Getting Rid Of The Crap E-Book

Mimi May Lehmann

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 114

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Getting Rid of the Crap - I Need a Simpler Life is not just a personal story - it is a practical roadmap for real-life change. With a sharp eye for what matters and a refreshing dose of honesty, Mimi May Lehmann walks readers through her own radical life decluttering process - and shows you how to do the same. This book is not about fluffy mindset quotes or theoretical advice. It is about concrete steps and tested tools to reduce stress, reclaim time, and simplify your life - one drawer, one thought, one to-do at a time. Inside, you will find: Step-by-step instructions for decluttering clothes, kitchen, office, digital space and more Emotional guidance for letting go of sentimental clutter and social expectations Sustainable routines that actually fit into real life Practical strategies to reduce mental overload and create space for joy Mimi does not claim to be a guru. She is a smart, independent woman who realized her life had become way too complicated - and decided to do something about it. Her voice is sharp, honest, often funny, and always relatable. You will nod, laugh, maybe cry - and finally start changing the things that really need to change. This is a book for everyone who is tired of overcomplicating life - and ready to take it back.

Leseprobe

At My Wits' End

The leaves on the trees revealed their most magnificent colors, and the mist hung over the area like a cozy blanket. My beloved October. I lay on the sofa and couldn't remotely bring myself to do anything. Just thinking about my to-do list made me want to play dead. It was breathing down my neck like a silent threat. I knew that for every minute I wasted, I would have to pay later. Without energy, I sipped my coffee and looked at the clock on our white country house shelf. It was 11:30 a.m., and the minute hand ticked on relentlessly. I knew I should have been in the kitchen long ago to prepare lunch for the children. But what should I cook? I didn't have the energy to think of a menu. Actually, I didn't have time to cook. I had to tackle my to-do list that never seemed to end. Instead, every evening, it was even longer than in the morning. No matter how hard I worked, the work just didn't get any less.

I had been self-employed, working from home for seventeen years. As a business economist, I looked after wealthy entrepreneurs and managed their business and private affairs. You could also say that I was a very well-educated private secretary. In my mid-thirties, as a mom of two small children, I studied business administration by distance learning to keep my brain exercised and myself up to date with the latest developments. In any case, I loved my clients and my work. I got to know interesting people whose elite ranks you wouldn't otherwise get an insight into. I was invited to exclusive events, and sometimes, I could even bring my family.

My clients were my mentors. They taught me a lot about the right money mindset and pragmatic business management. I was honored by their trust in me and loved working together as equals. My scope of activity varied from demanding negotiations to managing the domestic staff. But now, after all these years of constant stress, I no longer had the desire or strength to keep all those to-dos in my head.

Things got even worse when we added the Tesla rental service platform, which my husband and I had been running together for a few months. The original plan was just to rent out my Tesla – a kind of car sharing because I rarely needed the vehicle. But we were overrun with rental requests, and before we knew it, we had three Teslas of our own and eight partners renting their cars through our platform. So I basically got into the Tesla rental service like a virgin, although I never really liked this baby. No question. I loved the fancy car from California; it was a true symphony of elegance. However, as an introvert, I hated interacting and having small talk with constantly new renters.

In addition, the business collaboration with my husband increasingly put a strain on our marriage. As completely harmonized as we were in our private lives, we were just as different in business matters. He, the social butterfly, was bursting with energy and couldn't stand standing still. I, the cranky loner, preferred to work unhurried and alone. In other words: the sun shone out of his ass, and I loved the rain. While he believed that one should grow by tackling unpleasant work, I felt that everyone should use their personal potential. As an anti-team player, one of the few advantages of teamwork was distributing the tasks according to our respective disposition. The whole thing ultimately culminated in me wanting to hide when my husband came around the corner in our apartment, just because I was afraid he would come at me with even more unpleasant tasks. The last thing I needed was more work or new challenges.

I was barely able to cope with everyday life. I had been running in survival mode for months. I didn't know whether I was coming or going. I worked every day, even on Sundays, hoping to start Monday more relaxed. Of course, that never happened. As soon as I opened my notebook on Monday morning, I already had countless new emails on my screen, and each one meant even more work.

Over the years, work and private life had merged unnoticed. On the one hand, this was because I worked from home. On the other hand, I had to deal with my customers' requests within 24 hours, making it impossible to draw a clear boundary between work and private life. And so it happened that my family had no weekends, holidays, or let alone vacations.

And now it seemed like this busy life was taking its toll. There was not a single day when I couldn't manage to juggle all my obligations. I would rather have moved into a barn with no heating and an outhouse than have to manage even more.

I dragged my body into the kitchen. Through the window, I watched the people walking past our house. They all had time to do sports or go for walks with friends and still had money. What had I done wrong? When exactly did I take a wrong turn in my life's path?

I was once an ambitious businesswoman and a caring mother who navigated both worlds elegantly and effortlessly. Now, all that was left of this woman was a pitiful shadow. I was a wreck who wanted to throw myself on the floor crying just thinking about my daily tasks. Every little request pushed me to the limit. Creating a menu plan for next week – unthinkable! Making breakfast for the boys – I almost collapsed just thinking about it. Where had my joy of life gone? I was only looking forward to crawling into bed at 8 p.m.

And that, even though it was fall. My absolute favorite season! I already looked forward to it in January. To the beautiful, misty days that filled me with so much happiness and bliss that I could have wallowed in them. To the soothing calls of ravens and the divine scent of burning wood that wafted from the chimneys of the old farmhouses. I loved the evening walks through our village and across the fields with my boys just before the golden hour gave way to complete darkness. But now I just wanted to fall into a coma and only wake up when my life no longer felt so incredibly difficult and stressful.

I was at the bottom – at my wits' end. And slowly I got really angry. I was angry because I felt trapped in my own life – in the stranglehold of work and condemned to plow away non-stop. I was furious that I no longer met with relatives and friends because I didn't know when I would make up for the lost working time. Since early childhood, I was an idiosyncratic free spirit, a quiet rebel who loathed nothing more than constraints and pressure of any kind. Ironically, that's precisely where I found myself now: in the abysm of all imaginable constraints and the constant pressure to get something done. And I currently saw no way to free myself from it.

With great effort, I managed to get an uneventful lunch on the table. After the boys went back to school, I was just able to bring myself to put the dishes in the dishwasher before plopping down on the sofa again. "Heartland" was on television, a Canadian series about a family that nurses neglected horses back to health on their farm in the Rocky Mountains. An idyllic world where things were quiet and leisurely. I would have loved to move there and leave all the business crap behind me. I could have mucked out the stables with Amy and driven to Hudson with Jack to get the animal feed.

As I watched Jack and Amy, I longed more and more for a simple life – a quiet, manageable existence that gave me enough time for my children, my family, and myself. In my current life, there were simply too many to-dos, too many business obligations and problems, too many fears, and too many unfounded worries.

I knew I had to talk to my husband about it. Only together could we get back on track. I had already indicated a few times that I was no longer happy; of course, he had already noticed it himself. After all, my distressed state was obvious, and I wouldn't have blamed him if the pitiful sight of me had made him want to throw himself off a bridge. Luckily, we had a relationship in which honest and unvarnished communication was a given.

My biggest problem was the need to keep making money. Our family system has always been structured so that my husband and I were jointly responsible for the household, children, and income. For me, the thought of leaving my husband hanging financially was unbearable. Where would the money come from if I threw in the towel and gave up my business? I was too old to live off a sugar daddy, too poor to live off my assets, and too uptight for OnlyFans. If money didn't play a role in my life, I honestly would have preferred not to work at all. I could have devoted myself completely to the children without these constant concerns about not doing full justice to either one or the other.

I wanted a timeout to figure out what to do next and what I wanted to do from the bottom of my heart. But unfortunately, money still played a role, and I definitely had to talk to my husband about it. I had to be mercilessly honest and add the necessary drama, so this time, it was obvious to him how serious I was. How bad I felt. And this has been going on for months. No, actually, for years. I wanted to make it clear to him that we had to change something because it was no longer fun the way it was. That my emotional state was completely unacceptable. That I was now more willing to live on a minimum wage and, if necessary, move into a studio apartment with four people than to continue like this for even a single day.

My husband understood. He knew as well as I did that the working-for-money principle was no longer satisfactory for us. It was precisely this working model that had brought me into this unbearable situation. Because if I didn't work, I didn't earn anything. So I pretty much just worked. I was self-employed, as the term suggests: doing everything myself, all the time.

My husband then told me about Amazon FBA, a business model in which you buy and sell products under your own brand on Amazon. I liked the idea. It sounded simple; I could work alone and regardless of location. Plus, I would make almost passive income once the business was set up. Amazon FBA sounded like the solution to all my problems, so shortly after, I attended a seminar to learn all about it.

How Do I Simplify My Life?

Over the next six months, I worked harder than ever as I built my Amazon business, specifically my Amazon USA business, because, as a Swiss citizen, it was easier for me to do business in the USA than in Europe. One disadvantage was that I had to do everything in English, not my native language. But at the end of the day, it was still the lesser evil than dealing with the dreadful European bureaucracy.

The last month of spring had just begun, and my joy was boundless: my product was purchased for the first time on May 2nd. Bring on the champagne! It actually worked! I was finally compensated for the effort and nerves I had invested.