Real Simple - not just for yuppies

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a magazine junkie, in part because I work in PR but also because buying, reading and recycling magazines make me happy (in that order). Some personal favorites include Texas Monthly, Women's Health, Cooking Light, US Weekly, Allure and Glamour. Since Real Simple's first issue published in 2000, I've been a total skeptic. First of all, I didn't need a magazine to tell me how to be organized, clean or simple (I can do it on my own!). Secondly, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford installing California Closets and Elfa systems in order to live a less chaotic life. Third, I didn't want to have to read a magazine that told me I needed to toss notebooks from freshman year or that it was time to upgrade from my great granny's brown, yellow and orange afghan...basically, I thought the magazine was for yuppies and wannabes who were trying to hide real world insecurities with pretty decorations, fancy wrought iron wall-art and high-end furniture...until last month.

BT, La, PJP and I were driving around Dallas a few weeks back - the girls were discussing a recent Real Simple article. I tuned out thinking it was a conversation about something I wasn't interested in so I just admired the trees along the road (we don't have a lot of trees in Oakland). I was eventually brought in to the conversation when La asked me if I was a satificer or a maximizer. Questions like this are usually really easy for me to answer, I know myself well enough to answer this or that questions with ease and confidence. But it wasn't as if she'd asked me if I were an R or a D...and honestly, I thought she'd mispronounced "satisficer" (she didn't). I had no idea what she was talking about or how to answer the question. The girls did a great job providing definitions and examples which helped me immediately identify that I'm a saticifcer. So what exactly are satisficers and maximizers?

Real Simple's Gretchen Rubin explains it like this:

There are two types of decision makers. Satisficers (yes, satisficers) make a decision once their criteria are met. When they find the hotel or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied. Maximizers want to make the best possible decision. Even if they see a bicycle or a backpack that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option. Satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers expend more time and energy reaching decisions, and they’re often anxious about their choices. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

I was totally intrigued by the topic and started to mentally run through a list all of my friends and family members trying to decipher what everyone is...this is when it dawned on me that maybe there were other good articles in the magazine. I came back to the office on Monday and flipped through the copy I had on my desk and was really, truly and amazingly surprised by the content, topics, editorial - I loved it. And after some more thought, it made perfect sense; happiness leads to simplicity and vice versa.

So here I am now, reading Real Simple with regretful eyes wondering what I've been missing over the past eight years.

More on Maximizers and Satificers soon but in the meantime, which one are you? DC, we ALL know which one you are.....