If anyone is looking for someone to speak at your organization, I recommend her. She lives in the Denver metro area, so she might be particularly attractive to people local to this area.

This book sounds great because it seems to suggest things that are managable, not requiring humongous changes in a short period of time.

Thanks for sharing your reading.

Best,
Lisa

A long vacation is 4 weeks not 8 days, Americans work wayyyyy to hard and take way to short of holidays

You say that you suggest tossing something and “she doesn’t like it one bit”. So you then plan to toss it when she’s not around. I’m sorry, but that’s extremely disrespectful of your wife. You’re doing something she’s already told you she doesn’t want you to do and you’re deliberately doing it behind her back.

How would you have felt if she’d thrown out your Magic cards after you’d stopped playing with them but before you were ready to give them up?

You say that you’re not tossing anything of “significance to her” but *you* are the one saying the items are insignificant, such as magazines. Maybe they’re not insignificant to her. Just because you don’t see the importance doesn’t mean she doesn’t have some kind of plan for these items.

And even if she is just saving items “just in case”, you should still discuss that and reach some kind of agreement as to how many of certain items is reasonable to keep, rather than making the decision for her as though she were your child rather than your partner.

If I mention something and she looks like she has no idea what I’m talking about, I put it on my mental list of stuff to toss the next time she’s not there, because if she is there, she’ll “rediscover” this stuff and insist that we keep it, just to return it to the shelf to sit there.

I don’t ever want to toss out anything of significance to her.

I’m a pack rat myself. Maybe your wife isn’t bothered, but the idea of someone “getting rid of stuff” when I’m “not paying attention” makes my skin crawl. In my situation, that would be a serious issue, something reeking of a lack of respect.

People can have different reasons for being pack rats, ranging from limited time to clear things out to emotional issues to frugality. It can also be the case that one partner simply can’t relate to why a certain object, say a teddy bear or a stuffed moose head, is significant to the other person. I don’t know if any of these fit for your wife, or if it’s even a major issue in your relationship. If it is, it might be worth getting to the bottom of why, as in “why she’s a pack rat”. That in turn might suggest an approach for responding to it.

For my own particular set of issues, I’ve found the FreeCycle network helpful. I’m able to let go of possessions knowing that they’re going to someone else who is probably frugal and probably won’t just pitch them in the trash. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Thanks to Trent, I feel like I read an additional book each week. These reviews are so thorough. It feels like a buddy telling you about a book he read.

For example, you may be missing great opportunities for future writing gigs or freelancing / speaking opportunities by spending your time doing household chores.

Often small business owners have to work at a rate *lower* than their employees for a couple years because time spent working on what you love is an investment in the future and an investment in future opportunities.

Talk about a time-waster. I wanted to Stumble this post – but they want me to fill out thirty fields in order to do so.

Screw it. I’ll just email it to myself at work.