Don Aslett's Clutter Free!: Finally and Forever

by Don Aslett

Presents personal stories of packrats and their fight with clutter, tips on how to identify junk, techniques for clearing clutter, and starter projects to begin the dejunking process. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0937750123
• ISBN13: 9780937750124
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Betterway Books
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Inspiring!

I thought this book was excellent! Don Aslett has a lively, easy to read style. The book is a compilation of testimonies from people who have either a problem with clutter or who have finally overcome their problem with clutter. It is inspiring, interesting and helpful.

I just about died laughing!!

I love this book!! It is full of stories that people sent Don about their experiences. Oh My Goodness, I laughed so hard I cried!! And then I started dumping junk FAST!! I didn't want my mother to read my high school diary or know that I kept broken tongue depressors from childhood imunizations!!If the normal "dump your junk" books just don't work for you, try this one!! It will entertain and scare you into getting rid of the junk in you life.

Hilarious and inspiring!

I have several books on simplifying life and organizing the home. I have found the organizing books patronizing and useless. Organization books helped me organize some of my stuff but not get rid of anything. I never really organized everything because to do so was too daunting of a task as I had too much stuff. This is the first Don Aslett book I've read. Especially in the beginning, it is something like 95% reader's stories of their clutter and junk. It is laugh-out-loud funny. These stories are so extreme that I had to stop reading and immediately started going through my own things and getting rid of stuff. I'd go back and read more and then go back to de-cluttering. It took me 6 weeks to read the book because I have spent hours and hours de-junking my house in between. There are also some funny quizzes and poems, those that didn't interest me I simply skipped over. The overall approach with this book is that it presents many readers's stories of what they save and collect and how they got rid of some of it. Then Aslett chimes in with his two cents and sometimes some tips on how to decide whether to save something or keep it or other words of wisdom regarding the subject at hand. Then back to this format over and over. I actually loved the format and felt that it was not preachy in nature. It was also easy to read in small bits and pieces, something nice for a busy mother like myself. Aslett focuses on getting rid of most everything that we are not currently using or using within the last year. While I can't get that radical, it is inspirational. He deems a "collection" as anything we have three or more of, and he recommends having no collections. When I started thinking of it that way, I realized that I had some true garbage items that Aslett considers a collection, so I got rid of some of it! "Getting rid of" can mean giving things away to charities or friends, doing a tag sale, or throwing out the true trash. As I was de-junking I found some things he stated to be true: that some of the things I'd been saving had broken some time while in storage, some things attracted mice and were chewed, newspaper clippings were so yellowed that they were unreadable, and some books so mildew-y smelling that I got a headache when trying to read them. After experiencing that I realized Aslett was right when he said that even the stuff we save is usually useless (or lost) by the time we get around to trying to use it so we are better off to get rid of it sooner than later and not even to store it at all.There are some very common-sense and useful tidbits such as the discussion of "is having a tag sale really worth the time, effort, etc." to which the answer is "no". I agree with him that selling used clothing to a consignment shop or at a tag sale is also less "profitable" than donating it to a charity and taking a tax deduction. The part about saving empty containers (boxes, tins, etc.) hit home and is true, how silly is it to save empty containers! The p

Very Motivating

I'm giving this book 5 stars. I know some people were disappointed that it's mostly full of testimonials and reviews of Don Aslett's earlier books. Even though there wasn't much "how-to" in this book, I found the experiences that people shared very interesting, entertaining, and even kinda scary. But, the important thing about reading the book was that it worked for me. Over the last couple of weeks I've gone through my stuff and have hauled away 2 1/2 pickup truckloads of junk. And I'm not done yet! I didn't think I had much clutter, but I found a lot. It's just wonderful to let go of things that complicate my life. I think this book has potential to inspire many people to let go of their junk, and live a more simplified life.

Wonderful!

This is the book that got me started on decluttering.....and eventually all the Don Aslett clutter books. The letters from his readers are both humorous and inspiring. Don Aslett is a godsend!