Customer Reviews

Cut the Clutter and Stow the Stuff: The Q.U.I.C.K. Way to Bring Lasting Order to Household Chaos

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I believe this book to be very helpful. IF you are not impaired in the ways of organization, then of course this book would have useless ideas for people who already know them. For those of us with this problem of not knowing how to organize, this book is great. It showed me how to organize space more efficiently, gave me a different outlook on how to use different rooms in my home and gave me some resources for what to buy for cabinets, closets and entryways. It is VERY helpful and full of all different advice in the way of organization. IT points out the psychological reasons we hoard things,,,,what type of clutter person you are and with that information helps you fight the habits that got you to the place where you needed to buy the book in the first place. Reading the other reviews, I believe them to unfairly put this book on a low level, seems maybe these people did not need the help to begin with??? It helps...it has major ideas and a lot of them in an easy to grasp format that is easy and pleasurable to read.

I personally can't believe someone got a book contract for these obvious and/or lame rehashed suggestions about managing the stuff in your life. Some examples:

One guy saved space in his bathroom by getting rid of his hairdryer when he went bald. That one's headed "No Longer in Dryer Straits."

If you have more than one bathroom, keep a clothes hamper in only one of the bathrooms.

When you clean out the bathroom cabinet, "take a big plastic trash bag and a couple of big boxes with you to your bathroom battlefield and keep them in easy reach. Be sure that the bag is sturdy enough to handle the weight of all the items that you'll discard. Tops on the list: old tubes of toothpaste, the empty carton that used to be full of cotton swabs, the cologne your husband never, ever wears. When the job is done, tie it [I'm assuming she means the sack, not the husband or the cologne] up and make one trip to your trash cans."

"....As you unearth spare stands of dental floss, odd buttons, old pantyhose, and other items in your bathroom cleaning binge, Courtney Watkins [a former kindergarten teacher whose creds golly gosh include appearing on The Donny and Marie Show and doesn't that impress us all?] encourages you to use those materials to boost your child's creative powers. 'I think I have the most fun cleaning and organizing when I look at my collection of things and say, "What else can this be?" ' says Courtney. 'Playing the game of What Else, you push that muscle of creativity and ingenuity both in your child and you.' "

I submit to you that Courtney and author Lori Baird don't know what real clutter is. Buy Karen Kingston's Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui instead. It works and it's interesting!

This book seemed a lot of already-heard organizing ideas rehashed by Rodale to make money. They should have had the person who wrote the marketing piece write the book! Confusing style, not funny - too cutsie, much too wordy... in a word... cluttered.

Clutter is often a result of having a busy life. Hence, it wouldn't make sense for a book intended to help you clear clutter to involve a lot of your time. The book is designed of short but extremely helpful tips, so that you can read only a little bit and take 15 minutes to fight clutter. In other words, it helps you keep from being overwhelmed by the daunting task of clearing your stuff. I've always been. and always will be, a packrat, but I'm a more organized packrat now.

This book really changed my ideas about decluttering my life. It has great mix of psychological motivation and practical how-tos. After reading it front to back, I go back and pick it up to read specific sections every now and then. This book is practical, a fun read and helped me change my home for the better.

After reading the widely disparate reviews, I got a copy from the library. I found the book to be delightful and helpful, and I have ordered a copy to own. I lead a complex life, producing beautiful, organized work but leaving debris around me as drafts, printouts, and other papers accumulate. The author is very understanding of the thought processes and problems of Accumulators and Paper Pilers. Her humor makes the task of organizing and disposing less of a chore. As a person with some ADD difficulties, often overwhelmed by distractions, I find her methods of working on little parts of a problem a big help.

The QUICK system is: Quantify, Unload, Isolate, Contain, Keep It up. I read the first three chapters, and I got so frustrated, I could not finish it. Here are my gripes:

--"Quantify" really means make an inventory. They spend a lot of time helping to motivate the reader to do it, but they never answer two very important questions: WHY? and HOW? Why should I make this list of my stuff? How will it be used later? How much stuff should I inventory--just the things I think are clutter, or everything? How detailed should it be--5 shirts or blue dress shirt, tee shirt, etc?
--"Unload" means get rid of it. OK, fine, but how to decide? Why couldn't I do that WHILE I was quantifying? The authors say "don't pitch things while you are quantifing," but not why?
--The book is written with magazine style side-bars on nearly every page. The pages are too busy and distracting. Some of them contribute to the main text (why not just include them?), but many don't (put them somewhere else!).

In a nutshell, I'm very glad I borrowed this from the library so that it wouldn't add to the clutter of my home.

I thought this book was GREAT and a huge help in zeoring in on my cluttering problem. It helped me evaluate how I accumulate STUFF, and gave me the OK to re-evaluate, trash, donate, recycle, relocate and re-gift things that would probably be HERE forever. I also learned some great decorating and storage tips. It's been a fun trip to ordiliness! Thanks, Di

The layout is poor with too many sidebars. I kept losing my place on the page when trying all the information. The Q.U.I.C.K system while good in principle is not fully explained leaving gaping holes in the process. At one point the authors tell you that over-the-shower head caddies are one of the "Three Overated Containers" and in another section they suggest them for shower organization. Huh?

I have found this quite useful and practical. It especially helps when I have a burst of energy and am ready for something concrete.