Decluttering at the Speed of Life - Review

Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

By: Dana K White

Publication: February 27th 2018 by Thomas Nelson

240 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Self-Help

Source: Personal Audiobook Library

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Goodreads description--You don't have to live overwhelmed by stuff--you can get rid of clutter for good!

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, decluttering expert and author Dana White identifies the mind-sets and emotional challenges that make it difficult to declutter. Then, in her signature humorous approach, she provides workable solutions to break through these struggles and get clutter out--for good!

But more than simply offering strategies, Dana dives deep into how to implement them, no matter the reader's clutter level or emotional resistance to decluttering. She helps identify procrasticlutter--the stuff that will get done eventually so it doesn't seem urgent--as well as how to make progress when there's no time to declutter.

Sections of the book include

Why You Need This Book (You Know Why)
Your Unique Home
Decluttering in the Midst of Real Life
Change Your Mind, Change Your Home
Breaking Through Your Decluttering Delusions
Working It Out Room by Room
Helping Others Declutter
Real Life Goes On (and On)

As long as we're living and breathing, new clutter will appear. The good news is that decluttering can get easier, become more natural, and require significantly fewer hours, less emotional bandwidth, and little to no sweat to keep going.

I have slowly begun the journey into decluttering and minimalism. I have tried and failed to keep my house under control. And what I keep coming back around to time and time again is that we have too much stuff. I started researching by following a few people on YouTube. One person led me to another and eventually I came upon A Slob Comes Clean. Dana is the face behind this channel and she's written two books: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind and Decluttering at the Speed of Life. Decluttering at the Speed of Life went on a sale with Chirp and I had a gift card for my birthday that I ended up using. And this was the perfect book for me to jump into at just the right time.

Dana K White narrates the audio version and to me that makes the book. She knows exactly where she wrote emphasis and the tone she would use when writing the words. It just makes logical sense for her to do the narration. She's funny without really making me laugh out loud. And I like the gentle way she reads the text. Her tone helped me feel like she was gently talking to me rather than preaching at me.

One of the best things about Dana's method of decluttering is that she takes the emotion OUT of decluttering. The hang ups that I have and those that I know who have trouble hanging onto "things" is that they have attached emotion to many of their possessions. Dana addresses every reason one might have to hang onto stuff without making the book about those reasons. Her method removes the emotion from the decision making process which in turn makes it easier to address, make decisions, and actually let go of items.

I love the repetition of this book. Some might find that annoying, but for me, it reinforces the steps and questions in a way that helps me to remember them. I don't think I'll need to reference back to the book at all in order to remember them when I'm going through my own home. She also repeats phrases that are instrumental in helping one to shift their mindset. Phrases such as "the size of your house is the size of your house" have been repeated to the point that they automatically come to mind when faced with a decluttering need.

Perhaps it's not quite fair for me to review this book before decluttering my own home. It's important to know whether the strategies work. I'd love to have been in a position to declutter as I was reading, but we're actually doing a home renovation and are currently living at my parents house. But I'm excited to declutter as we're bringing stuff back into our space once the renovation is complete.

Decluttering at the Speed of Life is exactly the decluttering book that I needed to help take the emotion out of the choices I have to make. I think it will also help a few of my family members. And I couldn't recommend the audio version more. Dana K White does an excellent job narrating. The repetition helps the steps, questions, and mindset drill into your memory. Decluttering at the Speed of Life gets 5 Stars. Have you read Decluttering at the Speed of Life? What did you think? Let me know!