The Happiness Project

A chronicle of my attempts to test-drive every tip, principle and scientific study that promotes happiness.

by Gretchen Rubin

Clear a Surface.

By Gretchen Rubin on March 27, 2010 in The Happiness Project

One of the most striking things I’ve discovered since starting my happiness project is the influence of clutter on mood. For most people, outer order contributes to inner calm; a messy coat closet, for instance, is clearly a very trivial element in life, yet clearing out that messy coat closet gives a disproportionately large happiness boost.

Over and over again, people tell me that they’ve gotten a huge charge from tackling messy areas. I think it comes from fostering a sense of control, and order, and space, and a feeling of freedom from stuff. Read More

Another trick

Submitted by Anonymous on March 28, 2010 - 7:21pm.

Before I go to bed and before I leave the house, I do ten things.

If I'm in a rush, it can be cleaning 10 pieces of dishes, but most of the time I get cut in it and just consider putting the clothes away as 1, cleaning the dishes as 1, and before I know it, I stop counting and the house is clean. If I'm really tired and I do 10 small things, the house is still cleaner than it would have been with these 10 things spread around he house.

The advantage: you know you can count fast and just be done with it, so you don't procrastinate. The satisfaction is in just doing something, anything, it makes it realy hard to miss your goal.

Voilà!