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I strive to be a fair, loving wife, I then allowed him to read this: “For others, a surfeit of stuff offers security, memories, and even pride.” I’m still waiting to hear his explanation for how leaving the cap off the toothpaste makes him feel secure and proud. You probably know that 2016 is a leap year, so this February we get a bonus day! Rather than spending it fuming over the small (and, yes, super irritating, distracting, and confounding) stuff, I think we neat freaks should all agree to reconcile our differences with messy loved ones and relax a bit. First use the expert advice in Jancee’s story to calm your nerves (without surrendering your principles). Then look for the lightbulbs (like the one on the right) throughout the issue for smart, time-saving tips to help you seize the day… by clearing your schedule.
FEBRUARY 2016
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REALSIMPLE.COM
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T TAKES a certain kind of neat freak—and I use that term affectionately—to work at Real Simple. (Note to staff: Let’s agree to overlook the current state of my office. I swear there is an organized person hiding in there somewhere.) During the regular course of business, we can have long, lively conversations, as we did yesterday, about husbands who don’t put the cap on the toothpaste and college roommates who don’t put the cap on lipstick and otherwise lovely and well-adjusted colleagues who don’t put the cap back on the seltzer bottle tight enough. Mundane? Definitely. But we at Real Simple know that whether a husband puts the cap back on the toothpaste often has a disproportionately big impact on our day-today. Because a toothpaste cap left lying next to the tube leads to a feeling, and that feeling might be that your whole life is out of control. If you are reading this magazine, chances are you know the feeling I describe. And chances are, you will love Jancee Dunn’s “How to Live With a Messy Person and Not Go Insane” (page 126). I read it while I was sitting next to my husband, and I forced him to read this passage: “Scientific research has shown that a cluttered home can disrupt a person’s level of cortisol.” And because
