October 23, 2011

Organized Simplicity: The Clutter Free Approach to Intentional Living


I may be biased because I love Tsh Oxenreider's blog, Simple Mom, but I really loved the book Organized Simplicity. The book is exactly what it sounds like: a guide to streamlining and simplifying your life.

Tsh provides lots full of helpful, practical ways to simplify your life and possessions. She tells you what her definition of simple living is (and what it is not), and gives step by step instructions on how to determine what simple living would look like for your family.  She guides you through creating a family purpose statement, and then decluttering your home and calendar so that your house and lifestyle reflect your family's purpose. Along the way she offers helpful step by step instructions for everything from having a garage sale to creating a budget to creating a home management notebook.

She then offers a detailed room-by-room breakdown of how to clean your house from top to bottom, eliminating anything unnecessary along the way, so that you can relax in an organized haven when you're done. And, she even provides recipes for making your own all natural cleaners to help you on your way!

I like the layout of the book -- it's a spiral bound hardcover -- which makes it easy to look at the reflection questions and checklists provided, without having to hold the book open with one hand. After finishing this book I really mulled over what I want our home to reflect, and what possessions I could eliminate in order to give us a more serene and organized home environment. I think I'm going to reread it right after Christmas and walk through some of the checklists to help me get rid of the stuff that always seems to accumulate over the holidays.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Should I recommend this to my grandma? Absolutely! Especially if she's a packrat!


Do you read the Simple Mom blog? 
Do you know of any other helpful books for decluttering your life?



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