When my daughter was small, maybe around 2 years old or so, I looked around my house and realized that things were out of control. Prior to staying home with her full-time, I had been working 50 - 60 hours a week with a hour commute each way and my husband was working similar hours. We came home exhausted and got into the mode of only doing what absolutely needed to be done before going to work the next day. Years of that kind of thinking/behavior along with a house that was bigger than we needed allowed disorganization to rule. Staying home with a small child meant I was looking at the mess and living in the mess all day long versus going to an office and only coming home to sleep. The papers and the "stuff" felt oppressive and I vowed to make a change. Fast forward 15 years and many man hours later and I can tell you simplifying will save your sanity. Over the years I have read many, many books on the subject and some are great while others - not so much. This book falls into the category of great.The first portion of the book is more philosophical - what do you want your family/home to look like? What is your goal? How do you want to spend your life energy? The second portion deals more with the nuts and bolts of how to make it happen. In my experience, the timetable of less than two weeks to accomplish this task for the whole house isn't realistic but you CAN make a huge dent and feed off the feeling of success to keep going. It was more iterative for me where we went through everything, waited about six months and did it again - repeatedly. Every time we did it, it got easier and faster and it built upon itself. Now I go through our basement every two years or so and only spend a short period of time versus hours and hours and hours.We chose to simplify in place for now versus downsizing but the relief I feel and knowing where things are and can put my hands on them quickly is wonderful. Not looking at closets and cabinets full of stuff (that I have room for but don't want) is a wonderful feeling. We are also in a much better position to move when the time comes and we haven't spent our hard-earned money acquiring things we don't need that we have to get rid of later.Simplification is not self-denial but just the opposite - it's freedom and space in your life to do what is important to you. This book is wonderful in that the opening pages give you the structure and the "why" of simplification and then the rest walks you through step-by-step just how to do it.One of the best books out there.Additional reading : any book by Elaine St. James on the subjectAdded on 1/17/2012 -- Simplification is an iterative process often with two steps forward and one step back. After reading this book, I was motivated to go through my closet and get rid of things. Even with years of simplification ideas behind me, I still had quite a haul to Goodwill and one garbage bag of items in poor enough shape that I didn't feel comfortable donating them. The good side was that it didn't take very long to accomplish and the decisions were easier to make.