Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

If you’ve completed

Step 1: Admit you have a problem and

Step 2: Purge

then you’re probably feeling pretty damned pleased with yourself right now - and rightly so! I can just picture you - basking in that glow of clutterless clarity, clucking derisively at friends still trapped in clutter rebutting, nodding sagely as you flip through the pristine pages of home porn (decorating mags).

But beware! Don’t allow your hard work to go to waste by letting disorder stage a coup d’etat when you’re looking the other way. If you return to old habits it’s only a matter of time before you’re back where you started - and tripping over crap to answer a call from Oprah about appearing in her upcoming Horror Hoarders episode.

So how do you maintain the gain? Well, I’m going to let you in on a secret. There’s a way to keep disarray at bay without hypnosis, or therapy to heal your inner hoarder, or trekking to a meditation master for the secret to simplicity. It’s just one little trick that will make dishevelment a distant memory.

Step 3: The secret to staying clutter-free: OCI-OGO

Ready?

One comes in, one goes out.

That’s the answer. You can never be overtaken by clutter again if you simply stick to this one little rule in your life. It will become a habit fast - and it will let you bypass a lot of soul searching and angst. Just adopt this change and you’ll forever be free of life rubble. For example…

Bought a new handbag or briefcase? Give away an old one.

Got the latest New Scientist magazine? Put Ralph (the articles, I know) in the recycle bin.

Picked up a nifty nik-nak you don’t need? Forget OGO, you need to cut this one off at the OCI stage and return it, drop it off at a charity store or put it in the trash before you even get home. (Put those wasted dollars down to ‘the cost of sanity’.)

Here are some tips for making OCI-OGO a part of your home-life. Most of these are about creating boundaries so that OCI-OGO gets structured into your environment.

Your wardrobe
After you’ve completed Step 2: Purge, discard any leftover hangers. Now, whenever you buy a new outfit, you have to free up a hanger by letting go of something else. It doesn’t have to be ugly or old, it simply has to be something you like less than the other clothes you have.

Your kitchen
Unless you regularly entertain Nobel laureates and international dignitaries on whom world peace may depend, consider having only ‘everyday’ crockery, cutlery and glassware. Choose designs that are attractive, dishwasher- and microwave-safe and available in separates to replace breakages. Have enough to meet general use and get rid of everything else. Use these items until they start to look worse for wear and then replace the lot. This approach spares you time, energy and storage space.

Your reading/music library
Once you have your shelves in their post-purge perfection, keep them that way. As you set off to buy the latest Tori Amos or Ian McEwan, take something from the shelf with you - and don’t bring it home again.

You get the idea - now use it! I promise you it will change your life. From lipstick to lounge chairs, OCI-OGO works at every level to simplify your home - and your life.

Technorati Tags: getting organized,clutter,spring-cleaning,life make-over

So you’ve conquered Step 1, admitted you have a problem, and feel ready to move to a life of clutter-free clarity.

Being mired in more paraphernalia than you can handle means your life is constipated. You’re holding onto stuff from the past, overwhelmed with too much stuff in the present, and fighting to forge a clear path into your future. You need a life laxative to release the stodge and ease your pain. It’s time for…

Step 2: Purge

How do you do it? Simple. I call it the three-bags-and-a-basket method and it involves just six simple steps.

1. Start somewhere

Pick a room. Begin somewhere easy so you can take the success with you to more challenging spaces. If a whole room is daunting, begin with your wardrobe, a cupboard, even a drawer. It doesn’t matter. As long as you feel ready to do some clearing, the momentum will take you along.

2. Get receptacle-ready

Collect three large bin liners and a big basket or laundry hamper. It’s a good idea to put an easy-to-read label on each bag so you don’t get confused and can work quickly - momentum is a key part of this process.

The labels are:

• Trash: anything not used/worn in the past 12 months and in poor condition
• Charity: anything not used/worn in the past 12 months and in good condition
• Repair: anything you would have used/worn in the past 12 months but couldn’t because it needed fixing.

Re-assure yourself that if you need something later you can replace it. In my experience it’s rare to need a discarded item; but even then, the joy of being clutter-free greatly outweighs the small inconvenience of re-buying something you previously had.

The basket is for stuff belonging in the trash pile which you aren’t quite ready to release from your life. When you’re done, it will go to a friend’s garage for 6 months - by which time you’ll probably have forgotten about it and your friend can send it the way of all trash. (Be kind and choose a friend whose garage isn’t worse than yours.)

3. Expect excuses

Clutter represents all manner of psychological baggage and there will be resistance.

This process will test your every inclination to hoard, every conviction that you will one day break out that Ab-roller and achieve your very own six-pack, every heartfelt fear that your life will be unspeakably empty without your Bedazzler.

A part of you will seek to procrastinate, rationalize or make excuses. Expect these tactics and more - it’s normal.

You can give in and put the process off, blame someone for your crap-filled home, see a shrink to process your spatial constipation - but you’ll still end up stuck in your stuff.

Or you can summon your inner Borg, chant ‘Resistance is futile’ and begin moving from clutter to clarity.

4. Empty everything

Now that you’re physically and mentally set, it’s time to take action.

Whatever the space you’re working on - room, cupboard, desk, drawer - empty it. Take everything out and place it on the floor nearby.

5. Maintain momentum

Now, take one item at a time and place it in the bag where it belongs or, if you genuinely want to keep it, put it back in the space. Move quickly, not thinking too long about each item. Remember - if it turns out you need something later you can buy another one.

Exclusions: You may choose to exclude from this process such loved items as favorite books and CDs, photos and precious items that hold special meaning for you, or beautiful things that give you pleasure when you look at them.

The exclusion does not apply to out-of-date lecture notes and texts, jeans whose zip hasn’t moved since 1998, or figurines you look at only to lament about the dust.

I find the process is more enjoyable if I put on fun music - Abba or Howard Jones are especially recommended.

6. Suddenly surfaces

Continue until everything is off the floor. Then move to the next space. Let the music, momentum, and reassurance that you’ll survive and thrive without all your stuff keep you repeating the three-bags-and-a-basket method in every room of your home. Then move on to the garage. (Your office will get a step to itself.)

You’ll know you’re done when:

• Your bags are bulging (you can drop them off at their respective locations)
• You find yourself moving from room to room saying ’so that’s what color that is’
• You feel so, so good.

Purging is the hardest step in de-cluttering your life - and one you should feel great about achieving. After all that clearing you’ll want to keep the benefits and not fall back into clutter habits.

And that’s just what Step 3 will help you do.

Step 3: The secret to staying clutter-free: OCI-OGO

Are you a clutter-rebutter? If so, you probably respond to the sound of jaw-hitting-ground when someone sees your office, home or car with one of these convincing gems:

I know where everything is.
Then where’s that great magazine article you saved? Your left tennis shoe? The cat you were minding for the neighbors?

Creative people need mess.
Did we miss your last exhibition?

Name anything and I’ll find it!
We’ll let you know when they invent that scintillating game show.

Having a place for everything and everything in its place isn’t for everyone, but having everything all over the place is unlikely to prove an effective happiness strategy either.

Here’s why:

• If you have clutter in your home, office, glove-box or computer, it takes you longer to find anything - you waste time.
• If you can’t find the remote-control, hamster or family heirloom then you have to buy another - you waste money.
• If you have too much stuff you forget what you do have and lose the chance to use and enjoy it - you waste opportunity.
• If you keep seeing clutter it’s a constant reminder that you need to clear it, causing frustration and irritation that achieves nothing - you waste energy.

In other words, impedimenta - mindless, lifeless things – become a despot over your time, money and happiness.

Step 1: Admit you have a problem

If you’ve ever:

• Missed an appointment because the reminder card was trapped under magazines hyping shoulder pads and New Romantic bands -
• Bought a second copy of Tchotchkes for Dummies because you mangled the first extracting it from an overstuffed drawer -
• Been offered a contract to open your house as an eBay showroom -

Then it’s time to quit clutter-rebutting and admit you’ve fallen under the tyranny of stuff. You needn’t go from Oscar to Felix overnight, but to conquer clutter it helps to admit that superfluous stuff is moving you crap-ward on the happy-to-crappy scale.

If you’d like to re-claim your happiness from under all that stuff, then make a note to check back here soon for Step 2.

If you can find a pen.

Step 2: Purge

Step 3: The secret to staying clutter-free: OCI-OGO