Ruly Bookshelf: It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh

When it comes to organizational techniques, there are many perspectives.  Each month, I will review a book that challenged my thinking about organization and will hopefully challenge you as well.

“It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff” by Peter Walsh is an organizing classic.  First published in 2006, Mr. Walsh attacked our consumerism culture, the supersized homes and cars and the need for acquiring more and more objects of status and desire.  Revisiting this work in the light of today’s new economic reality, I think many will find Mr. Walsh’s words to ring especially true and they might even be comforting to those who are now forced to make do with less.

There are two general approaches to organization.  One is to “create homes” for all of the existing objects and the other is to minimize, streamline and create homes for what is left.  Nearly all professional organizers are in the second camp and so is Mr. Walsh.  His organizational strategy can be summed up in four words: “get rid of it.”

Getting rid of possessions is difficult and an emotional minefield.  Some possessions might be so infused with memories of loved ones that throwing away the object seems akin to rejecting the person it is associated with or forgetting the memories.   Disposing of other objects might force us to admit that we made a mistake and wasted money purchasing something that doesn’t fit our needs.  Mr. Walsh goes through the top 10 excuses he hears from clients about why they can’t part with an item, including, “I might need it one day.” and “I don’t have the time [to go through all this stuff].”

Mr. Walsh wants you to define a purpose for each space in your home and then be ruthless about only putting stuff in each space that expressly supports the purpose of the space.  He then goes room-by-room to give specific suggestions and examples for the Master Bedroom, Kids’ Rooms, Family and Living Rooms, the Home Office, Kitchen,  Dining Room, Bathroom, and “Garage, Basement and Other Storerooms.”  He provides a maintenance plan and suggestions for how to extend his streamlined approach to organizing to other facets of your life such as your health and relationships.

This book is especially for those who have too many things or who have trouble parting with anything.  Even if you are committed to retaining every item you currently own and can’t bear the thought of getting rid of anything, reading Mr. Walsh’s book might change your perspective about how you think about “stuff” in general.

Two passages in particular that have stayed with me from this book are:

“When clutter is sentimental, you need to figure out two things: first, how to separate the memory from the item and second, how to preserve the memory in a way that honors and respects it.”

“When it comes down to it, there is only one simple rule when dealing with books: If they don’t fit on your shelves, they shouldn’t be in your home.”

Mr. Walsh sometimes seems a cold and relentless drill sergeant in his approach.  He is not sentimental about anything.  I can’t say that all of Mr. Walsh’s tips are going to work for everyone but the kernel grain of truth that we can’t keep everything is an important one.

This book is clearly geared toward the home but the general approach and lessons are applicable for the business environment as well.  Who hasn’t seen the overflowing office supplies closet or a storage room full of old furniture or computer equipment?  The costs of keeping these unused items around are easier for a business to quantify and Mr. Walsh’s tips could very well end up saving your business money.

I will close with some of my other favorite quotes from Mr. Walsh:

“[H]aving more possessions may be more suffocating than liberating.”

“Th[e] quest for organization is a deeply personal response to the feeling that the rest of the world is out of control.”

“I have been in more cluttered homes than I can count, and the one factor that I see in every single situation is people whose lives hinge on what they own rather than what they are.”

As always, please feel free to comment publicly or privately at info@beruly.com.  Type to you on Friday!

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