Customer Reviews

Organize Your Stuff: The Lazy Way (Macmillan Lifestyles Guide)

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

 

 

This book does exactly what it purports to do: it tells you how to organize your life with a minimum of personal effort. That sounded great to me, but when I actually read the book, I realized that "the lazy way" meant "hiring servants to do everything." Unless you have a significant amount of disposable income, this book will not be of much help. Ms. Ahlgren's suggestions frequently come down to the same basic message: There is no problem that cannot be solved by throwing money at it. As a young, married professional and student, I cannot afford to hire a housekeeper, a cook, someone to pay the bills, a gardener, and a complete suite of office furniture. If I did, then this might have been a valuable book, but, as it is, I am going in search of something that will help me learn to manage my time without encouraging gross fiscal irresponsibility.

One of the most humorous and clever, yet inspiring books available on turning all of the "stuff" in your life into some semblance of order. Chock-full of time-saving practical tips, the author compares and contrasts the frustrating chaotically disorganized life with one of calm peace, order, and organization. Every single page of this "hand book" is packed with many great techniques that anyone can put into use immediately. A truly necessary book to be placed on your newly organized bookshelf! A mandatory "must read" for those interested in growth and change.

In this time when there are never enough minutes or hours to do all we want to we must get smart about this reality in our lives and figure out how to catch a few moments of time for ourselves. Organize Your Stuff is helping me do just that. I have kept thinking....tomorrow I might be able to do...whatever but without some planning I'll just be doing the `work' for the rest of my life. It's the `stuff' that's cluttering my mind as well as my cupboards, closets and desk drawers. I've taken the advice of Organize Your Stuff and sorted, given away and thrown away more than I dreamed possible, and also I'm taking a good hard look at just how I manage my time. This book has given me so many new ideas, many of which are actually FUN! And the real testimonial is that I found the time to write these comments! A great book. You'll love it. You'll use it.

The introduction starts out hopeful, but as you flip through the pages you'll realize that this book is surprisingly antiquated, assuming throughout that you, the reader, are a woman. And maybe you are, but what? Guys aren't eligible to organize the lazy way?

This book has a few decent ideas, but you'll feel it was written for you personally if you're a mother of a few children, with disposable income, laundry facilities in your suburban-sized home, plenty of room to stow "pretty baskets", and a messy purse.

For example, the wardrobe section covers "The Basics" for 3 "sample" characters: "Tina the Mom", "Barbara the Executive", and "Kathy the Entrepreneur" -- hey, what about "Vinny the Electrician", "Billy the Banker", or "Sam the Deli Guy"?

Oh, and ain't it somethin' that a book about organization has the WRONG PAGES listed for chapter beginnings in it's table of contents? All semblance of chapter listing is shot to hell by page 23! The page numbers are off from about 3 to 8 pages throughout the rest of the book. What happened there??

To it's credit, this book does have some good ideas about delegating chores to kids (that is, if you have them); and you'll probably come across at least a few other potential solutions for various organizational woes.

However, it's not a reference book I'd want to keep on my shelf. For one thing, what kind of reference book has mis-listed chapters? I'd rather brave cleaning the closet without an organization bible than flip aimlessly looking for hot tips. In fact, I'm returning it.

Let me save you 10 bucks : Buy hooks. Lots of them. And put them up all over the place. That's probably the best tip in this book. (Certainly the most often repeated - this lady, she loves the hooks!)

If you're still interested in checking out this book, borrow it and support your local library. You know you'll have late fees, lazy.

This book is funny and fun and helpful at the same time. It reads like a good friend who has a cheery demeanor but is going to make sure you finish this project one way or another, and this is a topic where you need that kind of firm---how great that it's charming too---guidance. I can't recommend this enough; it's accessible and so useful and yet not preachy or silly.

This book couldn't have come at a better time. Just as I was embarking on a complete reorganization of my live/work space, this valuable, easy to read resource appeared, and enabled me to take a clearer look at my space challanges and how to solve them. In hindsight, I'm not sure what I would have done without it! It is chock full of the most practical suggestions, from how to deal with purging the stuff you really don't need, to cleaning up afterwards, to a number of storage tricks (many in the 'now why didn't I think of that catagory!) that have more than doubled my usable space. And there is much, much more to this book, such as tips for organizing the kitchen and bathroom and for locating important professional resources, that I haven't had need to utilize yet. This is going to be a permanent, indispensable resource!

I found this book" Organize Your Stuff (The Lazy Way)" very informative, positive, and useful in my own organizing endeavors. I highly recommend this book for organizers and cd clients, and I will continue to use it as a useful tool in my own organizing business. In the future I am looking forward to reading more books and articles by this author, and hope that they will be as helpful and interesting as this book