The second week of November is “Pursuit of Happiness Week.” Pursuing happiness may have been much simpler back when the Founding Fathers were writing about  “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  Although life was tough for many of them, options often limited.

Now we have so many choices we feel constantly stressed, pulled in multiple directions.  Our time management skills often fail as we try to cram more into our schedules, and our natural organizing abilities get buried under heaps of accumulated clutter.

We have a general idea of what makes us happy, and it’s rarely money or fame.  A winning strategy to being content with our lives is to focus on our needs rather than our wants. When we have what we need and recognize how fortunate we are,  we have a good chance of being happy.  If we are never satisfied with what we have and always want more, we may not take the time to reflect on how good life is already.  I believe in delaying gratification when you are working toward something worthwhile, but happiness should not be shunted aside for too long during the process.

Today, our life seems determined to keep the pursuit of happiness on a back burner. It’s not easy to finish our ToDo lists, overcome pesky self-defeating behaviors, improve the balance of our work and personal lives, or reduce stress.

So how do we deal with the daily pressures and demands, or opportunities and challenges? What can we do to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative,” as the old Broadway show tune suggested?

In two words–Get Organized! There should be some time each day when we are truly happy, however hard it may be hard to stop and enjoy moments of happiness. Being organized gives you the chance to pause.  Nobody gets pleasure from wasting valuable minutes or hours looking for lost documents or contact information, researching something for the second or third time, calling somebody to confirm information we already have somewhere, or straightening up the mess on our desks yet again.

The founding fathers would probably understand the feeling of independence that comes with meeting more deadlines when we’re working more efficiently, quickly locating material that’s related to a key project, or being motivated more by priorities and less by emergencies.

I urge all my clients to build into their daily schedule, however full it is, something that makes them happy.  Happiness should be one of your priorities.  Hope it’s a successfully happy week for you!