Real Life Organizing by Cas Aarssen

Yes, yet another decluttering read. A _reread_ in fact!

I bought it back in 2017, and I read and reviewed it in 2017:

https://walkitout.dreamwidth.org/1522026.html

I mostly agree with what I wrote at the time.

I’m a lot less skeptical about whether she started out as a “slob”. In the last 6 years, while I haven’t necessarily changed that much in terms of my own orderliness or whatever, I _have_ become much more acutely aware of other people’s presentation to the outside world vs. what’s going on for them in the privacy of their own home. I still don’t _really_ get her butterfly/ladybug/cricket/bee (dragonfly) taxonomy of people and their clutter, but I didn’t even _mention_ it in my previous review and it is absolutely core to making sense of the book.

Books about decluttering — as Aarssen ably notes and describes in some detail! — all have roughly the same toolbox, and while there are tons of tips and tricks out there, only a few of them work for basically everyone. Aarssen’s taxonomy of people and the type of “clutterbug” they are provides a great deal of insight into how the rest of the strategies / tips and tricks will (fail to) work for them. So I’m super glad I reread it, and may have to reread it a couple more times before I really grasp that core idea. I may see if she’s written about that taxonomy in more detail elsewhere, on the off chance that helps me “get” it better.

Also, from the perspective of 2023, Aarssen’s book brilliantly straddles the hinge of 2017ish in decluttering — when it went from an “activity” or series of exercises to a personalized “self-help” approach. She uses her experience helping other people to simultaneously provide a core set of ideas (refactoring!) that are broadly useful, along with a guide to understanding whether or not you and/or your family members should even try to use some of the other ideas out there. (Yes, this paragraph says the same thing the previous paragraph did, but from a different perspective.)

I’ve never been that impressed by Peter Walsh, but Aarssen was, and she got him to do the foreword. I mostly read, and only very occasionally watch video, and Walsh’s primary format was a TV show. It might have been enough different on TV, that watching even a couple episodes would help me get what she saw in what he did.

City Works, Expedition Escape, TJ Smith’s

Today was our _most_ relaxing morning so far. We’ve had breakfast. I blogged a review of a reread of Aarssen’s decluttering book (mumble 15 minute mumble), which included a link to my 2017 review which did not _even mention_ the Clutterbug typology which is honestly the best thing about this really quite excellent decluttering book.

Homewood Suites here in Doylestown has a pretty good breakfast. I’ve been taking the tray from on top of the fridge (goes with the ice bucket) down each morning, which makes this much easier, altho they _also_ have cafeteria style plastic trays down there. I get juice for A. and me, a chocolate muffin for her. Sometimes I get coffee for me, but usually I just make tea in the room (I am traveling with my infuser and loose leaf English breakfast in a baggie, and it makes me soooo happy). One day there was bacon, but other days it has been sausage. They have a cake-donut-like waffle in plastic wrap. I got her a whole one on the first day, but since then I’ve cut her back to half because it’s huge and filling. I also pick up a banana and some small oranges, and she usually has the banana in the morning and we eat the oranges later in the day. I could eat what they supply — there are bagels every day — but I brought my sourdough crock. The first day, the stovetop did not work, so I used the microwave baker to make my egg-and-sourdough-and-baking-potassium wtf, with peanut butter, berries and syrup. After that, we figured out with the help of front desk that it was a circuit breaker that had flipped and the panel was accessible, so I’ve just been making a pancake each morning. Having whole wheat every morning really makes a difference on vacation.

We went to City Works again for lunch. T. got a donut and a milkshake at Duck’s Donuts. A. got a RKT with milk chocolate enrobing and m&Ms at Kilwins

We went to Expedition Escape and did the Baker Street room, and then used the 20% off to book the speakeasy room for tomorrow.

We had dinner at TJ Smith’s, because the social wasn’t really working for most of us.