BTT: Useful

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This week’s Booking Through Thursday question asks:

What’s the most useful book you’ve ever read? And, why?

Hmmm… At first, that seemed like a hard question. But, when I think about which books have actually been “useful” to me — ones that I’ve actually put into practice what I’ve learned from them — it becomes an easier question (reason being, there are only a handful of books — out of the TONS that I’ve read — where I’ve actually put into practice what I’ve learned! LOL).

My answer would have to be ”It’s All Too Much” by Peter Walsh.

Why? Because, after I read it I was so inspired that I went out and finally decluttered my garage, and then my house, too — something that I’d put off (or not done a proper job on) for YEARS! I’m one of those sentimental, pack-rat types. So, I tend to keep stupid stuff, just because I can’t bear to part with it. And, even after I’d gotten a great tip from someone (or maybe from online, somewhere) that said to use a digital camera, and take pictures of your stuff… then keep the pictures and get rid of the stuff… I still couldn’t do it. I had to keep the stuff, too.

But, not after reading Mr. Walsh’s book!

In the book, he tells you that you should only keep what you have the room for right now. Don’t hoard stuff in preparation for “some day” when you’ll have the room for it. I’m terrible when it comes to this — I start stockpiling things (can anyone say “books”?!) with the hopes that “some day” I’ll have the room to store it properly, but for now, it’ll just have to be crammed in where I can find room, or stored in a box in the garage “until later”.

With this newfound inspiration (so simple a concept, yet so far from “obvious” to me, beforehand!), I went out and took pictures of the stuff I didn’t need to hold on to — though, I did keep a few small items that were truly precious to me — and then gave away a literal truck-load of stuff to the goodwill store.

I can’t even begin to tell you how good that felt!

((Ooo! If you want to see pictures of my decluttering efforts, by all means, click on over to my other blog where I was keeping track…))

So, yeah… Peter Walsh’s book was definitely the most “useful” book I’ve read to date. In fact, it may be worth a re-read.