Customer Reviews

Messie No More: Understanding and Overcoming the Roadblocks to Being Organized

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are looking for an instruction manual on how to clean up your house/car/office/life, then this is NOT the book....this book goes soooo much deeper than that and explores the root causes of why some people are messy and disorganized and some people are not. I orginally bought this book because I WAS looking for that quick fix - a "do this, do that and poof! your house will be clean!" kind of thing, but even though that is NOT the service it provides, I found the book to be incredibly informative and thought-provoking. I had never considered some of the things that Sandra Felton suggests. Basically, she asks the reader to explore the "disease" instead of the "symptoms"...because as we all know, it's much better to heal when the disease itself is fixed. I had no idea how much psychology was behind the big giant messy pit in my house. And you know what? After reading this book, I was did exactly what one of the earlier reviewers said to do: rented a giant dumpster (and I do mean GIANT). Could I have done so before reading the book? I doubt it...because I wasn't PSYCHOLOGICALLY ready to do so yet. SO - five stars from this MESSIE (working on staying reformed!)

If you are a "Cleanie" looking for organizational how-to's, this book is NOT for you. If you are a 'Messie' desperate for in-depth answers to help understand your paralyzing and embarrassing problem, EUREKA!! Sandra Felton, a former Messie, clearly identifies the psychological characteristics of Messies and why we fail in our efforts to organize our lives. Understanding what drives our ineffective thought patterns is a huge step toward overcoming them. For me, this book -- which answers 'why' -- combined with "The New Messies Manual" (also by Sandra Felton) -- which contains a detailed 'how-to' -- give a Messie a real chance to transform our world.

I agree with Siouxsan k. This book is not for everyone, but it was great for me. My house isn't all that messy, but I wanted it to sparkle, and I wanted to know what mental blocks were holding me back in this area. I'm writing a review to share my experience as someone who doesn't have a serious problem. I was amazed to find my mixed up thinking on nearly every page! This book, coupled with the FlyLady website, (which I discovered through another Amazon review) have made a big difference in my life. Sandra Felton, thank you very much!!

I read this book as a companion to her "Messies Manual" book. I find that they fit beautifully together. I needed to understand that I'm not just a lazy slob- or a hopeless failure at making a home. I have a personality that is shared by many other wonderful women. Learning to work with and not against myself has given me help and HOPE.

I agree- if you are looking for a how to organize your home- this won't meet your needs. If you have tried and failed at homemaking and need to figure yourself and your needs out- this is a great place to come.

I feel it needs the companionship of "The Messies Manual" to be complete.
I'd buy and read it first.

Okay, I admit it--when I got to a certain point in this book, I cried. For so many years, I had thought of myself as just plain lazy. I mean, what else could it be? I was a lousy housekeeper. I did not WANT to be that way, I did not WANT to think of myself as lazy, but I couldn't seem to change, so there it was. I must just be lazy, and too hopeless, too bad to change. But this book told me flat-out it WASN'T laziness. I cried. For so long, I had been looking for a reason to believe that wasn't it. But I couldn't believe there was any reason, any other root cause to why my house was so messy. At that point, I was hooked. If this book, this system, could find a way to change me without me being lazy, I would do it. And I did. And you can, too. In three months I went from having no family come over in 12 years to having an online friend I'd never met before stay the night. If I can, you can. It really works.

I found this book very insightful in why I tend to lead a disorganized life. It has helpful suggestions for becoming more organized. Sandra's books do not condem you for being messy, they help you understand why you tend to be messy & help you take baby steps towards a more organized life.

This book puts in plain English the challenges of getting organized and staying that way. Sandra explains from her own experiences the challenges of life's curve balls. I recommend this book to anyone that struggles with the constant nemesis of getting organized.

I read the book years ago and used many of the suggestions. I bought the book for my daughter-in-law who is gaining lots of insight. Great book!

Just how many times can the same information be repackaged and sold again and again? This is how many: a dozen books; organizational products; and numerous audio and video tapes. This incessant line of stuff seems to be more of a cash cow milking the hopes of the disorganized than offering any new or useful information. If the information is so good, why so many versions? Doesn't that just add to the amount of stuff we are already hopelessly buried under? Save your money and rent a dumpster instead.

Professional organizer Sandra Felton is a former messy person - and after reading Messie No More, I do believe it. This book suffers from lack of organization and cohesiveness. Most chapters jump all over the place and what sparse substance they hold is buried under a clutter of random quotations, examples, non sequiturs, and parables that go nowhere.

Felton offers many standard insights into the psychological motivations of the disorganized person, along with some general common-sense tips on getting a grip on household chaos. While the author is sympathetic and supportive toward the messy person (sorry, Felton's purposefully misspelled term "Messie" grates horribly on me), I would wager that most intelligent readers could not help but feel insulted and/or irritated by her unintentionally patronizing characterizations of the organizationally challenged. Like the "Messies" she describes, Felton comes off as nice and well-meaning, but dotty and scattered. She is occasionally on target and in the later chapters actually gets around to some practical suggestions, but these glimmers of potential only make the whole book ultimately more frustrating.

Aside from its structural flaws, the book seems a bit old-fashioned and is off-putting on a couple of other counts - it is pretty much exclusively geared toward women who take the role of "housekeeper," maintains a very conventional view of housework and familial roles, and is filled with many references to Christianity and the Bible.

I'm sure there are books out there that can be of real help to people like me who need strategies for getting organized, but this is not one of them.