This is your guide to getting the most out of them. It's an unquestioned truth of modern life: we are starved for time. We tell ourselves we'd like to read more, get to the gym regularly, try new hobbies, and accomplish all kinds of goals. But then we give up because there just aren't enough hours to do it all. Or if we don't make excuses, we make sacrifices- taking time out from other things in order to fit it all in. There has to be a better way...and Laura Vanderkam has found one. After interviewing dozens of successful, happy people, she realized that they allocate their time differently than most of us. Instead of letting the daily grind crowd out the important stuff, they start by making sure there's time for the important stuff. When plans go wrong and they run out of time, only their lesser priorities suffer. Vanderkam shows that with a little examination and prioritizing, you'll find it is possible to sleep eight hours a night, exercise five days a week, take piano lessons, and write a novel without giving up quality time for work, family, and other things that really matter.

    Whether you are looking at small solutions for cutting down the stress in your life or taking the big leap toward the simpler life, this book can be your guide.  Janet Luhrs, the nationally recognized founder and editor of the Simple Living Journal, brings together strategies, inspiration, resources, and real-life profiles of people who have slowed down, overcome obstacles, and created richer lives.As Janet Luhrs says, "Simple living is about living deliberately.  Simple living is not about austerity, or frugality, or income level.  It's about being fully aware of why you are living your particular life, and knowing that life is one you have chosen thoughtfully.  Simple living is about designing our lives to coincide with our ideals." In The Simple Living Guide Janet Luhrs demonstrates how to live a deliberate, simpler life--and savor it.Discover Simple Living approaches to:Time Money Inner Simplicity Work Simple Pleasures and Romance Virtues Families Holidays Cooking and Nutrition Health and Exercise Housing Clutter Gardening Travel

    Too much stuff and too easily acquired, it confronts her in every corner and on every surface in her house. When she pledges to tackle the worst offender, her horror of a "Hell Room," she anticipates finally being able to throw away all of the unnecessary things she can't bring herself to part with: her fifth-grade report card, dried-up art supplies, an old vinyl raincoat.But what Eve discovers isn't just old CDs and outdated clothing, but a fierce desire within herself to hold on to her identity. Our things represent our memories, our history, a million tiny reference points in our lives. If we throw our stuff in the trash, where does that leave us? And if we don't...how do we know what's really important?Everyone has their own Hell Room, and Eve's battle with her clutter, along with her eventual self-clarity, encourages everyone to dig into their past to declutter their future. Year of No Clutter is a deeply inspiring--and frequently hilarious -- examination of why we keep stuff in the first place, and how to let it all go.

    Organize Yourself! provides readers with essential rules for better time, money, space, and paper management. It also addresses major events, from preparing for a move to planning a party or vacation. It reveals a professional organizer's proven techniques for streamlining daily life and provides fast, effective relief for common clutter and help with overcoming procrastination and every other organizational ailment.

    Drawing on her years of experience as a professional organizer, Morgenstern outlines a simple organizing plan that starts with understanding your individual goals, natural habits, and psychological needs, so that you can work with your priorities and personality rather than against them. The basic steps-Analyze, Strategize, Attack-can be applied to any space or situation. In this thoroughly revised edition, Morgenstern has incorporated new information in response to feedback from her clients and audiences. These changes include- new chapters on living or working with someone who is disorganized- new chapters on organizing photographs, handbags, briefcases, and travel bags- an expanded program for organizing your kitchen- a new guide to getting started- a fully updated resource guide

    

    Hundreds of thousands of readers have already benefited from her strategies.

    Where there is hope, there is help. You can win the chore wars! Author, founder, and editor of the top-ranked website OrganizedHome.com Introduces easy-to-remember tips for organizing the home Step-by-step photographs throughout show how easy it is to reach your goal

    But where to begin? How? Many of us have taken small steps, but Bea Johnson has taken the big leap. Bea, her husband Scott, and their two young sons produce just one quart of garbage a year.In Zero Waste Home, Bea Johnson shares her story and lays out the system by which she and her family have reached and maintained their own Zero Waste goals—a lifestyle that has yielded bigger surprises than they ever dreamed possible. They now have more time together as a family, they have cut their annual spending by a remarkable 40%, and they are healthier than they've ever been, both emotionally and physically.This book shares how-to advice and essential secrets and insights based on the author’s own experience. She demystifies the process of going Zero Waste with hundreds of easy tips for sustainable living that even the busiest people can integrate: from making your own mustard, to packing kids' lunches without plastic, to cancelling your junk mail, to enjoying the holidays without the guilt associated with overconsumption.Stylish and completely relatable, Zero Waste Home is a practical, step-by-step guide that gives readers the tools and tips to improve their overall health, save money and time, and achieve a brighter future for their families—and the planet.

    And so with this in mind gathered all her domestic wisdom together into a thirty day plan you can use to subtly (or dramatically!) shift your way of life and finally embrace the routines, rituals and seasonal celebrations Alison has long been advocating.From going organic, to creating a weekly and daily routine, choosing a creative path and making space for your very personal sense of spirituality, this precious book will provide a map directing you to the heart of your home: a place where you can be yourself without drowning under a relentless pile of laundry. A place my gorgeous housekeepers where rituals will shape your days and puttery treats will sprinkle a little glitter over them. A place you will want to come home to because it encapsulates all that you are today and everything you intend to be tomorrow.What Alison has created is a step by step guide to re-inventing your housekeeping existence. A guide to making friends with your house so that it will hug you instead of kicking you in the teeth day after day and remind you, through the voices of housewives gone by, that the urge, or perhaps more significantly the need to keep house is neither anti-feminist, nor futile but is in fact exactly what we must do if we are to nourish our hearts and souls daily and in the long run create a beautiful museum of all that we were: women in control of our own environments and ultimately our destinies, because home is where we begin…

    

    With a growing family, increased work demands, and more, she understands the struggle it is to keep the plates spinning.In A Simplified Life, you’ll find Emily’s strategies, systems, and methods for permanently clearing the clutter, organizing your priorities, and living intentionally in 10 key areas—from your home and meal planning, to style and finances, parenting, faith life, and more. Emily will show you how to truly make the most of your days with realistic, achievable, and tactical tools.Walk alongside Emily through each page of the book, working through her simple strategies toward your own goals as you simplify and make space for what matters most.

    Mike has the unique ability to communicate important truths in an easy-to-understand, highly-inspirational way. This book will motivate you to simplify life and focus on what's most important.”-Joshua Becker (blogger at becomingminimalist.com and bestselling author of Simplify and Living with Less)Simpler is a book about decluttering our lives and focusing on the most important things. It's a book about priorities. Life can get complicated, but we don't have to surrender to the whirlwind circumstances in which we find ourselves! We can choose to live differently.Your life may not be simple, but it can be simpl...er!Every person who reads this book, including you, can take steps today to declutter their life and begin to focus on what's most important to them.Table of ContentsIntroductionPart One: A Case for a Simpler Life1- Are you too busy?2- Minimalism Defined 3- What's Most Important...To You?4- The Other Side of Complexity5- A Less Traveled RoadPart Two: Practical Tips for Decluttering6- A Tool You Can't Live Without 7- Declutter Your Mind8- Declutter Your Schedule9- Declutter Your Email Inbox10- Declutter Your Bookshelf11- Declutter Your Paperwork12- Declutter Your Home & Workspaces13- Declutter Your Relationships14- Drastic Measures What's Next?

    Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet.The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic.

    If your garage, attic, closets, and surfaces are filled with clutter, all that extra stuff can get in the way of a full experience of life as it was meant to be lived. Minimalist Living covers not only techniques for decluttering, but how to fill your newfound space with meaningful activities that add joy to your life and support your goals. This guide to simplifying for health, joy, and creativity teaches: • Why you should define your own sense of minimalism • How to create your "Minimalist Mission Statement" • How to use the techniques of "blazing" and "gazing" to declutter • Why decluttering now can lead to a happier, healthier, and more creative life • How to deal with sentimental items without losing their meaning • The amazing connection between minimalism and living your soul's deepest purpose And much more...