Comment: "It's All Too Much" is just right.

So I’ve spent about ten days, plus or minus, working with the book I threatened to buy, did buy and subsequently read.

In a nutshell, and as a recap, Peter Walsh’s premise is: only keep in your house things that you either use, or are beautiful. I’m paraphrasing him, and he’s paraphrasing William Morris, apparently.

It’s good advice.

There was so much clutter in my house that I had just stopped noticing it. A small fan has been lying on the floor, LYING prone, on the floor, since summer. Have I moved it? Put it away somewhere reasonable since it’s now January? (Actually, as of today, yes. In late January, I put the fan away. A minor miracle, to be sure.) And that’s just one example.

The book also talks about how you should just get rid of something that you haven’t used in a year. Sensible. Not as easy as it sounds, though.

There are plans of attack for each room; essentially you make a worksheet and get your family members to sign off on it. (not gonna happen yet at my house, but a good idea, especially as members get more and more literate and opinionated).

The other wonderful point Walsh makes is that mementos or souvenir tchotkes are not the memories themselves. If you really don’t like the salt and pepper shaker collection your Aunt Gladys gave you, then give it to someone who will enjoy it, or sell it on Ebay. In other cases, you’ll have things you don’t want to keep but can’t bear to part with, so Walsh suggests taking a photo of it and then chucking it. This seems especially appropriate given the mega tons of artwork that come home from the kids’ schools.

Anyway, what I’ve noticed these last couple of weeks is that with the initial purging of crap, which is the phase I’ve completed, it is actually a lot easier to clean up the house. It’s quicker, too. It’s sort of a big duh, really; I mean, less stuff=less mess.

It reminded me of the time my husband and I lived in Northern England. We had just about no money except what paid for rent and basic foodstuffs in our swanky and over-priced flat. We had to find a month-to-month lease, so we found something out of our price range, but it was the only thing we could find.

And of course, since we traveled overseas with very little of our personal belongings, and the apartment was sparsely furnished to begin with, we really had no problems keeping it neat and tidy. We couldn’t afford to fill it with stuff, and most of our stuff was back in the States. Less stuff truly equalled less stress, although once my husband and I had a quarrel over a the potential purchase of a soap dish. (we were really strapped)

So for four months, I didn’t have the vast majority of my clothing, mementos, books, music, and beloved Chuck Taylors. And guess what? I didn’t miss any of it. (Well, actually that’s not true; I missed my burgundy velour leggings. Shut up, it was 1997 and I was skinny.)

The take-home here, people, is truly that less is more. My next challenge? Going through my mementos and grad school papers…I will let you know how that goes, as it’s most definitely harder than getting rid of clothes you hate and crap you never use. So stay tuned. And please comment; I think I just figured out how to make your comment experience easier.