Books I love - It's All Too Much

As we've been going through, organizing, and getting rid of stuff for this move, I've been rereading one of my favorite books - It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh. It's helped me get rid of a ton of extra stuff we don't really need. I first read this book a couple years ago, and have reread it several times since. I love it.

Peter Walsh, the author, is a professional organizer. He used to be on the TLC show Clean Sweep. Did you ever watch that show? It was one of me and Alyse's favorites.  They would come help people deeply declutter their houses. Not hoarders - just normal people whose houses had normal stuff in them. They'd pull everything out and sort everything into three piles: trash, yard sale, and keep. A lot more stuff went into the yard sale and trash piles than into the keep pile. And at the end of the show, you'd get to see the nice, new, decluttered rooms. It was super satisfying.

In It's All Too Much, Walsh helps you do the same thing with your own stuff. He doesn't just tell you how to organize. He helps you understand your relationship to each of the things you own, and helps you overcome all of the excuses you have for holding on to unnecessary things. He helps you own your stuff, rather than your stuff owning you.

Each time I've read this book, I've been so motivated afterwards and been able to get rid of a lot of stuff that had built up over the years.  And each time I've used the advice from the book to really purge our house of unnecessary stuff, I've felt so good afterwards and like a literal weight has been lifted off my shoulders. With all that unnecessary stuff gone, I feel lighter and freer.

I really recommend this book, especially if you have any kind of cleaning/organization inkling right now. It's amazingly helpful.