Customer Reviews

The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple: 500 Tips for Getting Your Life in Order

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this up at a school book fair, needing to find something to buy, figuring it would not make a real difference for me. Boy, I was wrong! I found her approach of taking small amounts of time to incorporate little ideas very useful in my hectic life. I don't have days to set aside for an all-at-once overhaul, being a mom dealing with an out-of-house job, kids' sports on weekends, etc., but I can find a little time each day to incorporate one or two of the 500 ideas into my system. I read through with sticky note tabs in hand to mark ideas I wanted to incorporate, and one by one they are making a real difference.

Organizing doesn't have to be all that difficult or
time-consuming . . . in fact, Donna Smallin in her
excellent THE ONE-MINUTE ORGANIZER PLAIN &
SIMPLE contends that by doing it in small chunks
of time, your life will be made both easier and simpler.

Smallin, a nationally-recognized speaker on
uncluttering, had previously written ORGANIZING
PLAIN & SIMPLE . . . although I haven't yet read that book,
I will do so in the hopes that it is as helpful as her
latest effort.

You can read THE ONE-MINUTE ORGANIZER straight
through in less than two hours . . . that's what I did
the first time . . . now, I'm going back and rereading
certain parts from such various chapters as Getting
Started, Clearing Clutter, Paper Stuff, and Everyday
Strategies . . . I will probably continue to do so
in this valuable little book that I'll keep, as well as
cherish.

There are so many useful tips presented that it makes
it difficult to present just a few in this review . . . however,
I'll try by sharing the following that caught my attention:

Start with the most visible clutter first. Seeing clear and
obvious results will give you a boost of confidence.

Sort knives, spoons and forks as you put them into the
dishwasher to make it easier to put them away when
they're clean.

Keep the same calendar for business and personal use. Use
different-colored pencils or highlighters to distinguish between
work and personal commitments.

When you write appointments in your planner, also write in a phone
number to call in case you're running late, want to confirm or
need to reschedule.

And here's a final one that I REALLY need to consider implementing:
Check e-mail messages and return telephone calls once or twice
a day, instead of all day long.

Donna Smallin offers 500 tips on how to be organized. She advises us to find one or two tips we can use right away instead of learning some unwieldy, life-dominating strategy that changes the way we do everything. Her first section, Getting Organized, contains tips for Getting Started, Clearing Clutter, dealing with Paper Stuff, and managing Spaces & Things. The second section, Staying Organized, groups tips into Everyday Strategies, Clutter Control, Home Management, and Schedules & To-Do's. Throughout the chapters, Donna provides some low-key cognitive therapy to encourage revision of our defeatist beliefs about how hard it is to stay organized.

The top ten tips I found personally useful were:

1. Organize in two passes: First gather, then file.
2. Get rid of everything you haven't used in, say, six months.
3. Pretend you are moving--what would you be willing to pack and carry?
4. Join a clutter support group through Messies Anonymous, Clutterers Anonymous, or Clutterless Recovery Groups. (Web sites included.)
5. Take pictures of your kids holding their art projects. Keep the pics, toss the art.
6. On your desk keep only what you use daily.
7. Fasten related papers with staples, not paper clips.
8. Labeled paper grocery bags cut down to 6" are great sorting bins.
9. Plan a buffer around each activity in your daily schedule.
10. Finish your work day by writing a to-do list for the next day.

Useful as these nuggets are, there are also some significant weaknesses. Many of the tips are minor variations of other tips, giving a repetitive feel to the book. There is limited appreciation of computer, PDA, or cell phone tools, excepting a few general suggestions to "use your PDA." Although the book claims to cover home, family and office settings, the first two categories receive more of the author's attention. And some of the tips seem impractical. Would a person struggling to find time to organize really keep an organizing journal or create a complex hanging folder system for new ideas and index the ideas on their computer?

I got enough value from this book to make it worth the price and the time to read through it once. But I think the author could help future readers save time by eliminating near-duplicate tips to produce a shorter and better-organized second edition.

There's a billion books on organizing, I've read many. This one has a small layout, and short sentences, so it doesn't seem so overwhelming. The book is arranged into categories, and everything about it is short and simple. Easy to pick up and read, the tips and plans are easy to carry out.

This book is worthy of taking up space on the shelf. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to referring to it again and again. It's a great tool for getting in the organizing mood. THIS BOOK DOES NOT TAKE A BIG TIME COMMITMENT. I read it mainly while sitting in the car-line at my child's school waiting for school to be out. 5 minutes here; 10 minutes there! The suggestions for getting the whole family into organizing were very helpful. While I found several ideas I have heard of or used before, there were many more that I had not thought of. Some reccomendations that didn't apply to me made me think of other things that did. Warning! The One Minute Organizer may lead to a better organized home.

This is a very useful little book filled with tips on keeping yourself organized. I found many great ideas in the book and it covered just what I was looking for.

The book is organized into two parts:

Getting organized (getting started, clearing clutter, paper stuff, spaces & things)
Staying organized (everyday strategies, clutter control, home management, schedules & to-do's)

I found so many of the tips useful (perhaps more useful tips than other similar books). Putting small items in zippered bags in your purse helps to cut down on clutter and makes finding things much faster. (I did this with my makeup and now finding my lipstick is a snap and I don't have to worry about the lid coming off in my purse!). Stapling product receipts to the manual is also a great idea. The author warns about keeping your will in a safe-deposit box because it will be sealed at your death - an important piece of information!

I also really like the format of this book. You can read it from front to back or just open to any page and start, which makes it easy to read in small bytes before going to bed or for a minute or two while your coffee is brewing in the morning. The typeface on the pages sorts the information visually: lists are easy to read, important words are bolded or printed in a different typeset. This probably sounds unimportant, but it helps you to read the book very fast and get lots of ideas in a short amount of time. The author also includes little sentences to encourage you in your organizing (like: "Remember nothing worth doing is easy").

This book is full of ideas you can really use and is so easy to read. A great reference for anyone and would also make a nice gift!

Barely out of the box, I began reading this book and putting ideas to work...I cleaned out my kitchen junk drawer while reading the first ten pages! I also bought this book for my daughters and they went to work immediately getting their family organized. What a difference these simple, inexpensive ideas have made in all our lives. EVERYONE could use a book like this!

I bought this book because I needed help getting organized. Since I have 3 kids I don't have a lot of time to read. This book helps with everything--the kids, organizing, and time. Now if I could just get everyone to follow through with what I'm trying to do!

If you are like me (and you just might be if you are reading reviews about this book) you have a tendency toward clutter, but have never given up the fight. If that sounds like you, I urge you to get this book. Each page has one or two bullet points in large print - advice and tips on how to get organized.

One of the best sections in the book for me was on paper clutter. I seem to drown in papers. Until I read this book, I had struggled for years with how to organize my files. In just a few bullet points of advice, I was able to understand for the first time how to file. I am still in the process of switching over the headings of my files, but what I have done so far makes paperwork a breeze. Taxes this year were a cinch because of how I had my tax paperwork filed.

Based on this book by Donna Smallin, I look forward to reading her other books.

This is a GREAT book with awesome ideas to make organizing quick and easy. Not only that, the author helps with the next step and gives suggestions on HOW to keep organized. Some of the ideas are fairly common sense but there are also many creative ideas. Many of the suggestions only take a minute to do. This book covers getting organized in so many different areas of life and is very encouraging and motivating.