Happiness seriously needs to make a comeback in our lives. If your first reaction is to think negatively then you need to change this. It is a habit, a bad habit which can be changed.
We all have a running commentary of thoughts running in our heads; these can be positive and helpful or negative and unhelpful.
Negative thinking can lead to greater stress and a way of thinking about ourselves and our world which distorts how we really are.
Happiness is a skill which means we can all practise and improve it. So, here are
a few simple ways to help you put a smile on your face when you are feeling down and negative.

Time to get moving.
Any form of exercise has a fantastic effect on lifting your mood. A brisk walk, aerobics, dancing, the list is endless.

I will join in.
Getting together with a group is the single most useful thing we can do to increase our happiness. Social clubs, shared hobbies, voluntary organisations all help to bring us together with others. Years of friendship and a sense of belonging will be formed.

I will keep busy.
It's a universal law that the more goals we take on, the greater likelihood of success. Optimists involve themselves more in the world because they think their enthusiasm will pay off. This is exactly what happens. So learn to be more optimistic and reap the benefits.

I will move on.
DON'T DWELL ON THE PAST unless you are reminiscing on the good times. If you dwell on the negatives you are on the road to depression and this is best avoided by making it a no - go area and distracting yourself whenever it tries to intrude. Just say to yourself something like: 'I'm too busy today to feel down, go away'.Try it! It really does work and also works if you suffer from panic attacks. You can just tell your brain that you are far too busy for any such nonsense today.

Be more flexible.
Try to be flexible when planning future events and when you respond to situations. Things start to go pear shaped when we are stuck in our ways and closed off to new experiences.

Try to settle for good enough.
This is often the clever choice because it then leaves you free to spend valuable time thinking about the more important choices that you have to make in life.

There are many great reasons for having a yard sale. Some people have yard sales before they move so they don't have to pack and ship belongings they aren't using. Sometimes they are updating the look of their home and sell their old belongings to make money and room for the new ones. Sometimes your children just grow like weeds and rapidly outgrow both their clothes and their toys. It could also simply be the desire to purge all those items you've held onto for so long, thinking you'd find a use for them but never did. No matter what your reason, having a yard sale is a relatively easy goal to achieve and requires just a few hours of preparation and a few more hours actually selling your wares. You'll reap both financial and emotional rewards from it.

Decide on a date for your yard sale, then get to work surveying the items you have. When you're going through your house deciding what to sell, you'll have to be brutally honest with yourself. If you haven't used it, don't like it, don't see yourself using it or don't know of anyone personally who could benefit from it, then it's a yard sale item. Sort through every dresser and kitchen drawer, every clothes and linen closet, every cupboard and toy box you have in your house. Don't forget your basement, attic, pantry, entertainment center, buffet and outdoor tool shed as well. If an item belongs to a family member, don't make the decision for them. Get their input before placing an item in your yard sale box. Regardless of the time it takes to sort through all your items, make the commitment to stick with it and remind yourself on a continual basis the monetary profit and emotional relief you'll feel once your clutter has been cleared from your home.

Once the sale is over, make another commitment to yourself not to bring the unsold items back into your home. Make arrangements with your local rescue mission or charity thrift store to donate the items. Most will be happy to make arrangements to pick up large donations as well as provide you with a tax receipt reflecting your generous donation.

Once it's all said and done, you'll have some extra pocket change, and can breathe an emotional sigh of relief that the clutter that's been weighing you down for so long has been purged from your home. Renew your commitment to remain organized and to combat the clutter demon on a continual basis.

Kitchen or dining room tables can easily become a catch-all for everyone's belongings. Mail, school books, car keys, pens, pencils, and other miscellaneous items can quickly appear, and at dinnertime, end up in a large pile of clutter somewhere else in your household.

To curtail this habit, try organizing a central area for everyone's belongings right inside the door to your house. Install hooks on the wall so that purses, coats and backpacks can easily be hung upon entry. A bench or short shelf can be placed directly underneath the hanging area for clearly labeled catch-all bins for each member of the family. This will also help during the course of the day when picking up around the house. Items found around the house can be placed in these bins, and each family member should get into the habit of making sure items are emptied from the bins and properly put away each evening.

If your kitchen table doubles as an arts and crafts studio or location for your kids to do their homework, make sure that there are bins, shelves and containers nearby that neatly organize school, office and arts supplies, and keep them within easy reach. Help establish good habits in your children by ensuring they are held responsible for putting these things away as soon as they are done using them. Make sure snacks are kept on plates and drinks are kept on coasters to ease cleanup time.

A nicely decorated table spread is also an ingenious way to keep the table from becoming cluttered. Spread a nice tablecloth and place a large centerpiece on it, or even set four or six formal place settings on a dining room table that is not used for meals each evening. Your family will be less likely to lay things on these tables since they can see there are already things there. You'll also be ready for company at the last moment this way.

Our kitchens are easily the busiest room in our homes. From cooking and entertaining to a place for your kids to do their homework, play board games or work on their arts and crafts projects, it can be easily overrun with art supplies, outdated spices and unused or damaged utensils.

Go through your kitchen and discard anything you don't use, along with any food, spices or medicines kept in the kitchen that are beyond their expiration dates. Then take everything out of your cupboards and drawers, and wash the insides with warm soapy water. Rinse, let dry and replace cupboard and drawer liners with fresh, new ones.

Store pots, pans and cooking utensils near the stove, nesting the pots and pans together to conserve space. Make sure each one you choose to keep has a matching lid. This is also a good time to make sure handles are securely fastened, so keep a screwdriver handy to tighten down skillet handles or pot lids if necessary. Keep your dishes and silverware near your eating area or your dishwasher to shorten meal preparation or cleanup time. Plastic storage containers should be inventoried to ensure each has a matching lid and that they are free from cracks or other damage. Store them near your refrigerator to ease meal cleanup time.

Alphabetize your spices and keep them near the stove on a spice rack or in a nearby cupboard on a revolving rack. Store food items that you use on a daily in a place you can easily grab them when needed. Organize your pantry so that similar canned goods are in the same place and can be found easily when it's time to cook meals. Make sure your children an easily reach items they use on a regular basis, and make sure items such as knives, scissors, and household chemicals are out of reach and secured in a locked cabinet. Utilize airtight food storage containers to lengthen the shelf life of your foods.

If you have small appliances on your kitchen countertop that you don't use on a regular basis, remove them and store there in a nearby cupboard or pantry. A countertop storage cabinet for those appliances that are used on a regular basis keeps them out of site and helps reduce the countertop clutter.

Bathrooms seem to be notorious for becoming cluttered and unkempt. Between small makeup compacts, medicine bottles, hair accessories, razors and the like, it can be quite easy to lose things in the shuffle. Assess your bathroom and its contents and utilize a few simple ideas and you'll find more space and tranquility as a result.

First, take a good look at your medicine cabinets. Ironically, it's probably not a good idea to store medicine in your medicine cabinet, as most bathrooms become hot and humid during showers and baths, and can be detrimental to medication that requires being stored at room temperature. Don't keep medicines past their expiration date, even if you've never opened them or have used them very little. Try storing your medications on a high shelf in your linen closet with a lock-tight lid. This will help lengthen their shelf life as well as keep them out of reach of curious little hands.

The same should be done with old makeup. Generally speaking, most makeup will last about 18-24 months, with the exception of mascara, which lasts about three months, and liquid eyeliner, which lasts about three to six months. Nail polish generally only holds up for about a year, so if you have any older than that, get rid of them. And since many makeup products have animal-based ingredients, it's also important to pay attention to how they smell. If they smell like they've gone bad, they probably have, so toss them. Try using a permanent marker to mark the purchase date on the back of the item, so that way you won't have to try to remember just how long it's been since you purchased something.

If you take a look in your favorite discount store's home organization aisle, you'll find lots of inexpensive storage containers that can easily be utilized in bathroom drawers, under the sink, and for shower and bathtub areas as well. Since bathrooms are full of small things, they can easily be organized in small bins, baskets or boxes.

We're probably all guilty of having at least one junk drawer somewhere in our house. This is the drawer that started out as a helpful drawer that kept all the handy items in one place like tape, tacks, buttons, safety pins, and so forth in one central location, but turned into the drawer where other things manage to accumulate when people don't know where they go or don't feel like taking the time to put them away properly. Get this drawer (or drawers) back into useful mode again by using a few simple steps to bring things back under control.

First of all, in order to clean it out, you've got to empty it out. Remove everything. Place a piece of paper or tea towel down to protect your countertop or table surface, and literally dump the drawer on top if possible. Otherwise make sure all items are placed on this protected surface.

Once it's out of the drawer, it needs to be sorted. Group all similar items together, and if you can't determine what something is or if it's needed after consulting with others in your family, get rid of it. If there are things in this drawer belong in another location, be sure they are put away promptly. Clean the drawer completely and wipe dry. Afterwards, lay a fresh drawer liner or contact paper inside.

The next trick is devising a simple, workable organized system that everyone in the family can use. Ice cube trays, egg cartons, small boxes or even 35-mm film containers work well to store small things in. If you cannot see into it to determine its contents, make sure it's clearly labeled. Small plastic sandwich bags are ideal for organizing and storing rubber bands, thread, and string. If you store glues or other adhesives in this drawer, make sure they have lids that are secured. It might also be a good idea to get into the habit of storing them inside a plastic storage bag in order to avoid a mess down the road should the lid become unsecured in the shuffle or is not properly tightened after use.

Most importantly, encourage your family to keep the drawer organized and neat. If it's properly maintained, there should be no need to shuffle through the drawer looking for things, creating an even bigger mess to clean out yet again in a few months.

The home office has slowly become the foundation of the modern day household. We pay the bills, organize recipe files and photo albums and develop calendars and schedules on our computers, and some of us make a living from here. With so many different activities happening here, it's easy to see how it can easily become the most disorganized and unkempt area of the home. A clean organized desk and home office can save time, stress and even money if we work from home. So if you're feeling overwhelmed by your messy desk and disorganized office, take a good hard look and see what's overwhelming your order the most.

Mail is probably the biggest contributing factor to our messy desktops. Get in the habit of dealing with your mail daily. Toss what you can, place those things that need to be shredded into a shredding bin and shred them once per week, and file the rest away properly. This might also be the time to update your filing system and make folders for current years or months.

Another culprit of office clutter is computer storage media such as CDs, DVDs and floppy disks. Ensure each is properly labeled and placed in a protective file or case. Categorize and alphabetize them for easy access.

If you have an office area that is commonly used by all family members, it can easily become cluttered with glasses, coffee cups, food wrappers and dirty dishes. Since computer equipment can easily be damaged should something spill on it, it's probably wise to impose a rule forbidding eating and drinking while using the computer. This would lessen the clutter at the same time. If you spend a considerable amount of time during the day in your office and your office space is large enough, provide for an area far from the computer and other electronic equipment where food and drink can be set without the fear of ruining equipment should a spill occur.

If you utilize a bulletin board, make sure all the items posted on it are current. If not, take them down and file away or toss. Make sure your calendar is always displaying the current month so you can see the month's activities and appointments in an easy glance.

Office supplies have a way of easily cluttering up our workspace as well. Clean out and organize desk drawers if necessary and make sure all office supplies have a home other than the top of your desk.

With some forethought, planning and discipline, your home office can become and stay productive, efficient and serene.

You've conquered your house, your home office, and your car, and you've mastered the art of scheduling and cooking in bulk. But your garage is still a cluttered and unorganized mess. As with everything else, a neat and organized garage is attainable with just a little elbow grease and some simple storage solutions.

First, get a handle on the mess by moving everything out to sort through what goes and what stays.

Large, clear plastic containers can help you do this. They're great for clearing away the clutter and then using for storage. Be ruthless with yourself during the sorting and purging process. Don't keep paint from a project from two years ago, and if you have parts to things you no longer have, get rid of the parts as well.

Consider adding a cabinet to your garage. Look for units that offer keyed locks, so you're able to store poisonous materials and sharp tools out of children's reach.

The garage is also where most of your kid's sporting goods land. To keep bats and balls organized, purchase a hamper-style organizer. Designate a section for each child. Add a bin or shelf outside to store messy, muddy shoes as well.

Find a workable storage solution for all the little things in your garage. Organize bolts, screws, nails, fasteners and other small parts into small clear containers so you can easily see what each contains. Organize into steady stacks or consider installing a shelving unit to house these out of the reach of small and curious fingers.

For long-handled items, such as rakes and shovels, look for storage units to keep everything straight or use a durable rubber trash can. Pegboards can also be installed on garage walls, and can be a simple solution for hanging items such as rakes or shovels out of the way. They can also be hung on hooks. Inexpensive hooks come in a variety of sizes. Large deep hooks are perfect for hanging a ladder and bikes can be hung and kept off the garage floor as well.

Now that you've practiced on your house, your office and your car, organizing your garage is a snap with a little creativity, some hard work, and a well thought out plan.