It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh

An easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff

Pages: 230

Genre: organizing

Synopsis

When you think of what it will take to clean your house, are you so overwhelmed you throw up your hands and cry “It’s all too much”? Do you dream of having a closet where your clothes aren’t crammed in so tightly that you can actually get to them? Is your basement filled with boxes of precious family mementos you haven’t opened in ten years but are too afraid to toss? Are your kitchen counters overrun with appliances you’ve never used? Do your kids play in the living room because there’s no room left in their playroom? If somewhere along the way you’ve simply lost the ability to keep your home organized and clutter-free, then It’s All Too Much has the solution you’ve been searching for.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: three

I heard somewhere that this book was the more practical over “spiritual” approach to organizing in comparison to the popular tidying and organizing book by Marie Kondo. That sounded like what I needed, but I think I’ll pick up her book too, to see if there is more advice.

Because this book had some good tips, the problem is that it’s not 230 PAGES of it. It got quite boring, saying the same thing over and over. Also personally, considering I don’t have a family to take care of, what I needed from this book could’ve been summed up in an article.

So if you’re a single young person, without a household and family to consider, here’s probably all you need from this book:

• Imagine the life you want, physically and emotionally, and consider if the items you own contribute to that future?
• How do you feel and compare it to how you want to feel when entering your home. What function do you want each room to have? Organize from that perspective
• “Ask yourself these questions as you encounter each piece of clutter: Do I use this? How long has it been since I’ve used it? Will I use it again? Is it worth the space it takes up in my house?
• If you’re tempted to keep something because it’s expensive, remind yourself of the difference of value and cost – how much space and energy does it take up and is it worth it?
• When trying to encourage another person to organize, change the questions to about their feeling attached to the object. Like “Why is this important to you? What does this item remind you of? What do you feel after spending time in this room?”