Guest Post by Jean Wang

(I met Jean on twitter...she agreed to a guest post about a book that changed her life! Be sure to visit her blog after you leave a nice comment for her here. ;)

The book that changed my life, Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett

I hate clutter. Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett gave me hope. As a businessman, my father would bring home knick knacks from all over the world. The souvenirs were beautiful mementos from his travels and yet once they found their place on the shelf, they would sit there and gather dust.

When we were selling the house to move to Taiwan, the realtor said the house looked very lived in. Her tone of voice made it clear that was bad. It was an expensive nightmare moving a family of four's earthly possessions thousands of miles away.

So I decided then to carry no clutter—a daunting task.

Aslett's 260-page, 16-chapter book is filled with anecdotes and instructions on how to rid your life of clutter. Practically speaking, Aslett instructs the reader to get three garbage bags and a box. The three garbage bags are for: junk, charity, and sort. The box is for emotional withdrawal. The junk and charity bags are to be thrown or given away. The sort bag is to be kept and sorted in a month and the emotional withdrawal box will be thrown away if an item is not used for six months.

That is nothing new to this reader but what I found refreshing was how Aslett explained his logic behind removing clutter from lives. I will save time because I will have less clutter to clean. I will save money from buying cleaning supplies to clean the clutter. I will save money not buying clutter.

Since reading Clutter's Last Stand, I do a mental inventory of my belongings. I do not buy an item if I already have one or if I am unsure of how many I have. I feel pounds lighter and I can see the floor when I do not have clutter on the ground. If you are a pack rat, reading this book will turn you into a trash man eliminating your home of unnecessary waste. If you think you have an excuse for keeping all that baggage, as Aslett writes in chapter two, he has 101 feeble excuses for hanging on to clutter that he will rebut. Pick up your copy today and make this Clutter's Last Stand.




About the author

Jean Wang is a 20-something Taiwanese-American who possesses a voracious appetite for non-fiction books. She is currently studying French and writing while working full-time. When she is not reading, she is surfing the web, playing the piano, playing the cello, and writing in her blog found at: http://www.disciplinesofculture.wordpress.com