A photo of guest Gretchen Rubin smiling into camera
Episode 360 – Gretchen Rubin – The secret to happiness in a cluttered world

To mark the print release of our book Reset Your Home in the US and Canada this week, we have been thrilled to welcome phenomenal voices from around the world for Ingrid and Lesley go Global Week. Today, be prepared to be inspired by a chat with a remarkable author, speaker and podcaster whose life's work has focused on happiness and the power of habits. Back in 2010 both mine and Lesley’s lives and work were impacted by a ground-breaking book, a #1 New York Times bestseller that resonated with millions and millions of people worldwide. So, we are deeply honoured to introduce the one and only Gretchen Rubin!
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
To mark the print release of our book, reset your home in the US and Canada. This week, we have been thrilled to welcome phenomenal voices from around the world. For Ingrid and Lesley Glo Go Global week today, be prepared to be inspired by a chat with a remarkable author, speaker and podcaster whose life's work has focused on happiness and the power of habits. Back in 2010 both mine and Lesley's lives and work were impacted by a groundbreaking book, a number one New York Times bestseller that resonated with millions and millions of people worldwide, so we are deeply honored to introduce the one and only Gretchen Rubin.

00:57
You're listening to the declutter hub podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense, tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your own now. Here are your hosts, Ingrid, Jansen and Lesley Spellman.

01:20
Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid and I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering, and if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get involved in conversations relating to this podcast. It all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group, go to declutter hub com, forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook. Well, I'm so happy to be talking to you. Thank you, and congratulations so much. Your book is going global. I love it. We all need more order in our lives. Fantastic. We do. So we're so excited that you're here. So thank you so much, Gretchen, because I think for us and Ingrid is properly fangirling, to be fair,

02:18
she's like, this is on my bucket list to talk to Gretchen. And I think the the reason is where Ingrid and I both started our professional organizing businesses back in 2010 and your book had just come out, like 22,009 I think something like that. And so it was a book that was spoken about a lot in the professional organizing world because of your focus as part of your happiness project, which we will, of course, talk about in a moment, very much on the decluttering and the fact that you can become happy if life and your home around you is orderly. And so you really, you know, sort of paved the way for people like us in the professional organizing industry, because we're a little bit further behind in the US professional organizing business. And so people started picking up the phone because of your book. And so we spoke about you, so you're there. And you know what I have to say this. Anybody who knows me knows that I declutter everything, including books, but your book is still here. It did not make the it did not make the bin bag. I think that was wow. I feel like I made the cut with a professional organizer. 15 years later, it's still on the shelf. I feel like that's a major accolade. Thank you. Owen, I'm so happy to hear it, because I do think that it is true that I think now people very clearly understand the connection between our surroundings and ourselves and our our emotions, our focus, our energy. But I think that maybe 1520, years ago, people didn't really explicitly make that connection. They might have unconsciously felt it, sure. But I think now people are really aware that it's something that is kind of a priority, exactly. So just jumping back to the Happiness Project, can you give us a little bit of context for people who might not know who you are, what it, how you did it, how you came to write the fantastic Happiness Project book,

04:08
yeah. Well, it's, yeah, it was a while back, and at that time, I had just finished writing a book called 40 ways to look at JFK, which was the short, unconventional biography of Kennedy. And I was sort of in the period of writing, and you two know this period too, where the book is kind of done, but it hasn't hit the shelves yet, and you have sort of this down period, so a little bit of more open space in my mind. And I was stuck on an on a crowded city bus on a poor a day when it was pouring rain, so we were inching along, and I had one of those rare moments for reflection that we often don't get in the busyness of everyday life. And I looked out the window and I thought, What do I want from life anyway? And I thought, I want to be happy. And I realized, yeah, maybe I say that, but I never think about, Am I happy? Could I be happier? Can you even make yourself happier? If you can, what would you do? And I thought, Gosh, this I should have a.

05:00
Happiness Project, and really figured this out. And that was the words, those were the words that came to me Happiness Project. And so I did what I always do, which is I ran out to the library the next day and I got a gigantic stack of books, philosophy, science, cult, pop culture, memoirs, novels, anything I could get my hands on, and tried to just understand. And it was just a project for myself. It was just like I had realized that this is something that I wanted to do, but I quickly realized that the what I was learning was so fascinating, it was so limitless. There were so many things that I wanted to explore, so many things I wanted to try in my own life. I was just like, Oh my gosh. Like, how can I even keep track of this? And then finally it hit me. I was like, Maybe this could be my next book. And like, you know, people have said to me, like, nice work, if you can get it. Like, happiness is like, your business, you know, it's like your work day. And I'm like, I know it's great. And so that. And so that's what it really was, you know, for me, with all my books, sort of research, is me search. I'm always trying to understand myself, or push my understanding by examining through the lens of my own experience and what I've tried and what I learned from that. And yeah, so like, and I say, in the Happiness Project, like, I have 12 themes. There's a theme for every month, and like, a handful of things that I decide to try to work on to see if I can make myself happier. And spoiler alert, most of them worked, but not all of them.

06:16
But I but I say, like, for you, it could be different. Like, for some people, travel is hugely important. They might have a whole month that's about travel, or a whole month that's about music or, you know, different things where so we each have to do our own happiness project. But I think a lot of people did kind of identify, and then also were sort of felt very hopeful with the idea that, like, hey, I can just think about what's missing. Think about what I want more of and like, come up with a few practical things to try and see if it works. And for a lot of us, there's a lot of low hanging fruit. There's a lot of things where we're like, oh yeah, I don't need to do a lot of self examination to understand where I should start. The question is just like, okay, now's the time. Let me, let me, let me start working on this. And I was kind of thinking, How did you decide to make it, like a year on project? Was it because you thought it's going to take me a year to write this book? Or did you think it has a nice beginning and end then? Or what was the Yeah, it kind of all those things. I feel like a year is kind of the natural it represents to us, like a significant time, January 1 is really good for something like this, because sort of the whole world is having that New year, new you moment. So there's kind of a lot of cultural momentum around it. A year felt long enough that I could make meaningful change, but not so long that it just felt like so endless that it felt kind of ungovernable. And I do think for the reader, it's a very kind of satisfying you go through the seasons, you have that feeling of coming around again. I like 12 because actually 12 ended up being a lot. It was like a lot. I have this thing as a writer, maybe you have this issue too. I feel like everything has to be in the first three chapters. And I'm like, You can't put everything in the first three chapters. Something has to come at the end, you know, something has to be like three quarters of the way through. So 12, but 12, again, there's kind of a magic 12 is a powerful number. And again, it just fits with our way of thinking about our lives. So it just, it just felt right and but, but short enough to be manageable, but long enough that I could look back at the end of the year, and it would feel reasonable that I could have had like to expect to have seen actual change,

08:22
and now, because, I mean, that's quite a while ago now, isn't it? Do you still? Do you think that there was the beginning? So you did a year, obviously, learned a lot. So do you think, do you look back on it and think that was very pivotal, or do you think that you've progressed so much more since? Well, it was extraordinarily pivotal. And I will say in that book, a lot of the things that I did was, like, establish, like, a framework for understanding happiness and how to have a happier life, which is really, which has really been a foundation. And it's interesting. I feel really lucky as a writer, because my next book always naturally comes out of my last book. Like, I've never said, like, what book should I write next? I'm always like, Oh my gosh, by the time this book is I'm so excited to start the next book because it's led me in a certain direction. So I wrote the Happiness Project. But one of the things I often ask myself is what is truly universal? Because one thing I found, and I'm sure you've seen this in your practice, like, no tool fits every hand, people are really different. If somebody says this is the right way, this is the best way, be skeptical, because it might be great for some people, but it may not be great for you. So I'm like, but are there some things that are truly universal? And I wouldn't say it's 100% universal, but one of the deeply, almost ubiquitous things is that home matters. It's hard to be happy if you're not happy at home. And so that led me to my book, happier at home and and then I, you know, as I was writing these books, people kept saying to me, Well, you say you did this, you did that, but how did you get yourself to do it? And I would be like, well, I thought, well, this is good. Probably gonna make me happier. Let me try it. And so I'll do it. And then if it does, and then if I if it works, then I'll just keep doing it. And they're like, but how did you get yourself to do it? It's like, I don't understand.

10:00
In what you're saying, what's going on something you're experiencing, something that I'm not experiencing, and what you're experiencing is difficulty in forming a habit. So that led me to my book better than before, which is the 21 strategies of habit change. Because a lot of times we know perfectly well what we want to do. It's just a problem of maintaining a habit. That led me to my book to my book to four tendencies, which is a personality framework, which exp, explains a lot of the big differences that you see in how people successfully form habits. I also wrote outer order, inner calm along the way, because I because one of the things I noticed, I'm sure you, you two have seen this

10:36
for most people, again, not for everybody, but for most people, outer order contributes to intercom more than it should, kind of disproportionately. People are like, a friend of mine said, I finally cleaned my fridge, and now I know I can switch careers. And I'm like, I get it, you know? Or like people, people are just like, say, Oh, and here's like, I like this weird paradox where people, because I am, my sister calls me a happiness bully, because I'm always trying to, was trying to, like, make people happier. So I often will help my friends clear closets, and they would often say to me, I got rid of so many clothes, and now I feel like I have so much more to wear. Yeah, it's a deep paradox. I was trying to explore that in outer order, inner calm. Then I was like, but what about the senses? I like, live in my head that I wrote a book Life in five senses. I mean, so, so, so it's just happiness is such a giant subject, and it leads in so many different directions that I just have been exploring different avenues ever since. Next I'm going to write about the empty nest. And I'm sure this is something that comes up a lot, because a thing that many people say is, oh my gosh. Now I've got to think about my house, my space. How does it change? Do I want to downsize? Do I want to upsize? What do I do with all this stuff? What do we keep? My kids say they don't want any of it, but later on, will they regret it? Should I? Should I keep keepsakes for them, even if they say they don't want them? Oh, my parents are go. Are downsizing or or have gone. What do we do with their stuff? So, yeah, that that's there's a lot of I, as I'm working on my book project empty nest, I am seeing a lot of overlapping with with order and clearing and organization and ownership. Yeah, I think it's interesting Gretchen, because what we see a lot in our profession is that people think we put stuff in a bin bag. That's what, you know, you're a professional organizer. Oh, you must love putting stuff in a bin bag. And we've been saying for 15 years, both Lesley and I, that's like the byproduct of what we do.

12:36
It's, yeah, all the other things that happen when you declutter, right? It's the more space, it's, the more energy it's, the more time. It's habit changes. It's making time for things that you love to do. Yes, is because people come in and say, I want to declutter all these rooms in my house, and I want to the spare bedroom is an absolute dumping ground. Yes, oh my gosh. And we're like, okay, but you need to learn to step back first. Yes. And you need to build up your decluttering muscle. We talk about a decluttering muscle all the time. And you need to start any easier rooms. You need to practice with small changes. Make a habit of those. We talk about daily resets all the time. You need to do daily things, because you want to maintain the good work that you've done. Yeah, you need to build up to those harder, more difficult areas. And although people think that our job is we just put some stuff in bin bags and donate it, recycle, trash, it, whatever. We know it's so much more than that. It's so much more than that, and it if you're right, we see people who are changing careers are finally able to downsize or upsize, are finally able to make that move across the country they've always wanted to do. They're able to

13:55
consider working from home, whatever it is, all these big things that never seemed achievable when there was so much clutter around, suddenly become possibilities. And that's so amazing, isn't it? I wonder if it's from the clarity, you know, because you're just there's all this noise that's gone away, and so you sort of can see what's most important to you, and maybe it even just feels more possible. Because I do think people feel very weighed down. Like, literally weighed down. Do you often hear people using metaphors of lightness or like, I feel like I lost weight? I feel like a backpack fell off my back, like they they live. So it actually feels like, Oh, I could make a move. Because I feel like more I feel like I have more like power in my body, almost physically, yeah, yeah. It's the connection between our surroundings, our insides and our outsides is just very, very profound, and I think people often dismiss it

14:48
and and also like the why it is very emotionally draining to do this, because sometimes you really do have to grapple with a big issue. It's not just about like, what are you going to.

15:00
Do with this mixing bowl. It's like, what was your relationship to your mother and

15:07
and you kind of have to grapple with that. I think what I've what I've loved about the way that you kind of explained your, you know, your writing career, and the way that there's always a book, you know, before you finish one book, The next book is inside. It just shows that it's such a transitional journey, where you kind of, it's all different layers, isn't it? So many different layers. And you talk as well about, you know, decluttering in particular, then being a process, not a project, being a process project. And it's, it's the same thing. To get to that happiness, you've got to go, oh, but it's about this, and it's about that. And, you know, certainly, you know, as Ingrid said, before you know, people who think it's about putting stuff in a bin bag in the first instance, once you introduce that idea of emotions, just at a very basic level, you know, the light bulb goes on then. And then you can start to build on it. And then you can start to think about your personality type, which we do that in our reset your home book as well, and things like that. And so it's really interesting to see how your book career, your writing career, then transitioned through, and you were all, but there's this thing, Oh, and there's that thing. And so, so, so interesting. So how many books have you got all together then Gretchen, 1111,

16:15
but it's interesting. The Happiness Project was actually my fifth book, right? And so, like many people, I was, like, I had been working for 10 years, and then I became an overnight sensation. Um, a lot of people don't know, like, I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, which I loved, writing that book. And now, like, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's rarely spoken about, because it, to me, it fits very well, because it was a study in human nature. And, you know, Churchill is this towering figure, so you can kind of see everything, because it's so amplified. So to me, all my books feel very connected, but, yeah, but there's definitely that Happiness Project, and all the books after that are much more obviously about, sort of, how can we change? How can we know ourselves?

16:59
You know, happiness and human very explicitly. Yeah, so fascinating. So I think what we're going to do now Gretchen is going to pop to a break, and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk a little bit more about your latest book secret. Hi

17:13
everyone. Welcome back. We are chatting to the amazing person who is Gretchen Rubin, and we're so excited, and I'm absolutely buzzing. We had such a good conversation before the break. But now, Gretchen, we would love to know more about your latest book, Secrets of adulthood. That sounds very serious.

17:34
Well, I you know I was saying how all my books come out of each book comes out of the last. And so one of the with this book, several strands came together. And for people who haven't seen the book, it's a little book. It's a little book. It has like 200 aphorisms in it, Secrets of adulthood. And I don't call them aphorisms, because nobody knows what an aphorism is. An aphorism is a like, a very short one or two sentence general observation about human nature that's attributed to a person. So Oscar Wilde said it, or Montaigne said it, which

18:07
is different from something like a proverb, which is folk wisdom. This is just these sayings that we all have known for centuries. A stumble may prevent a fall. You can't push a rope, things like that. Those are proverbs. So I've always loved aphorisms and but, but what I was trying to do with this, I have two young adult children, which is right, why I'm writing a book about the empty nest, and I wanted to make a collection for them of all the secrets that of adulthood that I had learned with time and experience. You know, often the hard way to try to spare them some of the indecision and suffering that I had gone through, but I quickly realized I need this collection just as much for myself, because I have to keep reminding myself of every lesson that I've learned, like over and over. I have to say to myself, working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination, or something that can be done at any time is often done at no time, or sharing of tasks often leads to shirking of tasks, you know, things like this and and so I wanted to collect these. And I really did push myself to use the form of the apparism and in my and in my books I had, over time, really consciously embraced trying to when I had a big idea. Really did push myself to try to distill it into a line or two, because I just think, you know, you can explain at great length, and that can be very illuminating, but often it's when it's sort of really crystallized into a very succinct statement, that's when it has more power in the mind. We can remember it better, and maybe we disagree. You know, you might disagree, but you sort of even know your own mind better through disagreement. And it's easier when it's in this short form, and it's just very creatively satisfying, because it is to write something very concisely is is very challenging. So I found that to be very a very creatively satisfying task. So all these things came together in secrets of adulthood. Wow. So yeah, concise is not really.

20:00
Our thing. We were so, really happy when we got our 80,000 words, but we set you home because we could, we like to talk, we like to speak, we like to write, and all those kind of things. But, yeah, but that's sort of interesting, right? Because in you physically are about like, calling down, so maybe in your writing, you like to sprawl a bit more, yeah, because I just think it's but it's complex, you know this, this business that we're talking about here. You know happiness. You know the pursuit of less or the right things around you, whatever you want to call it. It's not a simple fix. It's something that needs to be explained, and it's something that can certainly be learned over time. But sometimes we need prompts, if it doesn't come naturally to us, 100%

20:40
so many. And I think the stories are so helpful as well. Like hearing other people's challenges and how they met, it is often more instructive, even than you know, sort of like some advice, definitely, definitely. So just jumping back to one of the books, which I guess relates most to decluttering, then I think is outer order, inner calm. Yeah. And so what were the key themes within that? And what do you think that what you most proud of and would like to get across as the key theme to the reader?

21:15
Well, yes, so this one because I had noticed that for most people, not everybody, but for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm. And I was just very interested in, like, the disproportionate effect. And so that's what drew me to, wanting to really focus on it in a little book. And again, this is a little book. This is like a little bit. My aim with outer order inner calm was that people would start reading it, and then they would be so inspired to start clearing clutter that they would literally jump out of their seats and be like, I cannot wait a moment longer. I cannot turn another page. I must go to my medicine cabinet right this second, you know, and, and so it's so it's divided into things like creating order and like making decisions and creating beauty, and like all these, all these things, and, and, and, and it's really just full of suggestions about how to do it, different ways to think about it, because what I find is often like different things resonate with different people. And so if you just sort of it like, if they just see a bunch of things, maybe only a few things will resonate, but, but, but those could be very powerful. For instance, one that a lot of people repeat back to me is, you know, these people, the over buyers. These are the people who are like, well, maybe I'll need it in the future. This thing can make a great gift, or I like it in one color, I could probably use three. You know, they're over by they'll buy everything they could possibly need for a trip, instead of saying, like, Okay, wait, do I really need a pouch for my passport? Like, let's take a minute. And so one of the things I say is, like, store it at the store. If you don't need it yet, sort it, they will keep it there very nicely for you. You You can just store it there, and then you can go get it when you want it. And so many people who are over buyers are like, somehow storing it at the store made me think, like, I can just leave it there for now, instead of feeling like I have to get it under my own roof

22:55
and so, or, you know, the one minute rule, anything that we can do in less than a minute, we should do without delight. Many people have said this has like been transformative. Of their space because it's just gets rid of that scum of clutter on the surface of everyday life. But I think the big themes are really like making decisions. Like, do you know, do I need it? Do I want it? Do I love it?

23:17
Do I even know I own it? I just had this experience, right? And here I am, like, writing about this for years. I finally go to some, like, top shelf in my pantry, and there is a absolutely enormous metal bowl. And I'm like, I have no idea where that came from. I have never seen that thing before in my life. And I'm like, What should I do with it? And I thought, this thing could be very useful. And then I said, could it be very useful? Because I literally have never once said, oh my goodness, I really wish I had a gigantic mixing bowl. I am not making giant quantities of punch. I am not making a salad for 40 people. I do not need this giant mixing bowl. I gave that thing away to a friend of mine who is like a massive cook with a big family. She was thrilled because, but I was, like, already fooling myself, maybe this thing will come in handy. That's the endowment effect, right? Because we own it. We're like, oh, this thing is good.

24:09
And so, so, yeah, making decisions, creating order. Like, how do you create order in your space? How do you create beauty in your space? How do you have habits so that you can maintain you mentioned, like, keeping it up. And I think that is a big challenge, because I think people do see it as a project, like, I'll come in, I'll get everything cleaned up, and then we'll all go back to our old ways and be absolutely baffled why everything is just a mess, again,

24:32
not understanding how you really have to

24:35
constantly maintain it. Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because we actually, was talking to some of our members, and I was like, decluttering is like laundry, it never stops.

24:48
Like people think that decluttering, I just declutter, and then I'm done, and I'm like, I'm sorry. I hate to be the better of bad news, but decluttering is something you have to keep working on as long as stuff comes in.

25:00
Stuff needs to leave. It becomes easier. The more you practice it, the more you do it, yes, but you will have to. And if you indeed are the are the shopper that loves to take the freebies and loves to wear holiday picks up all the souvenirs, and if you love buying stuff for your friends all the time, and what we really see is a mindset change. I mean, we have a membership where we help people all over the world with their decluttering and organizing, and that mindset change once the clutter goes down, slowly but surely, their mindset changes about all these things that they have they just normally would always do, and they start to look at themselves and go, Why am I doing this? Why do I need to buy an owl for my best friend? Because when I know she loves owls, and why do I then feel I have to buy every owl I ever see in the shop that I come into for her? Yes. Why am I doing this? And I think when you start to think those thoughts, you're really on your way to change your mindset and to kind of go, okay. And, you know, we actually talked a little bit about it before we hit record decluttering and being having better habits and having more calm is not about having nothing in your house. It's not about minimalism is, yeah, no, but it's stuff in your house that you love and use and appreciate and Well, it's interesting because I have this newsletter, the five things making me happy newsletter, and I recently wrote in the newsletter about a distinction that I draw, which is abundance lovers and simplicity lovers. So simplicity lovers are people like me, where we like a lot of room on the counters, a lot of space on the shelves. We don't like a lot of buzz. We like one Rosebud in one vase on a shelf, you know. But then there are abundance lovers, and they like profusion and choice and buzz and collections and lots of visual stimulus, stimulation. And it's interesting, because I'm a simplicity lover, but my my daughter, is an abundance lover, I mean, to the max. But the thing is, it's not clutter. Everything is exactly where she wants it. If I go in there and I take out one little china cat, she's like, What happened to the China cat? It's supposed to be right here, like, for her, it's exactly the way she wants. She she she values everything. She's projecting her identity into her space. She's carefully chosen everything. There's nothing trashy, there's nothing broken, there's nothing forgotten, there's nothing that's just been dumped down on a surface because she can't be bothered to find a place for it. It's but it, to my eye, it's overwhelming. I'm like, I couldn't live in a bedroom like this. I couldn't live in a dorm room like this. But for her, it feels right to I think she would find, like, the kind of dorm room that I would have, kind of sterile and stripped and as like, the member of a family, I've really pushed myself, like, I want to create a rich, warm, inviting environment. And so even though my instinct is kind of like, leave every shelf bare, leave every surface bare, it's like, it's actually nice to have some picture frames on the mantelpiece or whatever, because it's not that one person is right and one person's wrong, or that simplicity is right or better or more esthetic or more morally right. It's just about creating the environment that you want and like. What we're talking about is whatever that looks like in the end, get rid of everything that doesn't belong to your vision, because it's just gonna, it's just gonna, it's just gonna cloud, it's just gonna be noisy however you wanted to end up, whether that's some kind of super spare Scandinavian minimalism or some super, you know, hyped up, you know, super saturated environment, yeah, kind of maximalism, you know, the maximalism, yes, and they're both fine. And I think people want to argue I'm right, you're wrong. I'm sure you see this in couples, where one person is like, Oh my gosh. Why do we have all these? Why do we have all these, like, bits and bobs, like on every surface, and the person is like, but those are important to me. These are beautiful, whatever. It's like, no one's right, no one's wrong. It's just, how do we create an environment where we both feel comfortable? Yeah? Yeah. I think, you know, I think the important thing about today's conversation, and yes, we are a decluttering podcast, and you've spent your life's work talking about happiness, Gretchen, is that the two are so aligned. And if we just, you know, you can't really have one without the other. I don't think. And I think that, you know, it's all about looking further when you when you're on a decluttering journey. So a lot of people who are here to hear our decluttering hints and tips, it's all about taking it one step further, and think about but why? And yes, why? Why this inter this conversation has been so interesting today is because it's we want happiness. As you said right at the beginning of the podcast. You know you need to be happy, and your your surroundings are so pivotal to that. And so it's just understanding that, because we can become so entrenched in thinking, clutter, clutter, stuff, stuff must go today. And it's not about that. It's about creating a life where you can be happy, where you can pursue your hobbies, where you can think, we said, Move to the side of the country, down.

30:00
If that's what we want to do, and you don't feel suffocated by your stuff. And so it's an obvious in decluttering, right? Absolutely. And then I also think, like, one of the things, as soon as you feel like, very guilty about your stuff, or it makes you feel bad when you see it. So for instance, like a half finished project, which, like, you've got it out on the dining room table, and you're like, but I need to finish that project. I need to finish that project so you feel guilty every time you see it, or like you've got your guitar and your music and everything set up, kind of gathering dust, and it makes you feel guilty every time you see it. So recently, in the happier podcast, we had the tried this at home suggestion to dust it off, because a friend of mine had this keyboard that was like, just randomly in his living room, and he's like, but I really want to get back into playing. And I was like, well, play it or put it away, but the fact that you just have it in the middle of your living room where it doesn't belong, it's like, it's not working. And so either use this as like, Okay, this is reminding me of this is something that's a really important value. So how am I going to really make a habit of that, which is actually what he chose to do and he's really happy. Or say to yourself, This is not a season of life for me when I'm going to do this. Put it out of, you know, central real estate. Or say, You know what? This was like, a thing that I thought I would be into, but I'm really not. That was a fantasy self. This is not myself. I'm going to give it away. And if down the road I decide I want to try it again, I can retry it, but I don't have to have it's like me and all the origami paper, like, I'm like, I'm not going to do origami face it, like, give that paper light. It's beautiful paper. Many people love origami. That is not me, but the feeling that it can give you these bad feelings when you're confronted with like things that or I remember a friend of mine saying how with her bedroom, she had piles, and this was a while ago when people had many more, like physical photos, and she had piles and she had piles and piles and piles of photographs that she had been meaning to make into photo albums. But, you know, that's a huge I'm sure you talk to people about photos all the time. It's like, a huge source of pleasure, but also huge source of, like, work. And I was just like, Well, don't have them right by your bed, on your nightstand, you know? That's just like, every time you look at them, you're like, oh God, those, those, you know, or they just start fading into the background. And so you just have this, like, cluttered environment that's not even this, just, you know, kind of getting in your way, without you even really understanding why. And so, yeah, I mean, are we getting all kinds of cues for from our environment? And then when I wrote life in five senses, it's like, well, they're all these things. Like, do you have something in your house that's kind of smelly? Like, every time you walk you're like, kind of smells bad, even like a cleaning product. I realized I hated the smell of our garbage bags, like, Why had I had them for five years? Like, that is just a product. I could just buy a different version, you know, but I never thought about it. Or is there, you know, a chair where you sit at and, and there's the lamp, is just the wrong lamp, and you've just put up with it for 10 years. Instead of saying this is the wrong lamp, let me find another place for this lamp. Let me get the right lamp, and then my space is going to feel so much more comfortable to me, and I'll sit in that chair and read, which I haven't been really doing because the light isn't good. It's incredible how aligned we you know, we talk about clutter, blindness, about not when something stays in the same place, you know, you stop seeing it. Oh, dozen times. Yeah, when the clutter comes down, you suddenly think, Oh, my goodness, I actually really should. There's like, lots of spider webs. And why? There's hand prints on the wall, because the clutter, you can't see it. Yes, we are absolutely so aligned in everything that you've just mentioned as well. You know, the the piles of photographs, all these jobs that aren't finished, or in the wardrobe

33:29
that you haven't worn, and they were so expensive, and you feel that guilt hanging everything I still haven't worn it, but I spent so much money on it, and perpetuate those negative feet or or the clothes that don't fit, and you're like, Well, I haven't worn it in 10 years, but maybe one day I'll fit back into it, yeah. And then I've, I've had, and I'm always just like, Look, if you fit it back into it, you're going to want to have a different pair of jeans, like that thing, that jacket, is 10 years old. You're not, you're you're not going to feel like wearing it again no matter what. And so you don't, you're just like, it's out of fashion. Now it doesn't matter that it fits or it doesn't fit. It's just it's not something that you would wear and in any circumstance. But yeah, they, they're all these messages that we're exchanging with our surroundings constantly. Yeah, yeah. I think the clutter indeed has such a negative impact. And when the clutter goes down, people do become happier, but they don't realize that when they when they listen read your books, read our book, listen to our podcasts, coming to our membership. They don't realize that that's comes later. In the beginning, they're just trudging through the clutter trying to figure it all out. Well, one of my one of my secrets of adulthood, is things often get Messier before they get tidier. And I feel like this is figuratively true, but it's also literally true. Yeah,

34:51
yeah. Well, do you find too? And I often tell people this is, like, it goes in layers, like you clear out a lot a thing of clutter, and then it's.

35:00
Like, go right back through and you will see a whole different layer that the first time, you're like, you didn't even think, I don't even need this. And then you're like, wait a minute. I when I go through people's closets, it's like, Okay, let's go three through three times, and they'll be like, there's absolutely nothing else that I want to get rid of. And then they're like, 10 more things, because you kind of have to scrape away at the layers. But it is, but it is. It just accumulates. So like, especially if you have children, because they're they're moving through stages and and and possessions so fast, and everything can seem very precious. Or if they're things that are like from the past, where you're like, how can I get rid of this thing that's been in my family for 60 years, even though I don't even want it? How do I get rid of a photograph of somebody that I don't know. It means nothing to me, and yet it feels somehow sacrilegious to, just like, get rid of a photograph of somebody who you know, allegedly is in my family. It feels wrong, but what I'm going to do with it? These are, these are hard questions, but then, but then, once you figure it out, it feels so good. Yeah, exactly. So if I we find ourselves now I'm sat here thinking about how many people are going to go out and buy in your 11 books Gretchen, because the Oh, good, amazing. Yes, I'm just going to ask them to kind of pop ours into their Amazon basket. Yes, add your 11 as well. Yeah, that's really important to us as well. Because every single book I'm like, oh, that sounds great. That sounds good. You know what I do think there is something like, if you're facing a big clutter clearing thing, there is something like, very energizing about reading about it. I think it's kind of a cheerleading it gives you little ideas, little tips. You'll see yourself in a story. I do think if you're feeling, if you're flagging, maybe have a big project, like you've got to clean out, like a big house because you're getting ready to sell it. Or you're feeling like, I put this off for a really long time because I don't want to deal with it, and now I really am going to try. I do think that there is something about reading along it just like will get it, just keeps you sort of engaged in the in the project of it. So that I find that people will often do it as kind of a it's like an energy booster. I And I'm not, do you? Do you all experience this like, I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I think that reading about clutter clearing is actually, really does help people stick to it. Have you seen that? Yeah, definitely. And I think the way that we've written the book, so it's sort of we have, like, the thinking and doing of decluttering. So we go into the emotional piece at the beginning of each chapter, and we go room by room, and then we do the doing at the end. And so there's a sort of step by step process through the emotional side of it and the doing. And I think it doesn't it means that that can be broken down into small, manageable chunks, which is really, really important. So yeah, definitely. And I think, I think the learning is arguably the hardest bit of it, or the most, you know, impactful part of it. And then once you get that nailed, you go in, you know, with the armor of knowing a little bit more than you did before you got reading. And then you can make much more progress that time, because you understand yourself a little bit better. So I think that's why the reading or listening to podcasts or any of those kind of things, yeah, are just so important. But and sometimes one idea can really unlock for you, like, for me, when I was getting rid of a lot of my children's things, like the idea that I could take a picture of something and hang on to it that way was really, really powerful. Like, we had this beautiful play kitchen. It's the best play kitchen I've ever seen. It was wooden. It was so not and I but it was big, you know? And I was like, What am I gonna do with this play kitchen? I live out an apartment in New York City, and I but I took pictures of it and that, and then I was like, that's all I need. I just need the memory of the play kitchen. I don't need the actual play kitchen. And what was so exciting about that is somebody that my husband worked with had like, three little girls, and they, they had a summer house, and so they came and they picked it up. And my husband get a text and some more, and we put in all the play food and the play spatulas and all this stuff, so they got the full all of it. And she said, I feel like I've been depriving my children their whole lives. They got up at 5am all three girls are playing play kitchen for, like, all day long. And I was like, it was so lovely to me. And I still, as you can hear, I get so much pleasure from thinking about that the play kitchen went on and was played with by these other children who got so much pleasure from it. We still have the photograph. I have every memory of, like, picking it out with my mother, and how my husband was so mad at me when he found out that he was going to have to, like, put it together and, you know, and all the fun that we had with it. But the photograph was all that I needed, and that is so freeing. But I think for a lot of people, that's a revelation. They're like, Oh, I could just take pictures of my children's favorite outfits, or I could just take pictures of this, like, giant clay sculpture. Yeah, you don't have to keep the thing. Sometimes you want to, but sometimes you don't. When we walk into a into a playroom or a bedroom, when we're working as professional organizers in this, like, play kitchen, and a tool bench and something else, and we're like, where's it all gonna like, as those things, the giant slide, big, you know what? I mean? Yeah, we thought about maybe that we could let anything go, because there's, like, a lot of stuff. But yeah, so when you let when you finally let go of the play kitchen, it's quite a big space saver. So.

40:00
So yeah, it is. We had a giant plastic slide in our in our kind of family space for a long time, and

40:08
it just felt like we got a whole new room in our apartment when it, when we got rid of it. So on that note, we can end play kitchen. Can go guys, yes.

40:18
So I've been there. I felt, I felt, I felt the the twangs in my heart, but there is that. But you'll get so much space left, and then you'll just have more room for, like, what's, what's happening in your life? Now, you know that's the important thing, is that you're making space for the future. Oh, English, English, gonna be sad now to say goodbye, yeah, I know this is so much fun. I enjoyed this conversation. I'm stalling. We could talk all day. This is such an energizing subject. I love it exactly. It's been an absolute pleasure and honor. So thank you so much for this inspiring chat.

40:57
Absolutely your insights and everything you have mentioned resonates so much with what we do here in the hub, and it's been such a pleasure to have you here as a guest in Ingrid and Lesley Go Global week. Yes, we'll definitely put the links to especially the Happiness Project and the secrets of adult book, your newest book, into the show notes. And, of course, listeners don't forget to check out our book as well, which came out officially yesterday in the US and Canada. So go to declutter hub.com forward slash book for all the details, or, as always, check the show notes. So thank you, Gretchen, for your time. Oh, thank you. I so enjoyed the conversation. You you.

41:43
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hub podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Episode 360 – Gretchen Rubin – The secret to happiness in a cluttered world

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