0

Comments

Life makes it difficult to wade through all of your accumulated stuff to find the thing you really need. And this is true in several arenas—in your kitchen, your closet, your head, and your heart. There are so many different resources to consider, and sometimes seeking out the right kind of help (a book for your head clutter, another for your closet clutter, another for your heart clutter) can create even more clutter.

And that is precisely why I love The Only 127 Things You Need: A Guide to Life’s Essentials by Donna Wilkinson. Wilkinson gathered information from more than 50 experts in the areas of body, mind, and spirit and put the most helpful pieces of information into one compact and visually simple book.

While some of the information may seem a bit recycled (I’m already aware of how many servings of vegetables and how many hours of sleep I should have each day), some information was brand new and extremely helpful. I found a list of fruits and vegetables that have the highest levels of pesticides and those that have the lowest, making it easier to discern when I should spend the extra cash to buy organic, and when I can probably save a few pennies by going conventional. And, in a testament to how this book is organized exactly the way my brain is, I found a great list of debt management resources buried in the section about shopping for clothing.

I thought the mind and spirit sections were a little thin compared to the body section (71 pages, 56 pages, and 243 pages, respectively), and Wilkinson probably could have included more outside resources in the smaller sections. However, the information she did include in the mind and spirit sections was helpful and clear. The higher page count of the body section can probably be attributed to the fact that our body needs more stuff than our minds and spirits do, so perhaps I’m a little relieved that the mind and spirit sections were less bulky.

I would not recommend reading from cover to cover, as it makes the title seem disappointingly misleading. I read it cover to cover for this review, and 127 things started to feel like 127,000,000 things. Pick it up, peruse it quickly, and then read the sections that interest you, as they interest you. If you sense a particular imbalance in a certain aspect of your life, look it up, digest the advice specific to your problem, and put the book away until you need it again. Too much at once makes this book feel a bit more like foe than friend.

One of my favorite bloggers, Brocante Home, took a bit of initiative and created her own list of the 127 things she needs. Perhaps I’ll put my Style Statement to the test and do the same. Let’s see…#1: More book shelves…