Melanie’s life was shrinking like a cheap blouse in an overheated dryer. At 30 she’d developed a fear of flying that ended her dream of world travel. Within a year, her phobia had grown to include—or rather, exclude—driving. After the World Trade Center attacks, Melanie became terrified to enter the downtown area of any city. She quit her job as an office manager (the potential for mail-based terrorism was too big) and called me hoping I could help her devise a way of earning money from home. “Everybody tells me my fears aren’t realistic,” she said. “But I think [...]

Last month I promised to tell you results of my experiment in Radical Fun. This month I will be somewhat cryptic, because although things are in process, they are not yet signed, sealed, and delivered. I will say however, that even the pursuit of these radically fun ideas has, itself, been radically fun.

This has led me to think—a rare but thrilling experience for me—and my thoughts are that as I wait for things to be signed, sealed, and delivered, I have the capacity to derive immense enjoyment from the challenge of creating in form what I have pictured in [...]

I’m one of those people who gradually accumulate possessions until their living spaces begin to feel stuffed up. Folks like me sustain an ongoing attempt to spring clean, but something in us always protests. It makes us cling to possessions we don’t need, hesitate before discarding things, and set discouragingly ambitious rules about how de-cluttering should happen. If you’re one of us, perhaps you should consult a doctor. Happily, I’m sort of a doctor (I have a PhD), and through extensive experimentation (cleaning my own house), I’ve arrived at a simple, effective clutter cure I call “Walk-Out Therapy.” It [...]