25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book delivers on its promise!, March 2, 2004
This review is from: How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson: A Step-By-Step Guide to Clearing Your Desk Without Panic or the Use of Open Flame (Paperback)
For those of you who may not have known me in my "other life,"
I used to be quite disorganized . . . in fact, I once wanted to enter HOME OFFICE COMPUTING'S "Most Disorganized Office" contest,but couldn't find the application for three years because it was buried on my desk. (True story!)
So when I saw HOW TO GET ORGANIZED WITHOUT RESORTING
TO ARSON by Liz Franklin, a self-described
Cultural Anthropologist, I just had to read it if just for the title . . . and I'm glad that I did . . . the book delivers on its promise.
Franklin uses humor to get her points across, yet she also
provides a lot of very concrete advice . . . in addition, she
doesn't tell you what you have to do, and she recognizes the
fact that everybody is different.
And any author who manages to incorporate one of my
favorite stories into her writing has definitely managed to
catch my attention . . . she writes:
Albert Einstein once went to dinner with a friend and a new
acquaintance. Over dinner, the new acquaintance asked
Einstein for his phone number. "Sure," said Al. He got up,
left the table, and walked back toward the phones.
"Where is he going?" asked the acquaintance.
"I don't know," said the friend, with a puzzled look on his face.
Einstein came back and handed the man a slip of paper with his
phone number on it. "My God, you're Einstein!" said the guy.
"Why do you have to look up your own phone number?"
Einstein said, "Why should I keep in my mind the little things
I can find anywhere?"
There were several other memorable passages; among them:
* Paper flow starts at hand level. It comes into your office via people's
hands. You open the mail with your hands, you take it from the fax,
printer, or copier with your hands, you scribble notes with your hands,
clip interesting things out of the paper with your hands, and input to
your computer with your hands.
Why all the emphasis on hands? So you'll remember this important
secret of organizing: paper always lands on the first available hand-
height surface. And what do we find at hand height? Furniture. Paper
lands, and stops, wherever there is a convenient piece of furniture.
Preferably a flat piece of furniture, but almost any hand-height
furniture will do.
* Sit back in your chair, crumple some scratch paper, and let it drop
from your hand. That's where your trash can belongs. If its new
location interferes with your traffic pattern, of course you can make
adjustments. Just be sure it's easy to toss trash from your chair to
the can without bending, leaning or stretching all day long.
* Put this sign on your Central Headquarters box: "DO NOT DISTURB!
WET PAINT!" I'm not kidding! If you don't protect your stuff now,
you won't find it later. And for some reason, this is a sign that gets
people's attention. Who cares it they laugh-at least you'll have
achieved your objective: to keep them out of your stuff.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you want - no MUST - change your life, READ THIS BOOK, September 23, 2004
This review is from: How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson: A Step-By-Step Guide to Clearing Your Desk Without Panic or the Use of Open Flame (Paperback)
It's been my Bible since I took a look at it in a bookstore...and couldn't put it down. Now I carry it around with me. Or it sits in clear site, so that if I slow down or space out, I can pick up where I left off and keep tweaking my life to work better.
It's more than just "how to straighten up your office" although it does that more compassionately and with more humor than any book or person I've seen.
Since the eighties I've used the services of members of National Organizations of Organizers, and read various books, listened to tapes, but this book is the one that finally WORKS for me, maybe because my nervous system isn't wired like most organizers, and Liz Franklin takes this into account.
Besides, have you ever met an organizer who's FUNNY?
I recommended this book to my boss, who, although has a lot of heart and is a great guy to work for, is even more disorganized than me. And I recommend it unequivocally to anyone.
What happens as you start to give yourself the space and time to do what works for YOU, not for an organizer, all sorts of other wonderful things unfold in your life. Try it. I was surprised.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical, user-friendly, October 8, 2006
This review is from: How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson: A Step-By-Step Guide to Clearing Your Desk Without Panic or the Use of Open Flame (Paperback)
Wow, did I love this book! I've seen a lot of organizing books, but this one was full of ideas and suggestions I hadn't seen before. They were very, very easy to implement quickly and cheaply.
I particularly loved her suggestions on labelling files in way that's actually meaningful to you - labels and folders that make you WANT to do the work inside rather than avoid it. That was a huge change in my way of thinking. I'm also an out-of-sight-out-of-mind person, and I liked her suggestions on using simple clear/translucent containers (as opposed to all kinds of 'specialty' single-use containers that just add to my clutter).
A must-read, particularly for creative types.
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