De-Cluttering: Can It Bring Happiness?

In her New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin starts her year-long Happiness Project with a focus on vitality and a plan to boost her energy.  One of the things she tackels is her clutter, noting that "Household disorder was a constant drain" as well as acknowledging the "psychic clutter of loose ends".  She proposes 8 types of clutter she finds daily in her life.  How many sound familiar?

nostalgic clutter - relics from an earlier life

conservation clutter - useful things that are useless to you

bargain clutter - unnecessary things "but they're on sale!"

freebie clutter - gifts, hand-me-downs, and giveaways

crutch clutter - things we use but really shouldn't (we all have tee-shirts like this)

aspirational clutter - for all those things we'll get to someday - yeah, right!

outgrown clutter - those things that were useful once upon a time but not anymore

and my favorite

buyer's remorse clutter - really, do you feel less guilty if it's stuck in the back of a closet?

I think these are awesome ways of thinking about the clutter we accumulate. I've got all of these - how about you?