I picked up this book after seeing it recommended on Cool Tools. I really liked it. I'm a pretty organized person to begin with, and I like organizing books so I read them for more ideas. But there was still good stuff in here. (Some of my previous favorites: Getting Things Done by David Allen, and Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern.)The two biggest ideas for me: 1) The amount of space you have to store stuff dictates how much stuff you can have. So, if you have 1 shelf for DVDs, and you have more than 1 shelf's worth, you need to get rid of some, rather than find more space for DVDs. 2) You don't have to hold onto a thing in order to keep the memories. Plus I found his tone really inspirational. I have been cleaning like mad.
It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff
Peter Walsh
2006
Available from Amazon
1 comment:
Hi Sylvan, I recently read this book based on your recommendation. I also really liked Getting Things Done.
One of the things that impressed me was how "mundane" many of his suggestions were, such as that the amount of space you have dictates how much stuff you can store. Nothing ground breaking here, however, he managed to present this and other ideas in a way that really did make them actionable. I liked his concept of figuring out what you want to use space for and then really ensuring that the stuff that you have in that space really support that usage. I also found his comments about sentimental items very useful, specifically that if they are so important then they should be prominently displayed in your living space and if they are buried away in some box that you can't even find when you want it, then it probably isn't quite as central to your current live as you may think.
I have also been starting a major house cleanup, based on this model. It is a lot of work but I have found that I have been able to get rid of a tremendous amount of stuff.
Thanks for the review!
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