Today is important. Today is the only day you’ve got that has some reality to it. Why shouldn’t you treat it as important? It is. So dress like it matters. And no, I don’t mean in the way my mother always used to tell me, ‘Make sure you’ve got clean underwear on; you never know when you’ll get run over by a bus’. I loved this as a kid. I couldn’t see how important clean underwear would really be when you were lying there in the road. And I used to imagine how, if they got you to the hospital in time and stripped away your torn and blood-soaked trousers, they’d look down and gasp in horror, ‘Don’t look! This kid has got yesterday’s pants on – get him out of here’.

Look, a lot of these Rules are about conscious choice, conscious decisions, conscious awareness. Those I have observed who seem to have got a handle on this thing called life are conscious people. They are awake and aware. They know what they are doing and where they are going. If you too want your life to be more than a set of random events that happen to you and instead make it a series of stimulating challenges and rewarding and enriching experiences, then you too have to be conscious.

And you do this by greeting each day as if it is important. You get up and shower/wash/shave/put on make-up/comb hair/clean teeth etc. and basically do all those things to make you look good, feel good, smell good. And then you dress smartly, cleanly, snappily, stylishly, as if you were going to a job interview or a birthday party or on an outing. If you dress for each day expectantly, importantly, smartly, then each day will become that.

People will react differently to you if you dress as if it matters – and you’ll react differently to that different reaction. It’s an upward spiral. I have to stress we’re not talking formal here, you don’t have to be buttoned up and uncomfortable. Just dress as if it matters.

But what about weekends, I hear you ask, surely we can relax then? Of course, but it doesn’t mean you should let yourself go. At weekends you’re going to see friends and/or family (unless you spend every weekend totally alone) and they too deserve to see you looking good, and as if they matter. Hey, not even your friends want to see you slovenly, dishevelled, untidy, uncared for. But this bit is really about you. If you greet each day as if it is important, then it will do wonders to your self-esteem, your self-respect, your self-confidence.

But, hey, I don’t want you taking anything on trust. Try this and see what happens. If you don’t perk up and feel completely different within a fortnight, then go back to your old ways and to hell with this Rule. But I can guarantee you’ll feel great and face each day livelier and more energetic and happier.

If you adopt the conscious approach to living, you’ll find it quite hard to consciously dress down.