The Happiness Project: Test Yourself: Do You Have Clutter Mentality?

The Happiness Project

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT is the memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier – happily, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of experiments I've conducted, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

What Started Me Thinking

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

One thing I've noticed about happiness: for me, and for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm. More than it should. In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find -- and I hear from other people that they agree -- that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness.

If having a home, office, garage, car, or yard filled with clutter is such a drag on our happiness, why do we put up with it? There are many reasons, and having a clearer understanding of why you have clutter helps show you how to attack it.

Test yourself. Do you find yourself repeating these phrases, to justify keeping something that you don't use or don't even particularly like?

Someday, I might need this
This thing is so useful that someday I’ll find a way to use it
This thing is so useful that I can’t just throw it away, but I don’t know how to get it into the hands of someone who would want it
This thing was a gift, so I need to keep it out of respect for the giver
Just wait, someday this thing will be a collector’s item!
I never had this thing as a child, so I want to have it as an adult
The more things I keep, the more I will leave my family one day
Going through my things stirs up my emotions, and I can’t handle that right now
I don’t have the time or energy to sort through my clutter to figure out what I want to keep
I’ve had this thing for so long; I can’t get rid of it now
I forgot about that thing! I never use that closet/drawer/garage so I didn’t even realize it was there.

What have I left out? Have you found yourself justifying some clutter on some other grounds? The more I examine the issue of clutter, the more effort I put into combating it, because it really does act as a weight. (In that vein, here are 10 tips to fight clutter, in less than 5 minutes.)

William Morris admonished, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” That's a great test for identifying clutter.

* I love looking through the blog Desire to Inspire -- "inspirational furniture and indoor design."

* If you're also looking for a good book, please consider The Happiness Project (can't resist mentioning: #1 New York Times bestseller).
Order your copy.
Read sample chapters.