Don Aslett's Clutter-Free!: Finally & Forever [Paperback]

Don Aslett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1995

Personal insights and plain common sense, along with letters from former clutterbugs, help readers free themselves from the unnecessary stuff in their lives.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stuff, stuff and more stuff! Facing towering piles of your own accumulated artifacts, all out of storage space, and feeling you can never get organized and out from under it?!? Here's a common sense book about how to organize and do away with the unnecessary stuff in your life, create space and feel terribly virtuous about it at the same time! Do you know anybody who doesn't need this book? I don't.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Marsh Creek Press (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0937750123
• ISBN-13: 978-0937750124
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don Aslett, owner and founder of one of the USA's largest and most successful cleaning companies--and self-made millionaire--has revolutionized both the home and the workplace with his popular cleaning services, products, and books

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and inspiring!, March 18, 2002

By 

christinemm - The Thinking Mother (Houston Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Don Aslett's Clutter-Free!: Finally & Forever (Paperback)

I have several books on simplifying life and organizing the home. I have found the organizing books patronizing and useless. Organization books helped me organize some of my stuff but not get rid of anything. I never really organized everything because to do so was too daunting of a task as I had too much stuff.

This is the first Don Aslett book I've read. Especially in the beginning, it is something like 95% reader's stories of their clutter and junk. It is laugh-out-loud funny. These stories are so extreme that I had to stop reading and immediately started going through my own things and getting rid of stuff. I'd go back and read more and then go back to de-cluttering. It took me 6 weeks to read the book because I have spent hours and hours de-junking my house in between. There are also some funny quizzes and poems, those that didn't interest me I simply skipped over.

The overall approach with this book is that it presents many readers's stories of what they save and collect and how they got rid of some of it. Then Aslett chimes in with his two cents and sometimes some tips on how to decide whether to save something or keep it or other words of wisdom regarding the subject at hand. Then back to this format over and over. I actually loved the format and felt that it was not preachy in nature. It was also easy to read in small bits and pieces, something nice for a busy mother like myself.

Aslett focuses on getting rid of most everything that we are not currently using or using within the last year. While I can't get that radical, it is inspirational. He deems a "collection" as anything we have three or more of, and he recommends having no collections. When I started thinking of it that way, I realized that I had some true garbage items that Aslett considers a collection, so I got rid of some of it! "Getting rid of" can mean giving things away to charities or friends, doing a tag sale, or throwing out the true trash. As I was de-junking I found some things he stated to be true: that some of the things I'd been saving had broken some time while in storage, some things attracted mice and were chewed, newspaper clippings were so yellowed that they were unreadable, and some books so mildew-y smelling that I got a headache when trying to read them. After experiencing that I realized Aslett was right when he said that even the stuff we save is usually useless (or lost) by the time we get around to trying to use it so we are better off to get rid of it sooner than later and not even to store it at all.

There are some very common-sense and useful tidbits such as the discussion of "is having a tag sale really worth the time, effort, etc." to which the answer is "no". I agree with him that selling used clothing to a consignment shop or at a tag sale is also less "profitable" than donating it to a charity and taking a tax deduction. The part about saving empty containers (boxes, tins, etc.) hit home and is true, how silly is it to save empty containers! The part about saving newspapers until we have time to read them is hilarious and I had to share that with some of my relatives who are guilty of this never-ending project of catching up on old newspapers.

I do feel a sense of more freedom now, as Aslett tells us we will feel if we de-junk. I also feel that my things do not bog me down. I have more de-junking to go but I am actually enjoying it! I also love living in the spaces that I've streamlined and de-junked, I can put my hands right on things when I need them, no searching through piles, etc.

I highly recommend this book. A relative and have two others waiting to borrow it next. Just talking to my friends and relatives about my own de-junking has inspired four people to start their own journey, and they haven't even read the book yet. Actually I am considering giving the Aslett books as gifts in the future!
Addendum: I am now reading "Clutter's Last Stand" and "Lose 200 lbs..." and I find that both of those have harsher attitudes and sometimes actually are a bit demeaning and insulting toward people who have clutter. This book though, had none of that attitude and is by far much funnier and contains more reader mail which is fun to read.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very funny look at how other folks deal with junk, July 31, 2001

By 

Carol C. "ccjello" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Don Aslett's Clutter-Free!: Finally & Forever (Paperback)

This is not necessarily a how-to-dejunk book (like Clutter's Last Stand, which I HIGHLY recommend), but rather, a book of testimonials. It's stuffed with short paragraphs written by "your fellow packrats" about how they dealt with the clutter in their lives -- kind of like those before-after diet success stories you often find in women's magazines. Some of the testimonials are particularly helpful and poignant -- how to deal with stuff that belonged to a child or spouse who has died, how to deal with gifts. Aslett will have you getting rid of unnecessary gifts and memorabilia guilt-free, while saving those few things that have real value and meaning.

Some of the stories are downright amusing -- my favorite, a story by a woman cleaning out her recently-deceased grandmother's home, who found oatmeal boxes and all kinds of other boxes, even boxes in the attic, full of metal disks. She finally realized that the disks were the ends off biscuit cans -- grandma made biscuits for breakfast every day for over twenty years. A woman described her husband, who saved every school paper he ever had, because "when he's President it will be necessary for history." There are notes from a woman who saved all of the shoulder pads she had removed from her clothing, even though she looked ghastly in shoulder pads, another woman whose clothese are so tight in her closet she doesn't need hangers -- "They're just suspended there by compression."

In addition to the testimonials, Aslett includes all sorts of silly poetry about clutter that will have you laughing, poems about "The Junk Drawer" and "Purse of the American Wife." The poems and stories aren't necesssarily how-tos, but perhaps they will be a mirror to help you see the absurdity in your own save-everything behavior -- to help you realize that the faded curtains from the bedroom in your last house, the six-year old can of Slimfast powder, the abandoned ceramic projects, the dead flashlight and old bridesmaids dresses are a burden.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, just not his usual classic, May 30, 2001

By 

Janise G. Pries "book-devourer" (El Paso, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Don Aslett's Clutter-Free!: Finally & Forever (Paperback)

Aslett's masterwork is CLUTTER'S LAST STAND, which I have probably read at least 30 times (I even gave a copy to my ex when we parted ways). This book CLUTTER-FREE!: FINALLY & FOREVER is full of testimonials--> but in many cases they are more than that as they show how real people have grappled with the concept of clutter, freedom, guilt, obligation, etc. I find I read different Aslett clutter books at different times, depending on my level of motivation. I definitely recommend reading CLUTTER'S LAST STAND before reading this one. Nonetheless, this is a really good read.