|
Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life | 
| Author: Mike Nelson
Publisher: Career Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
Buy Used: $3.05
You Save: $11.94 (80%)
New (7) Used (13) from $3.05
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 384221
Media: Paperback
Edition: 0
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 244
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 1564145026
Dewey Decimal Number: 648.5
EAN: 9781564145024
ASIN: 1564145026
Publication Date: January 15, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Very used book from my personal collection. Lots and lots of highlighting and personal notes throughout. This is only good for personal studying and reading!!!
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This is much more than an "organizing" book. It is written for clutterers by a reformed clutterer who understands why it is so hard to let go of the things that clog our lives. This is the only book that addresses cluttering as a psychological, spiritual and physical blockage in our lives.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Reviewed by Barbara McDuffie for Breeni Books January 3, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mike Nelson has authored three books on cluttering and describes himself as a reformed clutterer. He founded Clutterless Recovery Groups, a nonprofit organization designed to give support to people who need help to stop the behavior that causes them to clutter. In Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life, he writes that decluttering can be successfully accomplished only by using both a practical approach and an emotional approach. The practical approach concerns how to declutter. The emotional aspect concerns the behavior that causes us to clutter. We need to understand why we clutter in order to stop the flow of unnecessary "stuff" from coming in; otherwise, decluttering is useless. Nelson asserts that we accumulate things in a misguided effort to fulfill our need for love. In order to live a clutter-free life, clutters must change how they think about possessions and self-worth.
The first step is to determine if you are truly a clutterer. Nelson lists twelve questions for us to consider in deciding if we fit the clutterer category. The second step is to determine why we clutter. For those of us who simply don't know how to organize, all we need is instruction. But for people who clutter in response to unfulfilled emotional needs, the solution is much more complicated.
Chapter two describes various types of clutterers; including the "home- or office- only clutterer", the "clutter just happened to me clutterer", and the "terrorists in our heads clutter". The category of clutterer into which each person fits helps determine the best solutions from the many approaches Nelson offers. There are both practical and psychological methods geared toward each type of clutterer. The suggestions on how to organize are common sense ideas that are simple and fairly easy to follow. Resolving the emotional issues is much more difficult, but just as necessary. Changing the cluttering habit is the same as changing any other bad habit in one undeniable way; the clutterer must want to change.
"Our stuff is part of us, but it need not define us" October 9, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I started reading Stop Clutter From Stealing Your Life: Discover Why You Clutter and How You Can Stop and then it vanished. I have lots more books so I moved on. When it turned up under the seat of my car, I thought I must need to read it, so I did, and I was gratified to find that while I may be a little messy, my issues positively pale in comparison to the stories in this book.
Author Mike Nelson delivers the clutterer's Bible in this volume, which delves into the psychology behind the behavior of cluttering. He's been there: he is a reformed clutterer who now runs an organization called Clutterless Recovery Groups, Inc. Nelson lost jobs and relationships due to his inability to let things go; his personal story is representative of the first-person stories in Chapter 8: CLUTTERERS' STORIES.
Nelson breaks the behavior down into degrees, starting with "mildly disorganized," moving through behavior based on rebellion, fear, and procrastination. He lists the groups of people who value time "too much" to clean up, information junkies, chaos junkies, and on to the hoarders; the last is an actual medical diagnosis. He asserts that clutterers are more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety disorders than ADD. The book contains many references to the psychology of the problem, and while you may not think that will help you to get organized, he states that understanding WHY you clutter is the beginning of change. He began his metamorphosis when he found a self-help group and discovered he was not alone. "Once I realized that my clutter was an outward expression of my inner conflicts or emotions," he writes, "I was able to do something about the problem and not just treat the symptoms by organizing my mess."
If what you want is a simple plan for organizing yourself, you'll find a high-level plan in Chapter 4: 40 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR CLUTTER. These steps -- many are more like affirmations -- are admittedly Zen-like, but they are intended to focus your attitude about your stuff. He advises setting small goals and committing to 15 minutes at a time, until you have taken control of your environment and your life. He gives us the "HIII" rule: how important is it? What's the worst that can happen if I get rid of this?
Stop Clutter devotes several sections to behavior that has a negative impact in the working world, with many practical routes to organizing paper and computer files; again the key is understanding what stands in the way of good habits. Later sections of the book deal with maintenance of the newly clutter-free environment, how to retrieve from a bout of backsliding, and deciding whether a self-help group can help you.
If you just plain hate this kind of theoretical approach to behavior change, this book won't be for you. But if you have an appetite for understanding what makes us behave the way we do, and especially if your surroundings are out of control by a little or a lot, this book could be life-changing. Beautifully organized and presented, it's a five-star book of its type. Get it, read it, commit to its principles -- and take back your life.
Linda Bulger, 2008
Especially helpful for those with a real problem and not just needing some tips and tricks September 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book really fills a niche that other books on cluttering aren't covering. What do you do if you are a person with a real clutter problem - a problem that needs more help than just a few pithy tips on how to organize or some guidelines on what to toss? This is the book for you.
I think the biggest value of this book comes from the situations and people who are presented that you might recognize yourself in, and the advice on what they did and what you might do if you are hanging onto your clutter for one of these reasons.
This book walks you through a real process of discovery, if you let it, and if you follow the steps you will change your life.
I'd recommend this book if you feel you have a real problem with clutter that goes beyond things just getting away from you. Start with this book so you can begin the process of untangling your emotions around this issue, then move on to It's All Too Much for some games and tips for how to begin going through your things.
I read this book because I enjoy things and my partner is a clutterbug, so I was looking for tips that would make me feel inspired to declutter and maybe some help for how to live with or organize my partner's things. It didn't help me much with that, but what is here is much deeper and is sure to be of value to the right people. When the people I love who have this problem are ready to tackle it, I will be ready to share this bok with them in a loving way.
Admit you have a problem. September 6, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I wanted to read this book because I thought it might give me some ideas about coaching others on how to organize their lives and businesses. I never even considered that I myself might be a clutterer, but the more I read STOP CLUTTER FROM STEALING YOUR LIFE by Mike Nelson, the more I came to realize there are areas even in my life where I have allowed clutter to take over.
When my wife and I married 8 years ago, I had a house full of stuff, she had a house full of stuff, and now we have a two and a half car garage full of stuff. 8 years! This book has made me realize it's well past time to take action and rid our lives of some of this stuff we will never use! I also found many other useful ideas such as better organizing my own office, even finding ways to make better use of our closet space.
Clutter is all around us. This book will help you get things under control again. It's the old AA mantra of first admitting you have a problem. Often things we don't even realize put our lives into a state of turmoil. For instance, after reading this book, I realized when returning home from a business trip, it takes me much longer to unpack (sometimes up to a week) than it took me to pack! Putting something like that off just disrupts our lives.
There's a lot of information here. Some you will find useful, some not so much. But there is no doubt you will find something that applies to you and ways to make your life or business run smoother.
Lots of helpful information August 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is different from other decluttering books in that it focuses on finding balance in your life and helps you get to the root of problem. This way you begin to become healthy instead of just throwing your junk away and later accumulating more.
I've discovered my need to keep stuff around, particularly books, knitting supplies and old clothes, stems way back to my childhood when my mom threw away my stationary, sticker, toy & book collection. Often I'd come home from school to find my stuff gone, either given away to a cousin or friend or thrown in the trash, because she went on a crazed cleaning frenzy while I was away. This makes sense to me but I never put two and two together until reading this book. Fortunately this is one of the easier "causes" of cluttering to overcome (especially since I dealt with mom issues years ago), unlike compulsive shoppers or people with serious depression, anxiety or OCD conditions which I'm thinking this book won't do much in the way of helping without some therapy and medication.
This book gives me hope that if I can just do a little at a time, he recommends working in 15 minute increments, one day all of the junk will be gone and I will actually be able to park my car in the garage!
The one section that I disagreed with is the one about dealing with clutter you may one day inherit. The author recommends confronting your parents, grandma, etc. and pretty much forcing them into weeding through and getting rid of their junk (with your help, of course) so you don't have to deal with it later. To me that sounds so invasive if not insulting. Getting rid of your junk has to be a personal decision you make, not forced upon you by someone else and the author is a bit contradictory here. I'd rather hire one of those gotjunk places and have them haul it away instead of alienating and offending my relatives to save me some work when they die.
There's a bunch of info. here for businesses dealing with clutterbugs and home office clutter, etc. that I didn't find particularly useful because I am strangely organized at work but I'm sure it would be helpful for others.
A big bulk of the book focuses on the emotional issues which cause clutter and features true stories written by real people struggling with their clutter problem. I don't know about you but it sure makes me feel less strange to know there are others out there who have more clutter than me!
This book is jam packed with information and is a very helpful starting point for those just beginning their decluttering lifestyle change. And as the book states many times, it is a lifestyle change.
|
|
|
| |
