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I have been inspired by one of the guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show. There have been a couple of episodes about de-cluttering your home and the organizer from Clean Sweep has appeared on Oprah (he was just on the other day but I think it was a repeat). Anyway, Peter Walsh is his name and he wrote the book “It’s All Too Much.” I bought the book about a month ago and because life can be hectic (and the weather wasn’t great) I kind of forgot about it until about a week ago.
One thing that he mentions that really stood out for me was “if you haven’t used it in the last 12 months, it should probably go.”
I immediately came up with a million arguments to that statement in my head – what about Christmas stuff? What about birthday decorations? Etc… The truth is, no matter what time of year it is, 12 months takes you back to whatever time, event or holiday you can think of. It just sounded bad to me but that was my defensiveness, not my brain, thinking.
That one sentence made the past week a lot easier. I stopped hesitating when I saw jeans that I thought I might fit into again someday or the cologne my husband was given a few years ago that he kept just because it was a gift. All of these things were preventing us from living in today. We were living in memories while we were thinking of the future but we weren’t really thinking about just today.
One thing that worked for things that weren’t super sentimental (that stuff stayed) but that I no longer needed was to take a picture of it and then throw it away. After all, I was only keeping certain things so that I could look at them, not actually use them, and why is that so much different than looking at a picture? It isn’t.
So, we’re halfway through the process and our house is a disaster but it’s incredible to see how much stuff really is tucked away and how much of it is just completely unnecessary. We’ve got a goal of reducing our possessions by 40%. Wish us luck!
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Tags: oprah, oprah peter walsh, peter walsh, peter walsh it’s all too much, oprah declutter
I agree, and it works..My mother who use to keep everything as trown away so much stuff I can’t beleive it. My son has done the same thing and he screams everyday he walks into his room, “MOM I love my room” I then said just don’t throw out stuff I gave you.