Home Management 101: A Guide for Busy Parents

Rating:
Summary: How to Organize Your Entire House and more
Review: "This book shares all the information you will need to create a successful, easy-to-maintain system for your family. By learning the basic skills of an organized parent, you can react in a calm professional manner so that you control your household, rather than allowing it to control you." ~Debbie Williams

If your home looks like a hurricane just hit and there is no storm in sight, this book might help you finally tackle your organizational challenges. If you just have a few things out of place, here or there, then this will give you a few basic ideas you can implement in your organizational wars.

My mother's idea of organizing was to put everything in my room in the middle of the floor and let me sit and organize it for hours on end. Even after all this training, I still occasionally find myself in the middle of some disorganized, creative whirlwind.

There are times when you might be more in the mood to organize than at other times. To use those to the best advantage, read this book! It is really about more than just putting away clutter. I love her ideas about writing down items you run out of on "inventory" sheets hanging in various rooms. It saves running to the other room to find that pen and paper and ...oops, you already forgot what you were going to write down. This is a great time saver.

Debbie Williams presents an action plan:

1. Let's Get it Together -You will finally have ideas for how to sort through the items in your house. I like her idea about organizing one room at a time. It will give you a sense of satisfaction to see your home changing one room at a time.

2. Home Management 101 - A great section on managing paper clutter. I take ideas about sorting mail very seriously these days. One idea I discovered that saved me a ton of time sorting mail, was to get a P.O. Box. That way, I only get mail once a week for the most part and I take time all at once to sort through everything and organize bills, etc. As Debbie says: "Did you know that eighty percent of what you file is never looked at again."

3. Conquering Common Clutter - It is very easy to organize your closets. The author gives ideas for various ways to organize various items. I used her system to organize my clothes into various sections so it is easy to decide on formal/casual, etc. I like her ideas on "rules about inside/outside toys" and "one toy rule" to keep toys put away when not in use. Her "conquering kitchen clutter" was enlightening. I finally purchased a "chore chart" and put it on the front of the refrigerator. Want to remove some of that art on the front of the refrigerator? The author has some ideas about how to organize your children's creative offerings.

4. The Organized Parent - Ever considered organizing your car? This chapter has ideas about mobile desks, diaper bag checklists, creating a traveling nursery, creating stress-free holidays and even ideas on how to save money when ordering Christmas cards.

5. Office Management 101 - This situation is often a very highly specialized organization task, however most of us need the same basic items. Debbie gives ideas on how to consider the needs of all the people in your family who will be using this area.

6. From Here to There: Effective Time Management - This chapter really makes you more aware of the reality of priorities. Debbie encourages you to define what is most important in your life and schedule time for work, family AND yourself. She ends the chapter with a discussion about goal planning and the difference between must, should and would.

7. It's A Dirty Job, But ...- How to organize bathrooms, complete spring cleaning. Her ideas about freshening up pillows and comforters really do work and save drycleaner bills.

8. More Help for the Organizationally Challenged - A list of books with ISBN numbers so they are easy to look up at Am land. There is also a list of fun organizing products you can shop for online.

Throughout the book, the author gives Bright Ideas that are very helpful. One idea that has helped me be more organized is just getting a big black trash bag and walking through the house now and then. I did this for years and finally I can hardly find anything I want to give away. It has helped me keep the clutter down and it is less painful to get rid of your precious possessions a little at a time. After a few years, you start looking forward to donating items to good causes.

A cute book that is a fast-read so you can get right to all that organizing!

Rating:
Summary: It works!
Review: A very useful book to gain control of my home. So many helpful ideas to manage and keep my home in order.

Rating:
Summary: I organized two EXTREMELY chaotic rooms with this book!
Review: Debbie Williams takes to heart the concept of "feed a man a fish and he's full for a day, but teach him how to fish, and he'll have food for life." Her book, "Home Management 101: A Guide for Busy Parents," can take even the most organizationally challenged person and help them become more organized.

Whether your home is chaotic, cluttered, or just needing more systems for organization, this book is for you. Ms. Williams' writing style is delightful and easy to understand. It's like having her there as your personal guide in tackling that cluttered closet or chaotic kid's room. I used her book as a guide to organize two of the most chaotic rooms in my house. Before reading "Home Management 101," I was too overwhelmed to even begin. "Home Management 101" is a book I'll keep handy to refer to again and again.

The great thing is that Debbie Williams offers affordable organizational coaching services, which I've also used. She's got a wonderful way of helping you see exactly what you need to do and comes up with creative solutions that keep the whole family excited about being organized...

Rating:
Summary: Home Management 101
Review: Think nobody understands your organization woes? Think again...Ms. Williams hits all the targets with Home Management. She holds our hands through the process of breaking down our daily tasks into tackle-able parcels. Do you have uncontrollable kitchen clutter? That's where most everything lands in my house, anyway. School papers, mail, bills, newspapers, etc... This book shows you how to handle every piece of it.

You'll see side boxes with "Bright Ideas" in them. These are things you might have figured out if you thought about it long enough, but #1: Who has that kind of time?, and #2: Ms. Williams has done it for us! She even touches on some parenting skills when she gets into the toy arena! Shew....that's scary territory for any parent. Or if you have a teenager who's in a contest to see how many pieces if clothing she can own, you'll learn how to organize and store these things neatly so they can be found and not just recycled in the laundry!

I highly recommend this book to any parent or homeowner who has needed eight arms or split personalities to try to get it all done and put away. Great job, Debbie!...

Rating:
Summary: VERY BASIC
Review: This is a very very basic book on organizing your home. If you were just beginning a system of organization, didn't know where to start at all, or had not read another book about organization; then this might the book for you.

If, however, you are like myself- fairly organized and looking for a few hints and pointers and possibly some better ideas of ways to organize, you can skip this book. Personally I suggest to my friends that they consider 'Confessions of a Happily Organized Housewife' by Deniece Schofield. (Both her books are well worth the money!)

So- here is my opinion: IF you have never organizined before this is a very non threatening book with some great ideas for organizing various parts of your home. The author does a great job of explaining how to sort through things for importance, how to keep a system going once it is in place, and ideas of how to organize what you do keep. I just find it a VERY BASIC book. If you are already somewhat organized in your life or have already read some books on this topic, you can probably skip this book.

Rating:
Summary: Practical and easy-to-implement organizing tips!
Review: Williams' book is filled with organizing tips that are not only practical, but are also easy for any busy family to implement into their households. And after following her suggestions in the chapter on office management, I found working space in my writing area, I did not think even existed! Priscilla Y. Huff, author of 101 Best Home-Business Success Secrets and HerVenture.com<[e-mail]>.

Rating:
Summary: Practical and easy-to-implement organizing tips!
Review: Williams' book is filled with organizing tips that are not only practical, but are also easy for any busy family to implement into their households. And after following her suggestions in the chapter on office management, I found working space in my writing area, I did not think even existed! Priscilla Y. Huff, author of 101 Best Home-Business Success Secrets and HerVenture.com<[e-mail]>.