Book Recommendations

It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh is a New York Times best seller for good reason. The books is divided into three parts. In the fist part there is a short quiz to see how much of a clutter problem you have. He then goes on to guide you through imagining your dream home. In the second part he provides guidance on decluttering and organizing your home room by room starting with defining the purpose each room serves from the master bedroom to the garage. Once you get through all of the rooms, he provides guidance on maintenance of the systems you have now put in place. In the last part of the book he lays out guidance on new rituals. As he says “After all the effort you’ve just made, do you really want everything to slip back to the way it was?” The rituals he lays out in the final chapter will help you keep it from slipping back. You can buy it on Amazon in various formats from audiobook to kindle to paperback depending on your reading style.

Clutterfree with Kids by Joshua Becker is a book about living minimally with Kids. It provides guidance on how to instill a minimalist mindset in your kids. In the book, he shares results from a study that shows children with less toys learn to use their imagination more and develop longer attention spans. Becker also says that siblings will actually fight less because they learn to collaborate and work together with what they have, they will also learn to take better care of their things. Being minimalist in no way means no toys, but it does mean being mindful of what you bring in and have in your home. He also describes how it will free up time. For many parents part of their stress factor is that there is too much to do around the house in addition to watching the kids. He suggests that getting rid of excess means the task of cleaning up messes is cut significantly. Meaning you have more time to spend doing fun activities.

ADD-Friendly Ways too Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg (professional organizer) and Kathleen G. Nadeau, Ph.D (ADHD Clinical psychologist) covers general general issues that people with ADD face and then has sections devoted to organizing Things, Time, and Paper. If you have ADD or live with someone who does, this is a valuable resource. It opened my eyes to the ways people with ADD think differently, and may need different systems put into place that will work for them. If the system is set up to work for the person using it, they will be more likely to maintain it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has or lives with someone with ADD and who is struggling to get and stay organized.

SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life by Julie Morgenstern is for people who have trouble with physical clutter, time clutter and/or habit clutter. “SHED” is an acronym for the four steps Morgenstern outlines in her book. 1. Separate the treasures 2. Heave the trash 3. Embrace your identity and 4. Drive yourself forward. This book is not just for the reader looking to declutter their home. It’s also for anyone bogged down by a calendar that is too full or other habits that evoke the feeling of being overwhelmed. Chapters relate to what you specifically want to change (scheduling problems, chronic procrastination or perfectionism, clutter-prone areas, etc.). If you are feeling overwhelmed with stuff and things to do, this is a book for you.

Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern has four parts. In the first part she lays the foundation by debunking some common misconceptions about organizing. She also guides you in taking a look at what’s holding you back and discusses how to live with an person that seems uninterested in getting organized. In the second part she teaches you how to analyze and strategize before attacking the job. In the third part, she breaks it down into 15 categories including things like handbags, offices, bedrooms, closets, photographs, etc. For each category she guides you in applying what you learned in part two by providing examples, tips, and ways to avoid common pitfalls. Part four includes two chapters. One on organizing time (although she goes deeper into this in her time management book – see the productivity section below) and one on “taming technology” which, while a bit outdated still has some useful tips.

Cassandra Aarssen, the author of the Clutter Connection developed 4 categories of organizing styles. She has coined the styles as “Ladybug, Butterfly, Cricket, and Bee.” In this book she details the traits, strengths (and struggles) of each type. She provides guidance on types of systems that will work best for each type and provides guidance on how people with different organizing styles can live together. If you are curious but don’t want to buy the book just yet, you can take the quiz to find out what your style is for free and read a summary of the 4 styles here. Understanding my and my spouse’s organizing style has helped me create systems that work for both of us.

In Real Life Organizing: Clean and Clutter-Free in 15 Minutes a Day Cassandra Aarssen joins forces with Peter Walsh to share the easy and inexpensive tips, tricks and solutions that she has uncovered through her years of experience as an industry expert. As a self-proclaimed lazy person, she has found systems that allow her to maintain a clean, organized and functional home with minimal effort. In this book she reviews the 4 organizational styles and provides a quiz for you to figure out which style you are. She also provides tips and challenges for getting rid of clutter and containing the stuff that remains. Aarssen provides sample routines, to-do lists and checklists and provides tips for organizing for small children. Her lighthearted self-depreciation humor makes reading about organizing fun.

Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern is set up in five sections. Like her book “Organizing from the Inside Out,” the first section lays the foundation. In this book she lays the foundation by discussing motivation, factors that may be holding you back, and how to make time tangible. In the second part she helps you conquer your “to do’s” by using a formula that involves writing it down, adding up the time for each task, deciding what you will do and when, and executing your plan. She also helps you conquer your backlog of paper clutter. In sections 3-5 she goes through the same steps of Analyze, Strategize, and Attack that she uses for physical clutter, except this time she fine-tunes them to work for time clutter. If you struggle with a schedule that is too full, this is a good resource for you. While there is no one right way to manage your time, this book gives you basic principles to follow to be more effective.

Atomic Habits by James Clear is a New York Times bestseller. In this book Clear states that the key to productivity lies in your habits. He contends that implementing the right habits will drastically improve your life, but to do so, you must understand how habits work and how to change yours. In this books he defines habits and how to make good ones, break bad ones and how to stay motivated. He also discusses how to stop procrastinating and how to make good habits easy to stick to.