Review: Guide To Organizing Clutter
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2013
I enjoyed reading The Higher Read Guide to Organizing Clutter.  Even though I have a couple of other organizing books handy, both actual and Kindle books, I liked that it had tips that I had not read in other books. We are a very busy family of 4, two adults and 2 school age children. Clutter is a huge problem, especially with toys and paper. There was a whole section devoted to decluttering with kids...something our family needs. I love that there was "systems" in place to help make decisions on delcuttering. One example is something my husband and I did by accident when we moved into our current house. We had our movers put some of the leftover boxes in our garage, including some of the kids toys. A year or so later we found the boxes.  The funny thing is...our kids never noticed the toys were gone becuase they have so many. System 2 in this book basically says to do the same thing. Go through your kids toys each week (alone) and remove one or two items you don't think they will miss. Then put it in a box and store it where the children don't go (attic, garage, etc.) Wait for a month, once the box is full. If they don't ask for any of the objexts in that box, take it to the thrift store. Brilliant!While this seems kinda mean, I have tried the other way of decluttering with my kids. Having them go through and choose what to give away. It's a good method but sometimes, they can get stuck and hold on to stuff you as a parent know they have not played with in a long time, or maybe even outgrown. The idea in this book can help remove the stress of having to let go of items from the children. (On the other hand, be very careful not to choose something they might miss!)