Erin Rooney Doland - Unclutter Your Life in One Week

Unclutter Your Life in One Week

Erin Rooney Doland

SIMON SPOTLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYNDEY

Simon Spotlight Entertainment
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Copyright 2009 by Erin Doland

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First Simon Spotlight Entertainment hardcover edition November 2009

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Designed by Diane Hobbing/SnapHaus Graphics
Illustrations by Mark Watkinson

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Doland, Erin Rooney.
Unclutter your life in one week / Erin Rooney Doland.
p. cm.
1. Storage in the home. 2. Orderliness. 3. House cleaning. I. Title.
TX309.D75 2009
648'.8dc22

2009021841

ISBN 978-1-4391-5046-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-5420-5 (ebook)

For PJ

We live in a culture that seems to create a lot more than it completes and collect a lot more than it cleans up. At the macro level, its mountains of garbage that cant find a home and carbon dioxide taking over the atmosphere. On the micro side, its the propensity of each of us to generate stuffthe detritus that can clog our garages, hallways, computers, and heads.

We really dont do this on purpose. No one I know wakes up and says, I cant wait to go gather more piles of unnecessary, numbing, extraneous glop! But it happens to the best of us. Time changes the meaning of things, so if you simply do nothing, stuff accumulates around you. The ballpoint refills in your drawer became useless when that pen disappeared, as well as the mementos of your boyfriend when he went with it. Keeping everything around you current and relevant is a continual challenge requiring eternal vigilance and a consistent investment of time and energy. Ninety percent of my gardening is cleanup. Denying that reality diminishes my enjoyment of its beauty.

The rewards are immense when the back end of the creative process is absorbed as habit in your endeavorsthe closure, the sweep-up, the reordering of your tools. A sense of freedom, clarity, and general lightness of being accompanies an uncluttered spacein your kitchen, in your office, and in your life.

Erin Doland has experienced this from both sides, and she gives this highly practical manual for achieving that kind of positive experience an elegant dose of empathy and understanding. There are challenges. To stop accumulating clutter youll need to move beyond irrational attachments, step out of your comfort zone, and overcome basic inertia. But Erin does a great job in taking you by the hand with step-by-step instructions that make the process not only easier than you think but fun as well. Follow her directions and youll reap enormous benefits.

David Allen
Ojai, California
May 19, 2009

Ill need two copies of your book, my friend said.

Two copies? I asked. One for you and one for a gift?

No, both copies for me, she explained. Ill lose at least one in all of my crap.

I nodded my head immediately. I know exactly what you mean.

Almost a decade ago, surrounded by stacks of papers, piles of shoes and clothes, and dozens of boxes of sentimental trinkets, my husband had a conversation with me that changed my life. He asked me to sit next to him, took my hand in his, and told me he could no longer live with all of my clutter. He said he wanted to build a remarkable life with me, but all of my stuff was getting in the way. There were so many of my possessions crammed, packed, and shoved into our 850-square-foot Washington, DC, apartment that we had to shuffle along a narrow path of waist-high towers of boxes to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. We were so embarrassed that we never had friends over to our place. We didnt relax when we were home, and when we were out of the apartment we felt anxious about the chaos waiting for us when we returned.

When my husband talked to me about my clutter problem he didnt threaten to leave or issue any ultimatums; instead he described what we could gain with a clutter-free life. He said he wanted a home with room for friends and family to gather, space to plan new adventures, and the opportunity to create happy memoriesnot a home jam-packed with possessions. He knew he couldnt force me to change, but he was asking me to try.

I told him I was up for the task and I also wanted the life he imagined. What I didnt tell him was that I had no idea how I was going to make any of it happen. In particular, I had no clue how I would be able to let go of so many of my things. I spent most of the next day at work devising elaborate schemes to transport my stuff to a storage facility and thinking of ways to convince him we needed to move into a larger place. Id do whatever it took to keep my things. Those plans faded quickly, however, when on my walk home that evening I remembered the disorder that was waiting back at the apartment. My stomach knotted, I tightened my shoulder and neck muscles, and I started walking slowly. My husband was right; I had to change the way I lived.

It didnt happen in thirty minutes like it does on television, but I did change. I cleared the clutter and became organized (eventually, even becoming the editor-in-chief of Unclutterer.com). I said farewell to the mess and started living a remarkable life. I did it, and so can you.

Simplicity is revolutionary.

Being overworked, overbooked, and overwhelmed is pass.

Right now, you have a choice to make. Do you want to live a stressful life controlled by your possessions and the demands of things that dont matter to you? Or do you want to be relaxed and living a remarkable, uncluttered life?

When I made the decision to live simply, it took me fewer than seven days to clear the physical clutter from my life. Unfortunately, those seven days took place sporadically over six months because I didnt have resources to guide me through the process. I wanted a manual to explain to me the hows and whys of simplifying, organizing, time management, uncluttering, and productivitybut I never found it. Ive created this book so that you can unclutter your life in one week. Its going to be hard work, but you deserve to live with less stress and anxiety. You deserve a remarkable life. And, most important, you deserve to experience all the benefits of being an unclutterer.

Unclutterer (un-'kle-ter-er)