The Power of Less by Leo Babauta  is currently in my bathroom, that is where I keep most of the skimming books from the library.  I almost always have about 20 books checked out at a time. About half of the true reading type. The kind you take to bed at night and read till you are sleepy. Currently those tend to be Paranormal Romance type books. Don't laugh this is a growing genre of books with some very big authors. If you are wondering which ones to start with just ask Kristi at the Library.

The other types of books I check out are about technology, cooking, travel any thing to help me  of keep up on the world and try to learn something  new all the time.

The Power of Less looked mildly interesting so home it came.  The basic premise of the book "clicked" with me  immediately.

1. Identify the Essential .

2. Eliminate the Rest.

This sounds so nice and simple but who really lives this way. No he does not mean to pare everything in life down to bare essentials but rather each person should decide for themselves what makes them happy, and what they need to have to accomplish that. The book also puts forth ideas to simplify your home and office.  How many of us spend lots of time each day checking email- just like you do the phone, trying to look at it every time you have new mail?

Unless your job truly is of an emergency type this can be condensed to maybe 1 time per hour or 1 time morning or night.  In my case I tend to check it out of boredom, waiting hoping for something interesting to come into my in box.  I found instead I get lots of ads etc and eletter updates from sites I am no long interested in.  So I started unsubscribing from them. True there is less mail there for me to read or feel important about but I took control of the time I spend deleting unwanted or unintersting mail. That was step one and was easy. 

Today it is rainy, dreary and I cannot get out so it seemed like a good time to declutter something. I started with our dresser. Why the dresser you ask.

Well I have had a couple of those drawers so stuffed with sock, and undergarments that not only was it hard to shut but you could not find a damn thing. Matter of fact I was telling DH we were going to need to go to Wally World so I could buy some new socks.

Well guess what, we spent 30 minutes cleaning out that puppy and I found I HAVE SOCKS, even matching socks. Amazing gracie what you can find. So in the little act of decluttering I found I no longer needed to buy socks, even found lots of other things I had "forgot" read lost. 

I plan to continue this process of trying to free up time, not sure what I will use said time for since I usually just feel that all I am doing on earth is Killing time anyway. Which as was pointed out to me, that is all we are all doing is Killing Time.

You are born - consider this point A and then you die point B,Life is what happens in between A and B.

BTW today's listening pleasure for me is Renee Austin and amazing Blues singer who only put out like 2 albums and then had throat surgery and never was able to sing again.  You really should check her out this gal has a great voice.

Just more proof that life is short and no matter what we are doing we should be enjoying it. living  it the fullest.

I plan to use The Power of Less in my mind, I know i can't hardly get less for some people. But I have issues just like we all do, and those of us with kids no matter the age seem to have more issues.

So let's see, is it essential that I spend untold hours worrying about my son and his alcohol issues , can I change them, will he talk to me, will his father and I communicate about the problem. The answer to all the above is a HELL NO.  Yet I spend many sleepless nights thinking about current and past with my son. None of it will change anything. He must make the changes he needs to in order to find his happiness.

I plan to continue to work on my happiness and decluttering gives me something to do and at least a goal plus I may find more socks. Better yet, its like going to a Garage sale without ever leaving home. I love Garage Sales but that will mean bringing more stuff home, hmm may have to think on that.

So I invite you on a little journey with me, lets declutter our life and our minds, one small task at a time. I have done mine for the day- What will your first step be? It does not matter, it only matters that you take that first step. 

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."