On March 31st, I wrote a post about A Complaint Free World, a movement started by Rev. Will Bowen. People complain 15-30 times a day on average, but this complaining really doesn’t do any good. And Bowen has a simple idea for fixing it.

Just put on one of his purple bracelets. If you ever complain, switch it to the other wrist. When you keep it on the same wrist for 21 days in a row, you’ve established a habit of not complaining, and life is better.

A couple days ago, Will Bowen found my blog, I guess through a Google search (I’m currently #24 for “a complaint free world”). Someone from his organization emailed and called me, saying they wanted to send me a copy of their book, as well as the bracelets I requested a while back but haven’t received yet. Not that I’m complaining! But their all-volunteer staff is really backed up, and they’ve had problems with fraudulent requests and so forth. I’ve been using a bracelet that I got from alternate productivity superdude Clay Collins.

What makes this even better is the timing. When they contacted me, I had just completed the 21 day challenge 4 days earlier. So they offered to send me a complaint free t-shirt, and reminded me that I could have my name added to the list of 21 Day Complaint Free Champions.

It took me 5 months to go for 21 consecutive days without complaining, which is within the typical range of 4-10 months. Rev. Will Bowen took three and a half months to finish, and Tim Ferriss took three months (not sure why, the guy only works 4 hours a week). I showed very gradual progress, taking a week to make it one day without complaining, and taking maybe three months to make it a week without complaining.

What I noticed early on is that I felt very vulnerable when I didn’t allow myself to complain, like I had deprived myself of an essential means of defense. When talking to people, I felt like I had to be very careful not to say what was on my mind, and just take whatever they said without reacting much. But this feeling faded pretty fast.

The day after I started, I found that someone who had done something for me made a mistake that really needed to be fixed. I didn’t know what to do. Did I have to just accept what they had done, and live with the innocent but awful mistake? I checked the website for a loophole.

Fortunately, the website said you’re allowed to inform someone of a mistake that needs to be corrected. You just can’t get all emotional about it. So with that in mind, I found that complaining, as they define it, really wasn’t the necessary part of life that we make it out to be. I considered myself to be a low-volume complainer when I started, but I was surprised to see how much I complained without noticing. And I’ve noticed that a lot of people pick some really stupid things to complain about.

I’ve come a long way, but I’m certainly not perfect about not complaining. They say that complaints don’t count if you keep them in your head, and I’ve needed to use that technicality to make it for 21 days. I still complain in my head more than I’d like to, so I’m still working on that. But I was really surprised that I managed to not complain out loud when I upgraded to WordPress 2.6 and couldn’t log in to my blog.

So far, I only know for sure of one person who I’ve gotten to wear the bracelet. He’s been inconsistent with wearing it, and ironically, he’s been complaining that the bracelet isn’t comfortable. But he’s trying, and that’s really the point. Just make an effort, and you’ll get there eventually.

Are you complaint free? If not, what’s stopping you?

Six months ago, I heard about A Complaint Free World, a movement started by Rev. Will Bowen of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City, Missouri. It turns out that most people complain 15-30 times a day, which fills us with a lot of negative energy for no reason. Bowen’s church is taking on the problem by distributing purple complaint free bracelets like the one above.

Some scientists believe that it takes a minimum of 21 days to form a habit, so the idea is to go for 21 days without complaining. You put the bracelet on and start counting the days. Whenever you complain, gossip, or criticize, you move the bracelet to the other wrist, and start again at day 0. It usually takes people 4-10 months to go for 21 days without complaining, but then they find their lives more enjoyable.

The Complaint Free FAQ defines complaining as “expressing pain, grief, or discontent,” and says that thinking a complaint doesn’t count if you don’t say it. But another page says that complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a deficiency or a mistake so that it can be put right, and not complaining doesn’t mean putting up with bad quality or behavior. You can see how the rules are a bit vague.

I first heard about this from Tim Ferriss, who took 3 months to make it to 21 days in a row without complaining. Since he believes in constructive criticism, his definition of complaining is “describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem.”

The bracelets used to be free, and they just asked for donations from those who were able to pay. But they ran into many problems: postage costs nearly doubling, duplicate requests (because they were so backed up and people were impatient), very large requests without donations (thousands of people requested 10,000, 25,000, and even 250,000 bracelets without a donation), and fraudulent requests that wasted postage (one person wrote that he wanted to “see if you are stupid enough to send them”). When that happened, they discarded all open requests and asked people to request them again, with a limit of 3 bracelets per request (though larger quantities could be purchased). Now you can order 2 free bracelets (with $0.75 shipping), or you can buy 5 for $5.

I ordered 3 for my family in September, and then re-ordered them when asked to, but they haven’t arrived yet (not that I’m complaining). However, when I first found Clay Collins at The Growing Life, I noticed he was wearing a purple bracelet in his picture. I asked him about it, and he was generous enough to send me one of his extra bracelets! (Now don’t go flooding him with requests, because he probably doesn’t have any more.)

I started wearing the bracelet a week ago, and the results have been…well, I can’t finish that without complaining. I’ve had to switch the bracelet several times per day. Only once have I gone for 24 hours without complaining, and that was on the weekend. I’m very surprised by this, because I don’t think of myself as a complainer. But I see that I make a lot of mini-complaints, like telling my computer to hurry up when it freezes just trying to open Notepad.

I’m still early in the trial though, and I’m bound to get better. Even Rev. Bowen himself took three and a half months to finish 21 days. I’ll post an update when I finish, but don’t expect that anytime soon.

You can order your bracelets from A Complaint Free World right now, and simply use a rubber band until they arrive. A rubber band may not be glamorous, but it’s not like the bracelets emit some kind of anti-complaint radiation. And if you notice someone else complaining, you can tell them to switch their bracelet, but the rules specifically say that means you have to switch yours. Let me know if you’re able to complete this challenge for a complaint free world.