Organizing: Organize Your Home and Feel Happier

Any time is a great time for organizing your home, but it's especially so with the holidays upon us. Getting rid of clutter will help you feel calmer and happier in the midst of the seasonal ruckus. If you are too busy now, make de-cluttering a New Year's resolution.

For advice, I consulted my favorite happiness guru, Gretchen Ruben. Below, I quote and in some cases paraphrase Gretchen's suggestions.

Money—even $5—can buy happiness

I spent $5 for a sponge holder that suctions to my sink. Such a small item led to greater calm.

Small changes can make a big difference

The very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference. In the evening, I tidy up for 5 minutes, which helps me feel calm.

Read the manual

I'm surrounded by things I didn't know how to use. I wanted to take responsibility, which gave me this feeling of learning something new.

With my new video camera, instead of poking at all the buttons till something happened, I read the manual.

Charts and calendars

Keep a chart. Write down resolutions. Then I ask myself if I followed the rule. Did I do evening tidy-up? I'm greedy for gold stars. I did it, I took 10 minutes and tidied under the kitchen sink!

I'm a big believer of putting things on the calendar, especially things that are fun. When was the last time you took the dog to the nature preserve?

My middle-school daughter and I needed some quiet time to hang out. So we started our Wednesday Adventures for an hour or two after school. It's important to have this time. If I don't schedule it in my calendar, it's never going to happen.

I'm obsessed with sense of smell, so we went to a perfume shop to sample all the smells. Sometimes we go to a museum.

What about lists and keeping track of things?

I have pleasing little notebooks where I jot down ideas. Then I go through them periodically.

I keep a list of books I want to read as well as a lists of blog ideas, thoughts, and quotations.

How do you create a happy kitchen?

Counters are for chopping vegetables, not for storage. Messy areas get messier and clean areas tend to stay clean.

If you keep it clutter-free, family members will be encouraged to keep it clean. One sweater over the corner of a chair gets buried; keep things under control.

I had a jumble in a drawer. I got a basket and put the jumble in it. Nothing changed really, but something about having the basket made it seem better.

How to you create happiness in your office?

Visual order equals visual calm.

When I unpack the reams of paper, I make sure the stacks point in the same direction. It takes no extra time to put the stacks away in order.

I used to have a bulletin board. I took off all the posts and put them in a folder. Both systems are equally effective, but now I have visual calm rather than visual clutter.

Now that I think about it, I realize it matters more than I'd thought.

Cultivate a shrine.

I take things I love and create areas of super-engagement in the home. For example, I keep travel books and travel photos together.

One bookcase, I decided, was going to be a shrine to children's and young adult literature, which previously was all over the house. I cleared a bunch of shelves and included related artwork and books of criticism.

Photographs

It's easy not to notice photographs. I had a lot of fun creating a shrine of Halloween. I have the photos in frames and we take them out once a year.

Instead of Christmas cards, we send Valentine cards and do the same kind of shrine with Valentine photos.

More on organizing and happiness at home:

• How I Organized My Home, De-Cluttered My Life and Learned 21 New Tips
• 50 Time-Saving Tips from Smart Busy Women
• Happy Home: How to be Happier at Home, a Conversation With Happiness Project Expert Gretchen Rubin
• 35 Tips from a Pro for Organizing Photographs
• See my bio for links to my Confessions of a Worrywart blog and all of my Home Goes Strong aritcles