Hello and welcome to Happier, as the Partridge family would say, come on, get happy.

This week we'll talk about a super basic strategy for fighting clutter and the happiness

stumbling block of impulse buying.

I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer whose studies happiness, good habits, and human nature.

I'm in New York City and with me is my sister Elizabeth Kraft, who I thought would be here

in the studio in New York City with me today, but alas, she's not.

My trip was canceled.

As often happens in television, things changed and it turned out it was more important for

me to be in LA working here than to be in New York working there.

So although I didn't have to deal with the airport, which is always nice, I also did

not get to see you and Henry in the studio today.

I know.

That's too bad, but we will carry on anyway.

This week I tried this at home tip is a very simple tip, but it's surprisingly powerful

I've found in my own life.

And that is to take one thing with you.

What does that mean, Gretchen?

I got this tip from a good friend of mine because she knows that I am on this constant quest

for any tips for how to keep on top of clutter because clearing clutter is just one of these

things that you have to constantly.

I'm always looking for the new angle and so she proposed this for me and I tried it and

it really works, which is whenever you're going from one room to another, you take one thing

...