Synopsis:
Techniques and strategies for freeing your life from clutter.

Review:
I am a bit obsessed with decluttering (and hoarding, too, which I guess makes sense) so I knew I just had to read Organized Simplicity. I have become a huge fan of Tsh’s blog and podcast and at this point I think I will basically read anything she writes!

We live in an apartment and don’t really have a ton of space. Basically, if we own it, we are looking at it. I didn’t used to be bothered by clutter, but the older I get the more I just want stuff out of my sight. I’ve always been a neat desk person, and pretty compulsive about having everything in its right place. But I had trouble letting stuff go. When my husband and I were first married we had hundreds of VHS tapes, mine from when I worked at a video store, and his from when he used to tape movies off of cable, plus hundreds of DVDs and thousands of CDs. The first step was to get a cabinet to hold all our DVDs and CDs. Boxes and jewel cases, begone! Everything went into plastic sleeves and into the cabinet. And then I got ruthless about the VHS tapes and got rid of all of them except for the 8 that were for kids, that I’d been saving for my future children.

The last time we moved I got rid of most of my books, primarily after pondering on Umberto Eco’s notion of a good library. I only kept books that were useful for reference (cookbooks, knitting books, my lactation textbooks, etc), and books that I want my daughters to read someday. Now that I have and love my Kindle I can still hoard fiction books that aren’t worthy of a perma-library, but if I think a book will be one I want to share with my family, I’ll still buy the physical version.

My big want right now is a cabinet with doors where I can stash homeschool stuff & craft supplies, and another large wardrobe with doors to hide the TV. The first one my husband is on board with, the second he is not, because he says it will dwarf our small living room. He’s right about that. I think.