Jennifer Berry

As my first step of organizing, I'm going to put this book in my pile of books to take to the used bookstore. I found this book to be a bit polarizing, it seems as though half the stuff in it is good for people who have children and large homes. And also seemed very repetitive, it's like make three piles one to keep, one to throw away, and one to donate, over and over along with other very nitpicky lists. I have found other organizing books to be more helpful because they gave general guidelines versus this with its extremely long lists of things to get rid of. My final issue with this book is that instead of teaching you how to organize your home, it's literally just lists of things to get rid of. If you have issues when deciding how to get rid of things, I could see this book being helpful but, if it's issues with figuring out how to organize your home I wouldn't recommend it.… (més)

As my first step of organizing, I'm going to put this book in my pile of books to take to the used bookstore. I found this book to be a bit polarizing, it seems as though half the stuff in it is good for people who have children and large homes. And also seemed very repetitive, it's like make three piles one to keep, one to throw away, and one to donate, over and over along with other very nitpicky lists. I have found other organizing books to be more helpful because they gave general guidelines versus this with its extremely long lists of things to get rid of. My final issue with this book is that instead of teaching you how to organize your home, it's literally just lists of things to get rid of. If you have issues when deciding how to get rid of things, I could see this book being helpful but, if it's issues with figuring out how to organize your home I wouldn't recommend it.… (més)

In Organize Now!, Jennifer Berry breaks up the year into weeks and gives you a new area or event to tackle every different week. I was more engaged when I read that, beyond the obvious physical spaces, Berry also tackled how to organize your schedule - something that most books of this ilk overlook, much to their detriment. Anyone who has had a busy week knows how easy it is to get behind on basic house maintenance or chores, or just feels too tired to tackle it. And in that one week, things can build up faster than you can deal with them.

So I was primed to like this book, but ultimately found it disappointing. Since I have started reading these types of books, I have instinctively been judging them on a few criteria - Is this new? Does it inspire me? How realistic are these goals?

This one failed on almost all counts. The book I read immediately before this one used the exact same quotes throughout - that "must be useful or beautiful" one is a popular one, but even the Einstein quote was reused. Fair enough, though, these all sound rather repetitive after going through them, and maybe this one was written before the other. That said, if you are an avid reader of these decluttering/organize/minimalist guides, you probably aren't going to stumble across any hidden gems.

Is it inspiring? Well, not really, no. With some books, I immediately want to declutter after I finish reading. Some of them, I actually pause and put the book down to go through that cup of old, broken pens on the bookshelf, or pull some records I never listen to out and put them in the give-away box. In this case, however, it was just... boring. It was more of a cleaning guide than an organizing guide. It also didn't address when you can do this - she proposes taking everything out of a room and putting only back in what (a) serves the room's purpose and (b) you like. Most of these books make at least a half-hearted effort to address the fact that people have lives and jobs and obligations and maybe don't have time to play hurricane with their kitchen if they still want to make supper that night.

Finally, is it realistic? Not a chance. For an organizing book, this book is ... poorly organized. Along with the "big project" of initial decluttering, the book offers maintenance for every week, every month, every 3-6 months, and every year. The problem is that it offers those in small chunks (as in, the car section advises you to clean out your car once per month; the purse section advises cleaning out your receipts once a month). The problem is that if life were so discrete, everyone would know how to do this. After all, she only offers three or four things to do for each section. But when you add up all the sections, it becomes unmanageable. In other words: it's life. And though it's very nice for authors to be able to divide them into three or four easy-to-do things, for people trying to figure out how to juggle all of those things at one time, that's when the problems start.

Overall, not worth it. There are much better books out there which offer a new take or at least have a fresh voice, inspire you to tackle that garage or attic or bedroom closet, and are still based somewhere in the realm of realism.… (més)