Outer Order, Inner Calm

Gretchen Rubin, who also wrote The Happiness Project, turns her attention here to the clutter that builds up in homes, desks and closets. Her starting point is that a tidier space can make daily life happier, healthier, more productive and more creative, and that the payoff is a kind of quiet in the mind as well as on the shelf.

Rubin does not believe in a single method that suits everybody. Her approach is to look at your own habits, quirks and trouble spots and build a system around them, rather than forcing yourself into someone else's rules. She keeps her expectations grounded in what ordinary people can actually manage, and she writes with a light touch.

The book is an illustrated collection of dozens of short, practical suggestions. Some are blunt rules of thumb: don't label anything "miscellaneous," don't make minimalism your goal, and remember that something you can't retrieve is something you won't use. Others are questions to put to yourself, such as whether you really need more than one of an item. She also covers keeping up with a child's changing interests and watching out for "procrasticlearing," her term for tidying as a way to dodge the task you should be doing.

The underlying idea is simple. When you let go of what you don't use, need or love, you make room, on your shelves and in your head, for the things that matter most to you.