Customer Reviews

The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Lorie Marrero is no stranger to clutter. I know this because her blogs and website have helped me sort through four storage units (saving me hundreds of dollars each month!) and most of my condo. Comparing the clutter of our lives with diet makes a lot of sense. Diet...we don't gain weight overnight and we can't lose it overnight. Same goes for clutter. All we need is a plan. Lorie provides us a plan to release this clutter.

There are many excellent books on Clutter and organization. This is one of them. Lorie helps you understand how the clutter is aquired and how to get it out of your life forever. It's not an easy task but this book helps you each step of the way.

The book is broken down in to four main sections, Getting Motivated, Clutter Prevention, Clutter Reduction, and Maintenance. Prevention helped me as much as the actual decluttering sessions. I learned to see "what enough looks like" - sounds simple but I did not know. So my "homes" for my items were overflowing. I am now learning what enough looks like.

The final section in the book breaks it down to suggestions on a room by room basis. She suggest products to help you along the way but you don't need to buy anything (other than the book) to implement Lorie's system.

This book is very easy to read and well organized.

Lorie Marrero makes the cogent point that a cluttered life is a reflection of a cluttered mind. Using the metaphor of a food diet for the process she recommends to organize your life is inspired since the two have much in common---eating junk food is the nutritional equivalent of a home cluttered with junk.

First, I really liked the graphic design of this book. It's paperback format is oversized and the pages have a spacious, inviting feel. The lines are spaced with extra leading so large sections of copy don't feel ponderous and overwhelming. Generous amounts of white space enhance the approachability of this 260 page book. In short, it's an easy read.

Another intelligent element of this book is the author's knowledge that any form of habit-breaking program needs outside support in order to succeed. Unless there are others providing some oversight to our efforts, it's human nature to back-slide. She accurately points out that 95% of people will likely achieve a goal if they have specific accountability with a person to whom they are committed (think Alcoholics Anonymous here). A website www.clutterdiet.com provides support and tools, including a free downloadabale companion workbook, to help keep your decluttering efforts on the straight and narrow.

Marrero spends a considerable portion of the book devoted to the psychological aspects of cluttering. Procrastination is, she says, the major reason why people clutter. Procrastination robs you of your energy (it's called the karm of incompletions). Specific exercises are provided to overcome the various mental barriers to leading an organized life.

Besides the obvious clutter---Beanie Baby collections, stacks of magazines, clothes you haven't fit in since college, that junky crap that you get for free---Marrero addresses other forms of "clutter" in our lives. Time clutter is a subject that could (and has) been the subject of a book all on its own. The author provides a 12-Step Program called Overdoers Anonymous to tackle the time clutter problem.

There's also the exponentially increasing problem of modern life she calls Communication Clutter---emails, junk mail, spam, telemarketers, and all that other inconsequential and unimportant online and telecommunications "stuff" that eats away at the time we have here on earth.

The back of the book includes room by room "recipes" with the "ingredients" for successful decluttering. There's a lot of meat here (to use the author's food analogies) and also requires the most actual physical work. So it's not an easy section to get through.

There's a lot of take-away in this book that more than justifies its price. I've read two other highly recommended books about getting rid of clutter in your life and learned a lot. But this is the best book on the subject by far, in my opinion. Start here before you look anywhere else.

I've read several "clean up the clutter" guides recently, including "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh, and this book stacks up well against all the recent titles. I really liked Lorie Marrero's "hook"--that organizing your home is a lot like learning to eat well--because it takes into account both the short-term and long-term aspects of combating clutter. Anyone who's interested in buying a book like this is probably facing a fairly serious situation and needs immediate help, but needs a longer-term framework or philosophical approach too in order to stay uncluttered. Marrero's diet analogy works on both counts: you can go on a "clutter diet" to make an immediate, noticeable impact, but then you maintain your new "physique" (your less-cluttered home) through consistently-applied new behaviors. In short, I really liked the book, I liked the writing and tone (it read as if the author was walking through my house with me, giving suggestions and moral support), I liked the helpful format, and I definitely recommend this book to anyone seeking help in getting their stuff under control.

While there is some extremely valuable information contained in this book, the constant references to "our paid clients", etc. are offensive and distracting for those who truly want to apply the ideas. Apparently if I am really smart, I will apply their "ruler" to my situation and just pay some one to fix my situation and add this book to the "give away" pile!

I have decided not to let the repetitive "commercials" prevent me from getting my money's worth out of the book I already paid for though. After eleven chapters of the propaganda, I just took a minute to get a piece of card stock and a marker and am "editing" out the references so I can use the information without the insinuations that i need to spend more money on the author's website subscriptions or services or cannot apparently apply the information without them!

The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life
With Lori's metaphor of dieting, you could say this book is all about waste reduction for your house, if you'll pardon the pun. Her different take on an old topic gives it a freshness that helps to distinguish it from the crowd of other organizing books out there.
And just like the other type of dieting, Lori takes us through the key steps we need to take to get started - and to stay on track - to reduce the clutter in our lives, from finding the motivation, to getting the education we need on how to do it, to knowing where and how to find the support we need to keep it all going.
The book has lots of simple but practical tips and techniques (food shopping? Get the family to write things down once they need to be replaced and only buy what's on your grocery list), together with a handy 'Clutter Fitness Exercise' at the end of each chapter to reinforce what we've learned.
She also helps us strip the fat away from less tangible modern-day clutter that tends to accumulate in the form of junk mail, email spam and the results of poor time management. (Check out the excellent tip on using the Rules engine in Outlook).
The final section of the book nicely reinforces the dieting metaphor with a selection of 'recipes' that are full of ideas on organizing and keeping control of specific rooms and important spaces in your house, whether it's your home office or your utility room.
A pleasant layout and (of course) uncluttered design make this book easy to use and enjoyable to read. One small area for improvement: It might have been a good idea to include an Index, especially given the book's topic.

I purchased the Kindle edition of this book. The formatting leaves alot to be desired - it added frustration to reading.

This book contains some great ideas and resources. Basic common sense rules. If you are willing to do the exercises, it will work for you.

My main gripe other than the kindle version is the way she hawks her website and services.

I haven't seen a book quite like Lorie Marrero's "The Clutter Diet." For one thing, it is integrated with a website. You can download useful organizer items for free there ("Clutter Prevention Wallet Sleeves", and she also has a forum and a mailing list. Secondly, its 260 pages are packed full of practical suggestions. For example, Lorie suggests buying dark clothing to mimimize stains, finding a motivation partner, turning your thoughts positive, planning before shopping, and using use a timer while cleaning. She also offers many useful suggestions on how to organize your mail, deal with your messy children, managing gift giving, selecting home storage units, getting rid of unecessary possesions, and other topics too numerous to mention. Even the most anal-retentive organized person can benefit from her suggestions. And, for messy individuals, it is a wonderful resource.

Admittedly, when I first opened "The Clutter Diet ®," I did not expect any new theories on the art of organization. However, Lorie Marrero attacks clutter from every angle--psychological to practical; her methods will surely set most clutter bugs abuzz to reevaluate and apply her myriad ideas, findings and conclusions. I mean, how many professional organizers can say that they started the practice of taming the maze of paperwork in grammar school? Interestingly, in grammar school, Lorie purchased a label maker with her allowance money only to spend her recess periods organizing the contents in her classmates' desks! If that does not get your attention, consider the fact that she and her husband moved 11 times, two kids in tow, and built four houses.

I also appreciated Lorie's gentle approach. "The Clutter Diet®" is like a knowledgeable, hardcore coach, who does not forsake the readers' human side, and affirms them constantly. In this vein, I love Lorie reminding us that sometimes our self-critique of "good; imperfect; so-so" is "good enough!" Wow, does that take the stress out of the organizational process; and, speaking of process, like any good diet, Lorie's book gives many resources, including a free companion workbook as well as online aids, to make the clutter diet not a temporary fly-by-night option, but a permanent, lifestyle change.

In fact, as a self-proclaimed organization freak on a constant mission to squelch clutter, I teach classes on book writing/publishing and spend a good deal of time discussing how clutter can sabotage goal planning. My classroom philosophy is: How can you write the book of your dreams when you cannot even find a piece of paper in your office? After reading "The Clutter Diet ®," I made it a part of my curriculum; which brings me to conclude, if you want to unleash yourself from the chains of clutter so you can start implementing your dreams into reality, start by reading Lorie's book.

Okay, here's the thing. There is absolutely nothing new in this book (except the binder clip idea - genius! - read the book to find out what I mean). There is no magic pill you can take and suddenly be one of those super organized people. I read a good number books, blogs, etc about organizing your home/office/email/life - flylady can totally kiss my butt, by the way. Nowadays, I pull one or two things from them and go on. It's like that with any self-help book, I suspect. But while reading it, it kind of crossed my mind. She's already done that. Taken the best of the ideas - most were variations of other advise I've heard over the year, tweaked to her own way of doing things - and put them in one book. For someone that doesn't read a lot, this is the perfect book because a lot of the work has been done for you.

Finally, a book that shows everyone how to implement the steps to be organized and to stay that way. Helpful for the young and old to clear the clutter out of their homes. Also, a teaching guide for parents to teach children how to clean and keep a home organized.

The Clutter Diet book is fill with wonderful quotes to encourage readers in each chapter. Cutter Fitness Exercises at the end of each chapter, help readers to put into practice what they read.

This book is helpful for anyone who has a problem keeping a clean home or having problems being motivated to reduce clutter. Lorie Marrero's , the Clutter Diet is a MUST have book in every household!