The Happiness Project (5 page)

I’d read suggestions that I should invest in an extra closet rod or in storage boxes that fit under the bed or in hangers that would hold four pairs of pants on one rod. For me, however, there was only one essential tool of clutter clearing: trash bags. I set aside one bag for throwaways and one for giveaways and dived in.

First, I got rid of items that no one should be wearing anymore. Good-bye, baggy yoga pants. Next I pulled out the items that, realistically, I knew I wouldn’t wear. Good-bye, gray sweater that barely covered my navel. Then the culling got harder. I liked those brown pants, but I couldn’t figure out what shoes to wear with them. I liked that dress, but I never had the right place to wear it. I forced myself to take the time to make each item work, and if I couldn’t, out it went. I started to notice my dodges. When I told myself, “I would wear this,” I meant that I didn’t, in fact, wear it. “I have worn this” meant that I’d worn it twice in five years. “I could wear this” meant that I’d never worn it and never would.

Once I’d finished the closet, I went back through it once again. When I finished, I had four bags full of clothes, and I could see huge patches of the back of my closet. I no longer felt drained; instead, I felt exhilarated. No more being confronted with my mistakes! No more searching in frustration for a particular white button-down shirt!

Having cleared some space, I craved more. I tried any trick I could. Why had I been holding on to thirty extra hangers? I got rid of all but a few extra hangers, which opened up a considerable amount of space. I got rid of some shopping bags I’d kept tucked away for years, for no good reason. I’d planned only on sorting through hanging items, but, energized and inspired, I attacked my sock and T-shirt drawers. Instead of pawing around for items to eliminate, I emptied each drawer completely, and I put back only the items that I actually wore.

I gloated as I surveyed my now-roomy closet. So much space. No more guilt. The next day I craved another hit. “We’re going to do something really fun tonight!” I said to Jamie in a bright voice as he was checking sports news on TV.

“What?” he said, immediately suspicious. He kept the remote control prominently in his hand.

“We’re going to clear out your closet and drawers!”

“Oh. Well, okay,” he said agreeably. I shouldn’t have been surprised by his reaction; Jamie loves order. He turned off the TV.

“But we’re not going to get rid of much,” he warned me. “I wear most of this stuff pretty regularly.”

“Okay, sure,” I said sweetly. We’ll see about that, I thought.

Going through his closet turned out to be fun. Jamie sat on the bed while I pulled hangers out of his closet, two at a time, and he, much less tortured than I, gave a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down—except once, when he insisted, “I’ve never seen that pair of pants before in my life.” He got rid of a giant bag of clothes.

Over the next few weeks, as I adjusted to my half-empty closet, I noticed a paradox: although I had far fewer clothes in front of me, I felt as though I had
more
to wear—because everything in my closet was something that I realistically would wear.

Also, having few clothing choices made me feel happier. Although people believe they like to have lots of choice, in fact, having too many choices can be discouraging. Instead of making people feel more satisfied, a wide range of options can paralyze them. Studies show that when faced with two dozen varieties of jam in a grocery store, for example, or lots of investment options for their pension plan, people often choose arbitrarily or walk away without making any choice at all, rather than labor to make a reasoned choice. I certainly felt happier choosing between two pairs of black pants that I liked rather than among five pairs of black pants, the majority of which were either uncomfortable or unfashionable—and which made me feel guilty for never wearing them, to boot.

Who knew that doing something so mundane could give me such a kick? By this point, I was jonesing for more of the clutter-clearing buzz, so while a pregnant friend opened her presents at a baby shower, I quizzed my fellow guests for new strategies.

“Focus on the dump zones,” advised one friend. “You know, the dining room table, the kitchen counter, the place where everyone dumps their stuff.”

“Right,” I said. “Our biggest dump zone is a chair in our bedroom. We never sit in it, we just pile clothes and magazines on it.”

“Junk attracts more junk. If you clear it off, it’s likely to stay clear. And here’s another thing,” she continued. “When you buy any kind of device, put the cords, the manual, all that stuff in a labeled Ziploc bag. You avoid having a big tangle of mystery cords, plus when you get rid of the device, you can get rid of the ancillary parts, too.”

“Try a ‘virtual move,’” another friend added. “I just did it myself. Walk around your apartment and ask yourself—if I were moving, would I pack this or get rid of it?”

“I
never
keep anything for sentimental reasons alone,” someone else claimed. “Only if I’m still using it.”

These suggestions were helpful, but that last rule was too draconian for me. I’d never get rid of the “Justice Never Rests” T-shirt from the aerobics class I took with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when I clerked for her, even though it never did fit, or the doll-sized outfit that our preemie Eliza wore when she came home from the hospital. (At least these items didn’t take up much room. I have a friend who keeps twelve tennis racquets, left over from her days playing college tennis.)

When one of my college roommates visited New York, we waxed lyrical over coffee about the glories of clutter clearing.

“What in life,” I demanded, “gives immediate gratification equal to cleaning out a medicine cabinet? Nothing!”

“No, nothing,” she agreed with equal fervor. But she took it even further. “You know, I keep an empty shelf.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep one shelf, somewhere in my house, completely empty. I’ll pack every other shelf to the top, but I keep one shelf bare.”

I was struck by the poetry of this resolution. An empty shelf! And she
had three children. An empty shelf meant possibility; space to expand; a luxurious waste of something useful for the sheer elegance of it. I had to have one. I went home, went straight to my hall closet, and emptied a shelf. It wasn’t a big shelf, but it was empty. Thrilling.

I hunted through the apartment, and no object, no matter how small, escaped my scrutiny. I’d long been annoyed by the maddening accumulation of gimcracks that children attract. Glittery superballs, miniature flashlights, small plastic zoo animals…this stuff was everywhere. It was fun to have and the girls wanted to keep it, but it was hard to put it away, because where did it go?

My Eighth Commandment is “Identify the problem.” I’d realized that often I put up with a problem for years because I never examined the nature of the problem and how it might be solved. It turns out that stating a problem clearly often suggests its solution. For instance, I hated hanging up my coat, so I usually left it slung on the back of a chair.

Identify the problem: “Why don’t I ever hang up my coat?”

Answer: “I don’t like fussing with hangers.”

Solution: “So use the hook on the inside of the door!”

When I asked myself, “What’s the problem with all these little toys?” I answered, “Eliza and Eleanor want to keep this stuff, but we don’t have a place to put it away.” Bingo. I immediately saw the solution to my problem. The next day, I stopped by the Container Store and bought five large glass canisters. I combed the apartment to collect toy flotsam and stuffed it in. Clutter cured! I filled all five jars. What I hadn’t anticipated was that the jars looked great on the shelf—colorful, festive, and inviting. My solution was ornamental as well as practical.

A pleasant, unintended consequence of my clutter clearing was that it solved the “four-thermometer syndrome”: I could never find our thermometer, so I kept buying new ones, and when my clutter clearing flushed them all out, we had
four
thermometers. (Which I never used, by the way; I felt the back of the girls’ necks to see if they had a fever.) It’s a Secret of Adulthood: if you can’t find something, clean up. I discovered that al
though it seemed easier to put things away in general areas—the coat closet, any kitchen drawer—it was more satisfying when each item went in a highly specific location. One of life’s small pleasures is to return something to its proper place; putting the shoe polish on the second shelf in the linen closet gave me the archer’s satisfaction of hitting a mark.

I also hit on a few daily rules to help keep the apartment from constantly falling into disorder. First, following my Fourth Commandment, “Do it now,” I started to apply the “one-minute rule” I didn’t postpone any task that could be done in less than one minute. I put away my umbrella; I filed a document; I put the newspapers in the recycling bin; I closed the cabinet door. These steps took just a few moments, but the cumulative impact was impressive.

Along with the “one-minute rule,” I observed the “evening tidy-up” by taking ten minutes before bed to do simple tidying. Tidying up at night made our mornings more serene and pleasant and, in an added benefit, helped prepare me for sleep. Putting things in order is very calming, and doing something physical makes me aware of being tired. If I’ve been reading under the covers for an hour before turning out the light, I don’t get the same feeling of luxurious comfort when I stretch out in bed.

As the clutter behind closed doors and cabinets began to diminish, I attacked visual clutter. For instance, we subscribe to a huge number of magazines, and we couldn’t keep them neat. I cleared out a drawer, and now we keep magazines stacked out of sight, ready to grab before we head to the gym. I’d been keeping invitations, school notices, and various miscellanea posted on a bulletin board, but I pulled it all down and moved it into a file labeled “Upcoming events and invitations.” I was no more or less organized than before, but our visual chaos dropped.

I’d dreaded doing the clutter clearing, because it seemed like such an enormous job, and it
was
an enormous job, but every time I looked around and saw the extra space and order, I registered a little jolt of energy. I was thrilled with the improved conditions in our apartment, and I kept waiting for Jamie to say, “Boy, everything looks terrific! You’ve done so
much work, it’s so much nicer!” But he never did. I love my gold stars, so that was disappointing, but on the other hand, he didn’t complain about lugging five hundred pounds of stuff to the thrift store. And even if he didn’t appreciate my efforts as much I’d expected, it didn’t really matter; I felt uplifted and restored by my clutter clearing.

TACKLE A NAGGING TASK.

Unfinished tasks were draining my energy and making me feel guilty. I felt like a bad friend because I hadn’t bought a wedding gift. I felt like an irresponsible family member because I’d never gotten a skin cancer check (and I have the superfair skin that comes with red hair). I felt like a bad parent because our toddler, Eleanor, needed new shoes. I had an image of myself sitting in front of a hive-shaped laptop, while reminders in the form of bees dive-bombed my head, buzzing, “Do me!” “Do me!” while I slapped them away. It was time for some relief.

I sat down and wrote a five-page to-do list. Writing the list was sort of fun, but then I had to face the prospect of doing tasks that I’d been avoiding—in some cases, for years. For the sake of morale, I added several items that could be crossed off with five minutes of effort.

Over the next several weeks, I doggedly tackled my list. I had my first skin cancer check. I got the windows cleaned. I got a backup system for my computer. I figured out a mystery cable bill. I took my shoes to be reheeled.

As I grappled with some of the more difficult items on the to-do list, though, I faced a discouraging number of “boomerang errands”: errands that I thought I was getting rid of but then came right back to me. Eighteen months overdue, congratulating myself on crossing the task off the list, I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, only to discover that I had decay under one filling. I had to return to the dentist the next week. Boomerang. After months of procrastination, I asked the building super to
fix our bedroom wall light, but it turned out he couldn’t do it. He gave me the number of an electrician. I called the electrician; he came, he took the light off the wall, but he couldn’t fix it. He told me about a repair shop. I took the light to the repair shop. A week later, I picked it up. Then the electrician had to come back to install it. Then the light worked again. Boomerang, boomerang, boomerang.

I had to accept the fact that some nagging tasks would never be crossed off my list. I would have to do them every day for the rest of my life. Finally I started wearing sunscreen every day—well, most days. Finally I started flossing every day—well, most days. (Although I knew that sun exposure can lead to cancer and unhealthy gums can lead to tooth loss, focusing on wrinkles and bad breath proved to be more motivating considerations.)

Sometimes, though, the most difficult part of doing a task was just deciding to
do it.
I began one morning by sending an e-mail that included only forty-eight words and took forty-five seconds to write—yet it had been weighing on my mind for at least two weeks. Such unfinished tasks were disproportionately draining.

An important aspect of happiness is managing your moods, and studies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore. I was astounded by the dramatic boost in my mental energy that came from taking care of these neglected tasks.

ACT MORE ENERGETIC.

To feel more energetic, I applied one of my Twelve Commandments: “Act the way I want to feel.” This commandment sums up one of the most helpful insights that I’d learned in my happiness research: although we presume that we
act
because of the way we
feel,
in fact we often
feel
because of the way we
act.
For example, studies show that even an artificially induced smile brings about happier emotions, and one experiment suggested
that people who use Botox are less prone to anger, because they can’t make angry faces. The philosopher and psychologist William James explained, “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.” Advice from every quarter, ancient and contemporary, backs up the observation that to change our feelings, we should change our actions.