I’m kind of behind the times when it comes to Peter Walsh, of Oprah fame (and, as I have been informed in the comments, I watched him on Clean Sweep for a few years and didn’t know who he was. Go me.). I haven’t read his books, and I’ve never seen him on TV. I don’t have cable, and I don’t live in the US so watching shows on Hulu is pretty much out of the question, so I hope you’ll forgive me in this case.

I found this video of Peter last night, and wanted to share it.

If you cannot see the video in your RSS/email, please click through to ClutterCubed to watch it.

This video was brief and to the point, so if this is how Peter usually is, I think I like the guy. Peter says:

Your stuff has to help you create the life you want. And if it doesn’t, the obvious question is: “what’s it doing in your home?”

This goes right along with William Morris‘

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

These are concepts that we should try to embrace in our quest to get rid of clutter. Why should we keep things that we neither use not like? We shouldn’t.

He also touches on two of the main types of clutter: memory clutter, things that you keep to remind you of past events, and “just in case” clutter (he calls it “I might need it someday” clutter, but mine is shorter ), things that you keep in case you might need them in the future.
I think that in general, keepsakes can be fine, but must be kept in moderation. Do you really need a ceramic mermaid to remind you of your trip to Florida?
This past summer I got rid of a lot of my memory clutter. Most of it was found in a box I hadn’t opened for years. Sure, it was kinda cool to go through it and remember everything on queue, but the items themselves were pretty useless. Some where broken, some where never very nice in the first place. They were not useful, and most were not anywhere close to beautiful. Since I’m still not as ruthless as perhaps I should be, I wrote down a list of all the items and what they reminded me of, then I got rid of the items. It was somewhat of a compromise, since I still own a list that doesn’t really have a proper place in my home, but it’s better than a box full of random trinkets.
My comments about “just in case” clutter turned into a whole post all on their own, so I’ll post them some other time.

Peter goes on to say that all your belongings should help you create the life you want to live, and that sometimes people confuse “more” with “better”, and they keep on acquiring clutter as they chase the life they want. Will your life really be better with 500 channels when you’re too busy to watch the 200 you have now? I think that more of us need to look around at the stuff in our homes and really ask ourselves if they actually enrich our lives, or if they are just cluttering up our lives.

After that it kinda turns into an ad for his book, but the main message of this little video, to strive to only keep items that let you (and actually help you) live the kind of life you want to live, is still sound. If you want a calm, serene, relaxing life, you can’t do it if you cram your house and schedule with everything you’ve wanted to own or do on a whim. You need to take the time to think about purchases before bringing them home, and consider how those objects will help you create the life you want to live.

Are any of you fans of Peter Walsh? Do you have a favourite quote or idea he popularized? I’d love to know!

PS – Would anyone be interested in watching if I recorded a little video post of my own? I’m not sure if people need to see my mug on the Internet any more than it’s already on this site.

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