It's All Too Much: A book for anyone who wants to live clean

Peter Walsh is a genius. He's made a living telling people to throw the crap away the crap in their lives. It seems so obvious, but what makes him brilliant is the way he convinces you it was your idea.

Walsh was featured on the show Clean Sweep, where they tidy up disgusting homes in 48 hours (the show is surprisingly captivating). I started TiVo'ing this show to get a feel for his work before I bought and committed to his book, It's All Too Much. Having read the book now, I can say it's incredibly inspirational. It makes you want to run around your home with a trash bag.

Here are a few of my takeaways from the book and from the experience of my personal clean sweep:

• You don't have to keep something just because it's a gift - this was liberating for me, because I've been carting around an awful lot of books and clothes for years that I didn't intend to do anything with, just because it felt inconsiderate to trash something a friend was so kind to give me.
• Don't focus on how much an item cost to purchase as consider dumping it - the cost is sunk, but there's an ongoing cost associated with holding it that is avoidable.
• If you claim something is a treasured memento, you must treat it as such - On Walsh's show, no one gets away with saying something's important to them if it's in a box or covered in dust. If you like the memory associated with the object, write a paragraph about the memory, take a picture and store both the paragraph and picture digitally, then dump the item.

• If you haven't worn an item of clothing in over a year, you should probably dump it - What's interesting here is that Walsh says that half of your wardrobe is probably not in good enough condition to give to goodwill, so consider saving them the cost of sorting and putting it right in the trash.
• Chucking is addictive - I found a website that suggested a regular session of rounding your home with a trash bag, committing to throw away at least 27 things (I'd link to it, but I forget where it is). The thing is, once you find your 27, you usually want to keep going, because the rush of creating space in your home is so exhilarating and liberating. It sounds ridiculous, but try it and THEN tell me I'm wrong.
• Use wooden hangers in the closet - They're studier, but they're also slightly wider than cheap plastic or metal ones. You can cram more clothes on flimsy hangers into a closet all day long, but the wooden ones force organization.
• One in, One out - Once you're organized, the way to stay that way is to pause before you buy anything and say, "This will occupy space in my house, so what will I remove to make room for this?" And if you don't have an answer, don't buy the item. Seems obvious, but I never thought that way before.
• If you're keeping a number of extra hangers "just in case", take them out of the closet, and count them. Chances are you have many more than you're aware of, and they're eating up space. I thought I had 4-5, but actually had ~30.

After I read the book, I attacked my closet, and the result looks beautiful. You should sort like by like, and color by color. For example, I have all my pants in the top right, sorted by color, then short-sleeve shirts, then dress shirts, etc. Winter items have been packed away. It's great. Here's another trick he mentioned, I have all my clothes hung in reverse, and when I wear it and return it to the closet, it goes back hung normally. After 4-6 months, anything still hanging backwards will probably get the boot.