Tuesday Tips: Organizing Inside & Out
by Kristen Kanoski
I love to organize. I read a lot of books on organizing. Here are a few that I really like.
Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
My all time favorite organizing book. On the cover it reads “The Foolproof System for Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life”. I would say that is true if you follow her easy steps. Organizing for the inside out is a system that is built from your needs, personality and goals. It spotlights who you are and what is important to you so the system will mirror that.
The book has 240 pages, and I would say the first 58 are the most important to read. Why, it gets you to look at organizing in steps, tackling the clutter and simplify how to organize. It gets you to look at what is holding you back and how to break that cycle.
Then the book breaks down every room in the house and tells you how to organize the room based on your needs. Julie Morgenstern uses the SPACE formula. Sort Purge Assign a home Containerize Equalize
Does it work? Yes. I did this at my sister’s house with their basement. My sister has four children, and when they were younger she wanted to organize the basement as their play room. Boy, was it gross when we started. It took all day, but we followed the SPACE formula and it took about 6 hours, with an hour break for lunch to get it organized. My sister and the kids were able to keep this area clean and organized for almost two years. Until the kids grew out of that space and moved upstairs.
It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff by Peter Walsh from TLC’s Clean Sweep show
It’s All Too Much focuses on what to do when you reach the point of where you just don’t know where to start and how to start.
The book has 230 pages and again the first 56 are important because it helps you understand your excuses for clutter. Then Peter Walsh works with you to put clutter in its place. From garage sales to a peaceful organized home.
The book breaks down each room and helps you come up with a room function chart. Peter uses the F.A.S.T. plan. Fix a time, Anything not used for twelve months, Someone else’s stuff and Trash.
Does it work? Yes, I used the F.A.S.T for our garage. Wow, did it make a difference. I will be honest and say it took about a month over the summer to organize the garage. We did it on weekends when my son was asleep as well as an hour here or there. Since some stuff was my husband’s, I couldn’t really do anything with it, I sat with him and went through it. Once I organized everything he wanted to keep, he couldn’t find the items. We then redid those items together.
Another thing I really like about the book is the last step. Step 6 is all about new rituals and walks you through The Calendar For An Organized Home. It breaks down each month and tells you what and how to do things.
10,001 Hints and Tips for the Home by DK
This you will have to buy used or from Amazon. The book has 637 pages. The good thing is there are only 3 pages that I would say you should read, they are just on how to use the book. The book is filled, and I mean filled with hints and tips for everything. There are four sections Organizing Your Home, Decorating, Cooking, and Gardening. This book has some cool and easy ways to help with everything. My favorite is the dealing with stains. It is a great book if you don’t want to read a lot about organizing by being able to go right to the tip or hint you want. They have tons of pictures and illustrations.
Kristen Kanoski was a professional nanny/household manager for twenty years. Organizing is something that comes easy and is fun for her. She has been married for six years to an extremely unorganized hubby, whom she still loves, and is currently a SAHM to a active and silly two year old boy.
You can read Kristen’s Blog, Beyond Bottles, on life with babies beyond the bottle. She provides reviews of products, and how to organize your nursery.