Book Review: Throw Out Fifty Things to Find Your Life
My organizing tip for today is a book review for you. I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Throw Out Fifty Things – Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke.
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I enjoyed it so much, I listened to it twice through. I always love it when a book makes you think enough that you have to re-read it. This book really made me rethink a lot of things about my house and different areas of my life as well. I followed a lot of her recommendations and made some major improvements in my attitudes.
It reminds me a lot of the newer book – Girl Wash your Face by Rachel Hollis. We are SO hard on ourselves! Sometimes we just need that reminder to re-evaluate our stuff, our schedule, our relationships, and all the things in our lives that are holding us back and dragging us down. This book gives you a great opportunity to rethink these things and make some new choices.
Throw Out Fifty Things – Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life.
It ended up being a lot different than I expected. It isn’t just about decluttering your house, although that’s a big part of it. But it’s also about throwing out old attitudes, limiting beliefs, old regrets, and perceived inadequacies. To me, that made it really great.
The title is a bit deceptive also. I thought hey, just throwing out fifty things sounded like a piece of cake. But what they don’t tell you is that each TYPE of thing only counts as one. So if you declutter five sweaters, four old lipsticks and a whole box of books, that only counts as three things. So that makes it a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.
I like Gail’s manner. She is fun and breezy, which keeps the book moving quickly. But she also makes some good points about why these techniques are going to help your life move forward. Especially getting rid of your negative attitudes. I think we ALL need help with that.
She also has some great examples from her own coaching practice and the other books she has written. She’s something of a life-change expert for anyone with a messy house or overwhelming house shame. She’s written several other books and a regular column for Self Magazine.
Even if you are pretty good at the decluttering business, I think it is always helpful to have a refresher to kind of keep you on track. I haven’t quite gotten to Fifty Things on my own list, but I’m getting a good start on it.
Give it a shot and see if you can find your own Throw Out Fifty Things!
I go through a similar exercise in January for GO Month (Get Organized) month. Sometimes having a category to tackle is very helpful, and you find you can let go of more than you thought. This past year, I worked to donate one piece of clothing each day of the season of Lent. It actually got pretty challenging by the end, as I don’t keep stuff around that I don’t need. But that was the sacrificial part, and it felt great to give.
I’ve never heard of someone doing a donation like that for Lent. I think it’s a terrific idea.
50 different types of things does sound harder than the title suggested 🙂 We went through a big decluttering of kids rooms last weekend and even if I counted each different type of toy, it wouldn’t be 50 (and there are a LOT of toys in our house)!
Stopping by from #SITSBlogging
Thank you so very much for this review! I have just added it to my Goodreads list (are you on Goodreads? If yes, please friend me here! https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15210292-charlotte-klein ) I’ve been looking for ways to declutter–as much material clutter as emotional clutter so this book comes at a perfect time 🙂 Thank you for the comment so that I could find your beautiful blog! Hope you had a lovely weekend, Adrian 🙂
I think I need to read this book. I had hoped to get a bunch of my de-cluttering done by summer, but it didn’t happen. This summer has been very hectic and will continue to be so, so I think at this point I am looking at fall. I like this concept.
I’ve done my own version of throwing out 50 things, but I haven’t read the book. It sounds interesting!
That’s a very interesting concept. I was under the impression that the idea would be to throw out 50 items. That really does seem to be more of a challenge. I’ll have to check out the book. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Happy Sharefest. 😉
I am preparing to move in with my fiancé after we get married. I think we both need this!! Combining two households of 30 somethings is proving to be quite the challenge.
Sounds like a really good book. I’m checking it out now. Thanks for sharing. I saw this on The SITS Sharefest. Have a great weekend.
Thank you so much for this review. It sounds like something I would love. I’m going to go look it up right now.
Happy Sharefest! Thanks for sharing.
50 different types of things – that sounds hard. Don’t know if I could do it.