If you don’t follow K.C. on TikTok, I can’t recommend her highly enough. She is amazing. Her focus is on what she calls struggle care—gentle, nonjudgmental, self-care of all kinds.
Dopamine Decor by Sofia Meri (Kindle Unlimited): $0
I picked this for my Kindle Unlimited theme-related book for March. It just looks fun. And dopamine decorating (making choices for your home that are designed to make you happy) is something I’m interested in.
If you have Kindle Unlimited, this book is free! If you don’t, you can sign up for it here. Or by the book on Kindle or as a hard copy.
A Very Cool Clipboard: $14.98
I went back and forth with what to put into this box. I mean, ‘home’ is a really wide topic. I could have put in nearly anything.
In the end, I decided to focus on systems. Because they are my go-to when I’m feeling overwhelmed or if I have a big job to do that seems to be more than I can handle.
For me, out of sight is 100 percent out of mind. I really struggle with what’s called ‘object impermanence.’ Basically, if I can’t see something, it stops existing for me. I love (I mean, really love) my everyday notebook. But for some things, I really need to be able to see what I need to do.
Here’s what I love about this clipboard.
The color. Yellow is my dopamine color. It makes me happy, just to see it. There are a ton of colors, if yellow isn’t your thing.
The lack of gadgets and little compartments. I have tried to use a clipboard as a system tool before. Maybe times. Without exception, every single time, there’s too many moving parts. I don’t know what to do with them and it throws off the whole thing. So I looked for a clipboard that had only what I wanted and nothing more.
The clear cover. THIS is what I wanted most. I can slip a page into the clear cover in the front and use a wet erase marker to mark things off as I go.
The single compartment. The rest of the clipboard is just one compartment that will hold A4 or letter-sized paper. There’s a little niche at the bottom of it for pens. That’s it. Perfect.
The hanging hole. There’s a hole on the back that will let me hang my clipboard on the wall. See: object impermanence.
Wet Erase Markers: $8.49 ($23.47)
I was really happy to find this pack of wet erase markers for less than $10.
Wet erase markers are like dry erase markers, only they don’t rub off easily unless you use water. They’re great for something like the clipboard above, because you won’t lose what you’ve written or get ink all over yourself.
Pen-sized Spray Bottles: $5.99 ($29.46)
These are an option, I guess, because it takes the $25 box from $23 and change to $29. But I’m excited about them. (Yes. I am easily excited.)
I love wet erase markers. But, when I use them, I actually often end up not using the whole system because when I need to erase them, I don’t have water right with me.
One of these little spray bottles will fit in the pen section of the clipboard. And I’ll be able to keep a cloth of some kind inside as well. Perfect!
The $100 Dopamine Box
Vertical Hanging Document Holder: $25.40 ($54.86)
In case you want more—I’ve added on a few things to take the $25 home-themed Dopamine Box to a $100 box. Start with the above and add the following.
My husband gave me this for Christmas. It’s the kind of hanging document file you might see at a doctor’s office or something.
I. Love. It. So. Much.
It’s just five document holders that hang vertically from a holder. I can flip through them. They holders are clear plastic that (you guessed it!) I can write on with wet erase markers.
It hangs in my kitchen. At the moment, the thing I use it for the absolute most is meal planning. I can see it while I’m cooking, everyone can see what’s for dinner, and it’s just really cool.
I had visions of using it to hold some kind of housekeeping plan. But—object impermanence again. I can only see the pages it’s open to. That works well for meal planning, because that’s on the front page. It’s always visible. But, I got the rest set up and then never used it.
I’m going to set it up differently for March. As a Kanban board. A spread each for ‘to do,’ ‘doing,’ and, ‘done.’
Magnetic Sheets: $13.85 ($68.71)
My plan is to use these 8X10 magnet sheets to turn some of the pages of my vertical document holder magnetic. They’re self-adhesive, so I can stick two back-to-back and then slide them into the sleeve.
You can get as few as four, but I went with twelve. That will give me four two-page spreads with some sheets left over for other uses. I think I’ll stick one to the back of my clipboard.
Magnetic Labels: $15.49 ($84.20)
Cute, right? I’ll use these 4” X 1.8” reusable, white-erase magnetic labels with the magnetic sheets in my document holder to make a kanban board.
I’ll write a task on each and put it on the to-do, doing, or done spread. There are eight colors, so I can use that to color-coordinate a project if I want to.
I won’t need to look at my hanging kanban board everyday, so object impermanence won’t be much of a problem. I can reset it on Saturday, when I have my regular reset.
I can use some on the back of my clipboard as well.
Magnetic Calendar + Weekly To Do List: $12.99 ($97.19)
Last thing—I added these white-board tools to put on my refrigerator. I think this will be a good way to keep the most important parts of my new kanban board and my everyday notebook in my line of sight every day.
It has a monthly calendar that I’ll use as a FRED to track my writing.
It has a weekly planner. I like the habit tracker, which actually goes for a whole month. Then a simple box for everyday and one for notes or ideas. Perfect.
And it has a simple list page. I think this will be good for an ongoing grocery list.