The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify by Francine Jay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Quick review for a somewhat quick read. I’d probably give this read 2.5 stars overall. I read this over the course of a few days in audiobook form, and I’ll admit that I didn’t care for it despite having some practically useful ideas. I decided to read this for exploring methods of minimalist living and retention, since that seems to be a pervading topic when it comes to productivity and organization. The text itself has useful ideas if you haven’t read very many delcuttering/minimalism guides, but the narrative itself is cumbersome in its narration. Simple and key to remember ideas often get lost in explanations that go on much longer than necessary. I found it too superfluous in its communications. As the narrative went on, I honestly didn’t like many of the suggestions the book gives to approach a minimalist lifestyle (a.k.a. “Participate in sports that require less stuff.” Yes, this was an actual suggestion in this book among other methodologies.) It’s interesting that a key idea of this narrative communicated learning to control your stuff, not allowing your stuff to control you and what you want to do, but yet ideas like that give the opposite impression.
I would take this guide with a grain of salt, and it may be better just to use this for what is useful to the person reading it and to supplement other guides on organization and minimalist living. The figuring out what to keep sections were good, but its overarching useful mantras are taken over by redundancy and counter-intuitive suggestions.
Overall score: 2.5/5 stars.
View all my reviews
Advertisements Share this:
