Any book that promises to divulge the secrets of “uncluttering your home and taking control of your life” is one that will catch my attention. Thankfully, the author of Confessions of an Organized Homemaker
The author, Deniece Schofield, uses a friendly and conversational style to walk us chronically disorganized readers through the steps of organizing both home and life.
She provides detailed and concrete tips in the areas of:
- Keeping your house clean
- Basic organizing principles, including how to organize your kitchen for maximum efficiency and how to organize your kids’ toys
- How to make plans so that you accomplish what you need to accomplish
- How to manage a calendar and schedule
- Meal planning
- Managing paperwork (bills, magazines, kids’ art, receipts, etc)
- Basic storage principles
She also includes some excellent advice on how to inspire your spouse and children become organized. Some of the advice is dated, as this book was published in 2000, before smartphone calendars became widely used. So those of you who are already proficient at managing your calendar via your smart phone, or want to learn how to do so, should just skip the chapter on paper calendaring. But most of her advice stands the test of time. For instance, here are some tips that I found really helpful:
- Group dirty dishes in the dishwasher according to where they’ll be put away- it cuts the unloading time in half, as you don’t have to hunt-and-pick to find all the glasses for the glass shelf.
- Hole-punch Ziploc bags and put them in a binder, and use it for organizing sandpaper (my husband has mounds of half-used sandpaper that clog up his garage workbench, so he liked this tip).
- Go nuts installing drawer dividers. The more your drawers are divided, with a compartment for each item, the less likely they are to get messy.
This book is probably most helpful for those who are fundamentally disorganized and need a basic framework for getting things in order; however, it’s still a worthwhile read for those of us who are somewhat organized but still have “trouble spots” (my trouble spots? My laundry routine, my desk area, the garage…). It wasn’t a mind-blowing book, but certainly one I’d recommend to a friend. I’d say I gleaned about 10 pieces of good advice that I hadn’t heard before.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave comments!
