Review – Tilo Flache Promise Broken. Moving On.

Introduction – Tilo Flache Promise Broken. Moving On.

German-born professional organiser Tilo Flache has written a book entitled Promise Broken. Moving On, which I want to review and discuss in this week’s blog post.

Promise Broken. Moving On is Tilo’s first book, published in 2019. He has since written a second book called Clutter Tides which I haven’t read yet.

The book is self-published through Amazon, is 170 pages long and has 20 chapters.

Author Tilo Flache is based in Brighton. He runs a professional organising business called Cluttermeister, which helps people with decluttering their homes. Tilo also has a YouTube channel where he posts short videos on all aspects of organising your house and life.

He is not alone in having written a book. Other professional organisers have also done so. What’s Your Excuse for not Clearing Your Clutter? by Juliet Landau-Pope of  JLP Coach or A Better Organised Home in 30 Days by Kate Galbally of Better Organised, to name just two.

I congratulate everyone who has managed to write a book and get it published or self-publish it. I want to write a book, also. Having said that, I am also critical of some of the books published, especially books self-published and Promise Broken. Moving On. It is one of those.

What are my criticisms? The good and the bad?

Tilo Flache Promise Broken. Moving On – Part 1

The author himself states on Amazon:

This book is looking at a totally different angle: not so much what comes from within, but what is imposed upon us from the outside. While I strongly believe that internal forces drive our reluctance to let go, I am convinced that the external influences play an important part in making us accumulate things in the first place.

When Tilo says this book looks at a different angle from others written on the topic, I am not so sure. My main critique here is that it doesn’t tell me anything I haven’t heard many times before. Tilo doesn’t seem to say anything new or anything from a different angle to others who have written on the same topic.

So, what is this book about? In the author’s own words:

…Promise Broken. Moving On…looks at the link between advertising, consumerism and the accumulation of things we possess and fill our homes with. It holds up a mirror and shows you how exactly this affects YOU.

Flache divides the book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the problem of consumerism, endless shopping, waste and built-in obsolescence. It talks about marketing and how companies make us deliberately buy more and crave more through advertising and placement in shops, the right music and the layout of shopping centres.

The Good and The Bad – Part 2

The second and shorter part of the book deals with minimalism. He briefly outlines minimalism and discusses whether this is an option for our overfilled homes.

In the chapter What’s next? Tilo explains that we cannot go on the way we did. He says that we need to steer in a new direction, if only to combat climate change and nothing else.

The direction of travel is pretty obvious: historically we started out with owning very little in terms of physical things. Over time, and increasingly more forceful over the last 100 years or so, things have reached fever pitch and it is now becoming clear that we can either continue the battered road of wanting more or choose a new path that leads us in a different direction.

Looking around us, we find that it has turned increasingly difficult to sustain how we go about leading our lives and using up whatever materials we can lay our hands on, this is to no small part a result of our drive towards owning more and consuming more and that does include consuming more experiences.

Although we still produce some things in a sustainable manner, and there is a growing concern about how we behave towards the environment that sustains us, it is also becoming painfully clear that there is no simple way to stop damaging our world in the short term. Unfortunately, even the hard way might lead us towards a less than bright future.

Conclusion

There isn’t much I would disagree with within the book. However, we must stop consuming and shopping to conserve our environment and health. We should adopt a more minimalist lifestyle.

The book is written in an easy-to-understand and accessible way, but I felt at the time it lacked facts and figures which would strengthen the argument that he makes. Others include James Wallman Stuffocation, Living More with Less or Heather Rogers Gone Tomorrow. The Hidden Life of Garbage has written on the same topic, come to similar conclusions and said it.

Enjoyed this review? Let me know if you want to read more reviews or if you have a book you’d like me to review.

trabantbettina

Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,