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Summary: Finally! Organizing ideas that work with your personality!
Review: Most articles and books on getting organized offer great solutions but ignore the problems that got you there. This book gets to the heart of the psychological "quirks" and common mistakes each of us make and helps you work with those quirks to find solutions that are just right for you. For each area you want organized, she asks you "what's working", "what's not working", "what items are essential", and "why do you want to get organized" and "what's causing the problems". She offers plans to "strategize" and "attack" while listing common pitfalls and insider tips. She also provides estimates for how long it may take for each attack step (sort, purge, assign a home, containerize, equalize), which really helped me set expectations for getting the mess under control and maintaining it. The "what questions to ask before buying that next organizing container, gizmo or gadget" section is a real money-saver!Bottom line - You'll learn how to design an organizing plan based on your goals, your natural habits, and your psychological needs. Read this book, design and execute your plan, and get ready to feel liberated and empowered!
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Summary: good/informative...
Review: i've read a handful of outlines in this vien. this guide should b considered with other guides. it's not a guide onto itself.
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Summary: Must have, only place to start, don't organize without it
Review: I got this book a few years ago and I continue to use the ideas not just to unclutter but to create a lasting improvement in the way my life runs and in the way that our space is organized for the whole family. I was beyond disorganized and could easily compete with some of the worst-case scenarios mentioned in this book or in any other organizing/decluttering book. I was also feeling bad at why so many common methods that seemed to work so easily for others just didn't work for me. The premise of this book is priceless - there is no single right way to do things - it all depends on your needs and your personality. Forget "typical" ways of doing something or "shoulds" or what other's do or what works for others or anything else along those lines. Forget trite rules such as "if you haven't worn it in 2 years, throw it out" or feelings that you can't have your collections or hobbies the way you want them or that you even need to get rid of items that you love even though you don't have room to display them. This book starts with figuring out what you like, what you want, what you need in your life, and most importantly what your habits and skills and personality are like and then using all those to accomodate your "stuff". For example, you don't have to always walk in the door walk over to the coat closet and hang your coat in the closet. Just because that makes sense and you may feel (or other's might keep telling you) that it's really not that much work - a few extra steps, not even an extra minute. If that's not you, then there's no point in berating yourself or finally giving up because you can't do it. Figure out where you do end up putting your coat (e.g. on the floor right near the door when you walk in or or on the banisters) and go with that - put up a hook or a coat stand. One of my favorite examples in the book which I think really exemplifies the approach is one of her clients who always had shoes piling up next to her bed. Instead of saying put a shoe rack in the closet or some other typical place and learn to use it, this book's approach is to accept that for that person, her habits and behavior patterns require her to have her shoes near her bed. Any organizational tool or idea that puts her shoes anywhere else is eventually going to fail because it goes against this person's natural habits. Solution: put something next to the bed, where she is naturally placing the shoes anyway. This may sound simple but if you follow the whole book it really will help you to achieve organization in your life that is sustainable because it goes with your habits instead of telling you that you need to change and setting you up for failure when you can't do what you're "supposed to do." And yes, there's a lot about taking a look at your possessions but not at the expense of anything that you want (and no judgments about what you want vs. what you need - it's all about your personal, subjective wishes, recognizing that no two people are the same). Rest assured that if you want to keep something, you can - without having to justify it's value or make sacrifices.
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Summary: Going Beneath The [Cluttered] Surface
Review: At first I didn't like the premise of this book -- I wanted to get working and have a clean, organized home office, not think about the "purpose" of the rooms/areas. I love buying organizational and storage equipment, hoping that I'll find the perfect solution to my clutter issues. Eventually, I go back to my old habits and move on to something else.
This book taught me that you need to make it easy on yourself. When you lose your keys constantly, you need to make a place for them as soon as you walk in the house. If you hate mopping your floors all of the time, then make a nice place for shoes right by the back door. The premise is good... I need to re-read this book and motivate myself to work on other areas of my house!
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Summary: Organizing From the Inside Out , 1st Edition.....THE BEST!
Review: While waiting for the newest editions to be released, I'd like to say OFTIO 1st edition was the best book ever written on organization. I, myself, had never even heard of getting organized until I read this book.
Julie's approach makes the most sense out of all I've read. Her practical approach using the Analyze, Strategize, Attack not only makes getting organized easier, it is fun, and real. I've used this approach with my own organizing, and it WORKS!
In OFTIO, Julie takes getting organized and using real life examples, demonstrates how to approach difficult areas.
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Summary: Great book with fantastic tips and resources
Review: Although my life was not clutter filled, I was one of those people with dozens of containers (and constantly purchasing more) in my quest for organization, without much thought given to where I was going to store these items, how often they were used and whether or not the items were needed. This book helped me sift through all my accumulations physically and mentally to the point where I was a purging fool. It just made sense after a while to get rid of those things I was "planning on getting to" for the past few years. It was such a liberating experience!
Morgenstern takes you through organizing every room/space in your house/apartment step by step. She does not force you to dispose of those things that you may not be ready to be rid of (there's always storage!), instead she makes you think about why the item is important and evaluate each item and it's importance separately. I've used several of the resources she has referred to in her book in addition to re-using alot of the containers I originally had. I am by no means a creative person, however, I was able to use storege containers in non-conventional ways.
The Cons: It took me a while to get through the book. It was quite tempting to skip the beginning and just read the more interesting areas (the first 2 or 3 chapters were quite boring), but it was worth reading them because it made the other chapters more meaningful).
If you need to get that clutter monkey off your back, get this book, read it and don't put it down until every room is organized!
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