This is kind of like Project 365 where you take a picture a day but different. I committed to read one book a week in 2016. That’s 52 books. Yikes! But that means once a month I can share the bounty! This first fine month of January I read:

• Shonda Rhimes’ The Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person
• Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Let People Help
• Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
• Jen Hatmaker’s Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

Greatest Physical Impact: The Life Changing Magic wins this hands down. I have been Kon Mari’ing my clothes according to the author’s insights:

• what brings me joy and what doesn’t
• if you hang onto something that doesn’t bring you joy it’s because you are afraid of the future or attached to the past or ashamed about your choices
• the question of what you want to own is actually a question about how you want to live your life

The result? 8 bags of clothing and 3 boxes of books are gone with more to follow. All those book binding books? I don’t make books anymore right now. I use Artifact Uprising or Blurb. So those books are gone. And some crazy clothes I’m embarrassed to have spent money on? Gone. I have miles to go but I am started.

Favorite Quotes: This goes to The Art of Asking

• Asking for help with shame says: You have power over me. Asking for help with condescension says: I have power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other. (p48)
• Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we’ve already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts – sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love – back into the puzzle of the world. Our second job is to accept where we are in the puzzle at each moment. That can be harder. (p306)

Amanda is a street performer, now author and always musician. After reading her insight on the experience, I now tip all street performers.

On Saying Yes

I learned from the Year of yes that of course, saying yes can mean saying no to one thing so that you can say yes to something else. And saying yes can mean saying yes if…. Practice saying yes! (Shonda Rhimes owns Thursday nights on ABC. She made a way for a cast that looks like a bag of Skittles to work. And btw, she is one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People Who Shape the World.)

On Saying No

From 7 I learned that saying no to more and yes to less like only eating 7 foods for a month, or wearing 7 items of clothing for a month, can be quite revealing.

I really enjoyed learning from other women’s experiences and explorations. There are so many amazing women out there right now. I am amazed at how deep the talent pipeline is!