Why clearing clutter makes you happier (really)

Gretchen Rubin epitomizes whole-life reinvention when she embarked on a personal and professional journey to find happiness. She created a blog and then wrote the book on her experiments with self-help, advice, and studies on happiness to see how they impacted her own life.

As big as the mission was, some of her lessons were seemingly small. Not lose a hundred pounds, not renovate the whole house, not even get seven more hours of sleep a night. One of the best things Gretchen says she learned was that clearing out a drawer or gathering up tiny things scattered throughout the house actually made her feel a surge of happiness every time she didn't kick a plastic toy or rummage around for a Sharpie.

The mountain of paper on your kitchen table or the mess of laundry on your closet floor might feel enormous, but the task of putting everything from a junk drawer into an organizational tray is a relatively small endeavor. And who knows? It could make you feel just as happy as making a major life change. Or even inspire you tackle that six-foot pile of laundry after all.

Here's how Gretchen says you can invest in your own happiness with simple clutter clearing.







Has doing something small made you feel happier?