By Clair Black Slotton

Cool Davis is always looking for more and better ways to reduce our carbon footprint and to that end, less is definitely more. Brooks Palmer, in his book, Clutter Busting, helps free us from our attachment to stuff. He uses the basic premise that “Stuff will not make you happy”. I would go a step further – Stuff will often make you unhappy, poorer, and more chaotic.

Clutter Busting is an elegantly presented book. It has stories about people who cleared out their homes and practical exercises in each chapter for you to achieve similar results for yourself. Brooks walks us through each room, helping us see how different items weigh us down; for example, the gazillions of books we cart through our lives may be causing guilt (because we haven’t read them yet) or costing us money (because we have to have a large home to contain them) even though we will likely never read them again. He reminds us to live our lives, to experience fully, rather than being burdened by old photographs, which we hope to catalog one day (but never do). He tackles the closets packed full of clothes and shoes we haven’t worn in years.

 Stuff will often make you unhappy, poorer, and more chaotic.

Mimi Kusch, the copyeditor for this book, is a Village Homes resident here in Davis. She gave me a copy of the book after I complained of having a hard time cleaning out my garage. I read each chapter and did each exercise. I went through my garage and house over about a month, cutting everything I owned by half. It was freeing. I felt happier in my space.

I went through my garage and house over about a month, cutting everything I owned by half. It was freeing. I felt happier in my space.

 

Then about 2 months later, I realized I hadn’t gotten rid of enough and I did it all over again. I remain vigilant not to allow more stuff into my space. The big bonuses for me are that now keeping my home tidy is simpler and as I search for a new home, I know I can easily move to a much smaller space because I don’t have such a load to carry with me when I go.

Smaller home, less energy use. Less energy use, less carbon emissions. This is good stuff all around. If you have a story about clutter busting, please email it to me at Claire@iClaire.com. Happy busting!