The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family From A Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living and Dying Series)

 

Shirley J.                Adult Non-Fiction                            Decluttering as though you were dying

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family From A Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living & Dying Series)  by Margareta Magnusson    128 pages

I love this book.  It puts your clutter in perspective.  It teaches you to look at your stuff as if you were on your way out (dying) and you want to decide what happens to your belongings.   It is essentially the keep, donate, sell, toss method but to the muertos degree.   You look through the ethereal eye of your departing and what will be the fate of your things.  Also it teaches you to go through and designate if there are particular items in your collection that you would like to bestow on certain family members, friends or to specific places such as: all those dog beds still in the original packaging to the animal shelter;  all those clothes you never wear with the tags still on them to the local women's shelter; grandma's silver to any of your kids that might really admire them or heck sell it and take a trip yourself. you're not dead, yet.   It is a gentle nudge to get on the stick and sort your precious possessions so that those left behind when you've gone to the wild blue yonder aren't stuck with the task.  It also brings to light you know that stuff you might not necessarily want anyone else to know you have...now is the time to be doing something with that before anyone has to be be red faced opening Uncle Harry's box of...  This is an excellent book on decluttering the Swedish way.   It is never too early!   This is not a harsh book it is as the title states gentle.  No one will be offended.  It is certainly a worthy project and Marie Kondo states in her book, she started tidying and decluttering her and her family and school's stuff from the age of 5 years old.   So given that, I recommend this book to those who love cleaning, tidying, decluttering and organizing.   Probably, from 8 years old on up.  People of a "certain age" will probably get the concept more than others.  ; )