Decluttering at the Speed of Life

This book introduced a few key mindset shifts that are actually changing my life.

If you heard about Marie Kondo and felt an avalanche of overwhelm at the prospect of ripping everything out of a drawer and then having to contemplate each individual item's joy-inflammation level, this might be for you.

KEY CONCEPTS:

1.) You can declutter WITHOUT pulling everything out of a drawer/closet/etc. Previously I thought decluttering was a choice between a death-march approach (Pull everything out, get it all organized, and put it all away in one go), or being interrupted/worn out mid-stream and winding up with a bigger mess than ever.

This book has practical (physics-based!) instructions on decluttering without ever pulling out the whole contents of a container. That way you always made forward progress, rather than making things worse. And you can make progress in five minutes if that's all you have.

2.) Things should be stored where you think to look for them. Shockingly simple, right? But how many times have you tried to organize by putting things in a “logical” or “proper” place instead? (Bonus: if it would never occur to you to look for an item in your house, don't keep it in your house at all!)

3.) Don't decide whether to keep things on the basis of “it's perfectly useful” or “I might use it someday.” Decide based on the capacity of your container and the relative value of the thing.

E.g., I want my whisks to live in the drawer by the stove (because that's where I look when I need a whisk). If I go to put a whisk in there and there's no room, I don't contemplate the inherent worth of each item in the drawer - I just need to decide if the whisk is worth more than, say, the two extra measuring cup sets I have in there that would make room for the whisk, and get rid of the lower-value item by donating it.

3.b.) Have a donate box/bag that is itself donatable, so you don't have to empty it and go through things an additional time when it's time to hit Goodwill.

That's really it! The rest of the book is some fine details, a bit of helpful empathy for people who don't come to this “clutter free” thing naturally, and some useful repetitions of the specific steps to take in each area of your home or in specific circumstances.

I loved this book, and it's already been so helpful! The audio version is delightful - you can even use it to step you through actually working on a room/closet/drawer/box.