Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh

from goodreads

3 stars

This year I have two personal goals. The first is to get my body back into any kind of shape that does not resemble a blob. Hopefully by doing this I will have more of an inclination to run around the yard being a pirate looking for buried treasure. (Right now I am the cook on the pirate ship so I just have to sit and stir a pot.)

The second is to get rid of my junk once and for all. My husband and I have been married for nine years, well as of the end of May, and we never have really had a thorough declutter. What with the university text books and notes, the baby stuff, the stuff that our parents have thrust upon us from their house and just random things that seem to have found their way in to the house, our house is bursting at the seams and I am bursting at my sanity. Dealing with the junk is cutting into my reading time, which, is so not cool.

Do you have any goals that you are striving towards this year? How are they going? Do you have any tips for staying the course?

Synopsis

Decluttering guru Peter Walsh puts his decluttering tips to weight loss. It is all about picturing the life you want to live and then making the changes to get you there.

My Thoughts

Well to start off with I must get this off my chest. I love Peter Walsh. When I used to watch the show Clean Sweep he was my favourite professional. The other lady was kind of mean and focused on just the volume of the stuff, thinking it should be easy just to get rid of the junk. Peter realized that it was more than just the stuff. He got behind the emotions of the people and in a kind loving way helped them realized how much better there life would be if the stuff was gone. Peter, if you are reading, you rock!

So, considering my two goals for the year this seemed like a no brainer. I had to read it. It was interesting how ways to declutter your junk and ways to declutter your fat are so similar. For Peter it is all about deciding what type of life you want to live and then make your decisions in keeping with that dream. For example, if you want to have a healthy body, each time you put something to your mouth you are to ask yourself, "is this going to help me towards the healthy body I want or not?" If it doesn't you don't eat it. He gives you tips about organizing your kitchen so you are ready to make meals at home and how to organize your time so that you feel like you have the time to be cooking real food at home. There were some good tips in there.

If you are looking for a book that tells gives you a meticulous diet, this is not it. But it does give you some food for thought about our habits and how we need to declutter our time and priorities so that  so that we can make better food choices.

If you are looking for a book that gives you detailed decluttering advice, this is not for you. But, he has written another book called It's All too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, which is really good and gives you a step by step for each type of room in your house and is very motivating. I read it a few years ago and I have started to slowly put his tips into practice (that's the thing with decluttering, unless you have everyone in your house on board and helping, you can only do so much).

So, it was a good read, there were some interesting tips but it's not the most useful book I have ever read. Definitely borrow this one from the library. You don't want to be adding more to your junk!