In the 2006 reprint of the UK edition of the book published by Piatkus, page 93 is mysteriously missing from the chapter about Paper Clutter. This has been corrected in later editions.

Here's the missing text... 

Magazines, Newspapers & Clippings

In one house I visited there was a whole room full of airplane magazines which had been waiting over 20 years to be sorted so that the owner could discover which issues he was missing to complete the set. When I asked him what he would do when the set was complete, he was dumbfounded. He had to think for a long time to remember why he wanted them. Collecting had become the goal, rather than using them for any purpose. When he gave himself permission to stop collecting and just let them go, he wrote to tell me what a huge relief it had been to take them to the local recycling bin and how wonderful it was to have an extra room in his house so that he could now invite guests to visit!

Another client’s study had vanished under a sea of newspapers and magazines she was keeping until she had time to sort through them for articles. There were also three enormous piles of clippings next to her desk that were waiting for further sorting and filing. When I suggested she could dump the lot and give herself a fresh start, there was panic into her eyes, as if this could have life-threatening consequences! When we took a minute to look at this objectively together, it came down to her being genuinely afraid that she would inadvertently throw away some article that would prove to be vital to her existence. This is a variation on the ‘this-may-come-in-useful-one-day’ syndrome, which is based in fear rather than in trusting life to bring to you exactly what you need when you need it.

It is wonderful to want to keep learning all the days of your life. But we are bombarded today by so much information that we need to be selective. If you want to keep clippings, create a filing system for them and keep it up-to-date. Have periodic sort-outs and get rid of information that is no longer current. If you have a pile of clippings waiting to be filed, set yourself a reasonable time period (say, by the end of the month), and if they ain’t filed by then, file ’em in the bin. When you have finished with your magazines, don’t hog them. Pass them on to hospitals, dentists, nursing homes, schools and other public places where they can be used, give them to relatives, friends or colleagues who will enjoy them, or just recycle them.

I encouraged this woman to sit down and make a list of the many things she wanted to do in her life that she wasn’t allowing herself to do because of unfinished jobs such as this. This gave her a completely new perspective with which to review all the tasks she had set herself and it became an easy decision for her to keep just one recent pile of magazines and send the rest on their way. The next time I saw her, the change was remarkable. The greyish gloom which hung around her had disappeared, even the bags under her eyes had all but vanished, and everything about her had become so animated and alive. It seemed she had not stopped with newspaper clippings but had clutter-cleared her entire study and then her entire house. It had totally revitalised her life.