About book Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach To Intentional Living (2010)
After reading Tsh's Notes From a Blue Bike I've been devouring everything relating to her I can get my hands on (The Art of Simple blog + podcast), and was excited to get this from the library. Having read so much simple living-themed content in the last few weeks there weren't any ground-breaking ideas, but I think it would be a good introduction for someone who wasn't overly familiar with The Art of Simple blog. Particularly focused on home- and family-management in the first half of the book. Second book in a row I ended up buying a copy of. I rarely buy books, so this is a winning streak for me! I picked this title up after discovering Tsh Oxenreider's blog simplemom.net. I was still working full time and my family was really struggling with keeping things together; the blog helped me in finding the small ways I could put important things first. This book is definitely geared at families with children, but I think there are some items of value for anyone interested in simple living. There's nothing in here you won't find on a million downsizing/organizing/economizing websites, and Oxenreider freely admits that. But it does have an open and friendly tone that emphasizes finding what works for YOU, not what works for everyone else. The bulk of the book takes you through a 10 day cleaning and decluttering challenge in your house. That was nice, but I bought the book for the beginning that focused on the why of simple living, and the end that shared many recipes for both cleaning and personal care. This part is a little embarrassing to write about, but one of the first tasks of the book is to write a family purpose statement. That sounds way too cheesy for my liking, but it's not the first time I've heard that so we decided to give it a go. We're really happy with what we came up with, and the beauty of it is that it gives us a framework to choose how to spend our time, our resources, and our lives. When I'm starting to feel underwater, I can look at what I'm doing and how it does or doesn't fit into our priorities, and most times it doesn't. I can course-correct and suddenly things feel back in harmony. There. I put that on the internet. I shared that because I would encourage you to try that piece of it, even if it feels silly. It still feels silly to even talk about it, but I'm glad to have it done.
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Some useful ideas. Mostly appreciated the ideals of simple living.
—Bonnie
