The author bluntly reminds you that if you are sitting on items that you haven’t looked at in years, would you really miss them? And what is the real value of these items? And more importantly, what legacy are you leaving for your children or grandchildren?ĭeath cleaning according to Magnusson is “about a permanent form of organization that makes your everyday life run more smoothly.” So this isn’t just for those of us in our twilight years. Magnusson cuts through the sentimentality that can often bog us down when we set out to do a “purge” of possessions. I’ve gone through two major “clean outs” of homes in the past 10 years, and I can tell you that each situation is different and each clean out takes lots of time. Simple, right? Actually not as simple as you think.

And as the author states, “it is a term that means that you remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet.” The Swedish term döstädning literally means “death cleaning” in English. And who wants to be remembered by their family and friends as a packrat? Or as someone who lived in a house where the camera crew from Hoarders was just outside the window? As the author states in the foreward: “Let me help make your loved ones’ memories of you nice-instead of awful.” What is Death Cleaning? So what makes Magnusson’s slim but effective tome different than any one of the other “get organized” books out there? Hers is done with humor and humility and from the perspective that one day each of us will be gone from this earth. So when it was announced that The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margaret Magnusson was being released, the book went to the top of my “must read” list.Īnd I wasn’t disappointed. In my own book After You’re Gone: Future Proofing Your Genealogy Research, I review many simple techniques for cleaning out a loved one’s home in order to gather important family history items. Over the past few years I’ve been lecturing to the genealogy community on the topic of what to do with years of family history research and how to pass it on to the next generation. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. PLEASE NOTE: The Genealogy Bargains post content below contains affiliate links. , Thomas MacEntee, Comments Off on REVIEW: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning – A Must Have for Baby Boomers! REVIEW: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter

The gentle art of swedish cleaning