Review: Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi was first published in 2005. I read it to discuss with my NAPO-LA book group, and found its advice about networking to be straightforward and applicable to any business or personal situation. The author is kind of a connections addict. He loves making connections and networking with people and has found it to be one of the most influential strategies for advancing in business and life. I liked the book's tone and organization, though it's hard to adjust to the bald fact that it's pretty much always who you know rather than what you know. Ferrazzi wants to empower you to learn how to get to know the people who can help you on your path through life.

I got the most out of the chapter on conferences. Ferrazzi argues that conferences are less about the content of the sessions or workshops or keynotes and much more valuable for getting face time with and getting to know people. Conferences do offer concentrated people-meeting arena, and it pays to go in having done some research on the other attendees and making a point of meeting and talking with those who you find fascinating or relevant to your fields of interest.

There were a lot of good take-aways from the book, and even though it was published before the Facebook/Twitter/social networking explosion, the principles still apply. Following up, being interesting, taking an interest in other people, being willing to ask for help as well as give help are all timeless concepts and well worth reminding ourselves about.

Review: Good to Great

I finally made time to read Good to Great, the modern business classic by Jim Collins. My NAPO-LA book group made it our November pick, and we're discussing it this evening. Though I had trouble getting into it, once I got to the second or third chapter I found the arguments compelling and the anecdotes inspiring. I really liked the tone of the book and the message that we can go from good to great in any area of life, from business to personal goals to family life. Have you read it? What did you think?

Here's one of my favorite quotes: 

“I believe it is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity. Indeed, if some of the comparison companies in our study are any indication, it involves less suffering, and perhaps even less work. The beauty and power of the research findings is that they can radically simplify our lives while increasing our effectiveness. There is a great solaces in the simple fact of clarity--about what is vital, and what is not.

If we organized the majority of our work time around applying these principles and pretty much ignored or stopped doing everything else, out lives would be simpler and our results vastly improved.”

Go from good to great with a professional organizer.

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Book review: Enchantment

A few months ago one of my fellow NAPO-LA chapter members, Deborah Kawashima, mentioned a book she had read that she found extremely insightful. It was Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. I had never heard of him, but I ordered Enchantment from the library to see what it was all about. Kawasaki was an early Apple employee and has written many books about products and business strategies. Enchantment is a great book for people who want an introduction and overview of what it takes to launch a company that has the potential to be as impressive as Apple.

I'm not going to go into a detailed review; if you check out the book on Amazon, the chapter titles pretty much tell you what you are in for. How to Resist Enchantment was one of my favorite chapters. I like the idea of an entire book about enchanting someone with your business also including the inverse - how to be wary of people trying to enchant you.

I also liked the How to Prepare section where he talked about conducting premortems where you assume your idea failed, speculate about what caused it to fail, then fix those problems before launch. Advice such as dressing on the same level as the people you interact with and how to shake someone's hand is always appreciated and too many business books take that stuff for granted.

My favorite quote from the book doesn't have much to do with enchantment, but it gripped me:

"When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you're going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you're going to feel about it is when you buy it." --Sasha Aickin's grandmother as published in Enchantment, The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Reviewed: Organized Simplicity

**Note: I was sent the book by the publisher I don't know how many months ago and I am just now reviewing it.

The author of Organized Simplicity, The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living is Tsh Oxenreider and she has a blog network that offers great content. This book was published last year and I want to go over how it is different from other organizing books out there.

Tsh Oxenreider. Photo from http://tshoxenreider.com/organized-simplicity/ 

Oxenreider comes at organization from the point of view of a working mother who puts her family values ahead of everything else. It's a powerful place to be, as it causes all of your choices to flow from a single purpose. It makes something as simple as clearing out the refrigerator an intentional act that reinforces your worldview and supports the way you want to live your life. Though that might seem paralyzing - how can I get anything accomplished if I have to have a philosophy about it? - it is actually liberating. The author takes you through the steps of figuring out what your family's purpose statement is and then everything that follows, from clearing out your commitments so you have more time to play with your kids, or clearing out the garage so you can actually park a car inside, makes sense. You know why you are doing it. It's liberating, because you can easily see what serves your family's purpose statement and what doesn't.

I went through the process outlined in the book to create a purpose statement with my family. It was a wonderful process, and I recommend it as a way to slow down and reflect on what's important to you, not as an individual, but as a member of a family unit.

The rest of the book sets forth in detail how to empty, clean and organizing each room of your house. This is always great information, and Oxenreider adds value by including lots of recipes for homemade cleaning products and templates to help you organize inventories, to-do lists and schedules.

Organized Simplicity is an inspiring book full of useful content.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: Carry-on, organizer.

Last year in June I shared all the various ways you can keep in touch with me online. I also wrote about my transition from a checked-bag-person to a carry-on-bag-person. I'm still exclusively carry-on, and the two trips I have planned this summer will be a great test to that. Heads-up readers, in July I'll be away for three whole weeks! I'm going to try to have some content scheduled, but for the most part I will be well and truly on vacation. And I'm only packing a carry-on. For three weeks. I'm pretty excited about the prospect, actually. I will be able to do laundry at almost every destination, so that helps a lot, but I'm also managing three fairly distinct climates, so that will be interesting. I'm thinking layering. Anyway.

This is a Zuca carry-on suitcase that I've been coveting for years. Photo from zuca.com

I love these next two posts. One is about seeing our living spaces with fresh eyes and figuring out how we can pare down. That feeling of possibility and freshness that you get when you first move in somewhere and it's completely empty is a feeling that I like to recapture every now and again in my own spaces. Try it out! The next post encourages you to get help when tackling difficult organizing tasks, particularly garages, clothes closets and going through a deceased person's stuff.

Lastly, here's a review of the book Organizing Outside the Box by Hellen Buttigieg and Sari Brandes.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: Aprons, dining halls and a book review

My blog posts from the last half of May 2010 covered a lot of ground. I posted my first video blog about the simple genius of using a Command hook to hang up my apron. I recapped a bunch of 2009 blog posts in two separate posts. I shared my techniques for preparing for my college reunion and after returning, shared some memories of the now-destroyed dining hall. Lastly, I reviewed Linda Samuels' book The Other Side of Organized. I still really recommend this book for people who want gentle organizing guidance through a life change. Organizing is a powerful way to regain control over the physical stuff in our lives, and it can empower us to reshape our lives in other areas as well.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: Happiness, freedom and empty space

Last year on Helping You Organize, I reviewed the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. The Happiness Project Blog is still one of my favorites and I've thought repeatedly about many of Rubin's tenants of happiness in the year since reading the book. The book is now out in paperback.

One of my all-time favorite posts was from May of last year about how the best things in life aren't free. I'm talking about stuff you get for free from friends, relatives, businesses and the like. Most often these free items come with the steep price of figuring out where to put them, how to take care of them and how to dispose of them and you are better off not accepting the thing in the first place!

Another great post (if I do say so myself) was on the virtues of an empty box or shelf. Just because there is an empty space in your space doesn't mean you have to fill it up with stuff!

Creative Commons free junk photo posted to Flickr by cogdogblog

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Hoarding stuff

In the course of my professional organizing business, I do not work with extremely chronically disorganized people. I generally work with people who are mildly disorganized and need extra help with their things. People often call me for a specific organizing project that they need help with, or to kick-start their own organizing efforts. There are some professional organizers who exclusively work with people with severely cluttered homes. These types of clients are often called hoarders, and they have come into the public eye of late with television shows like A&E's Hoarders. Below is a billboard for the upcoming season that I saw in New York last week.

The illustrates in very simple terms one aspect of what being a hoarder implies and is like. But the fact that the show is ostensibly for entertaining people surprises me. I'm currently reading a book on the subject of hoarding called Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee. The book illustrates the dimensions of hoarding disorders from a scientific basis and through case studies with people who have worked with the authors over the years of their research. Unlike most books I read for my work, I would not recommend this one to the general public, unless you are dealing with a hoarding tendency in yourself or know someone who is a hoarder and want to gain insight into their situation. The book is very clear and well written, but the subject matter is heavy and the lives of the people documented can be depressing, though from a professional standpoint, the common traits that hoarders tend to posses are interesting to learn about.

I don't watch the show Hoarders, but I can understand the fascination people have for seeing how some people with the disorder live. Frost and Steketee site statistics that say 2-5% of the population may be hoarders. That is a lot of people, and shedding further light on this issue will surely help those affected by it.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

My reading list: Summer 2010

I talk about books a lot on this blog, books I'm reading, book reviews, how to organize books. Forgive me, I like to read.

I'm in the middle of a fascinating book on change called Switch: How to change things when change is hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. I first heard about this book from Lorie Marrero at The Clutter Diet blog. Anyone who has every failed at breaking a bad habit, gotten discouraged over some huge problem like world poverty, or simply wanted to change something in their life and didn't know how to go about it should read this book. I'm only on the third chapter and I have about ten a-ha moments every page.

My family knows me well, and I received two early birthday presents in the form of cookbooks. One is The French Laundry by Thomas Keller. The book is stunning, and the recipes are so unique and interesting. The only problem is it makes one want to eat at the French Laundry all the time, not an option for most of us. The second is The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. The book is chock full of good cooking techniques and elegantly simple takes on common dishes like onion tart (five ingredients) and roast duck (one ingredient: the duck).

Finally, for fiction lovers, this month in my book club we read Memoirs of a Geisha, which was a lovely story full of beautiful details. I wasn't terribly excited about reading it, but in the end I really liked it and it made me think about visiting Japan, which is a country I've never been particularly interested in traveling to. August's pick is The Time Traveler's Wife, which I read last year and thought was amazing. Audrey Niffenegger's follow up, Her Fearful Symmetry, was really enjoyable as well.

Got any recommendations for me? What have you been reading this summer?


Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com
Note: The links on the book titles will take you to Amazon.com; if you buy something, I will receive a small percentage in affiliate fees.

A year ago: purse organization, book review and packing tips

I'm catching up on my "a year ago" posts. Here are three entries from June 2009:

Recommendations for the eight things everyone should have in their purse in order to be organized for every day. Another good one that I didn't mention: reusable bag for those quick trips to the drug store or grocery store. You will avoid picking up extra disposable ones and sometimes they give you a discount.

I reviewed the book Organized to be Your Best! by Susan Silver. This book has very detailed and specific instructions for creating organization in your home and work life and is recommended for people who want  to get a bit deeper into their systems than with a book like Organizing Outside the Box, for instance.

Last year before my summer trip, I was still in checked-bag mode and hadn't made the switch to quasi-minimalist carry-on only packing. Here are my tips for smooth packing.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Reviewed: Organizing Outside the Box

Organizing Outside the Box was written by Hellen Buttigieg and Sari Brandes. The authors have impressive pedigrees, and the book itself was the winner of the 2010 Los Angeles Organizing Awards award for best organizing book. The subtitle is Conquer Clutter Using Your Natural Learning Style and the book does an excellent job of laying out the three major learning styles--visual, kinesthetic and auditory--and giving specific recommendations for motivating each learner to get started and then outlining common organizing problems and solutions for each type.

The book is put together in a simple way, with lots of bulletted lists and not a lot of words on the page. The information is presented so straightforwardly that some readers may wonder if that's all there is to it. Organizing isn't complicated, but our feelings toward it may be. This book sidesteps psychology in favor of practicality; people who want more emotional handholding may do better with a different guide. However, if you are able to implement the extremely practical and well-tested solutions presented in the book, you will very likely find yourself a great deal more organized than you were before you picked it up.

The chapters toward the end of the book on "When Organizing Styles Collide" offer very workable solutions for negotiating organizing peace among families, with your children and in the workplace. As the authors write, "The solution does not have to be complicated." Having some common sense ideas written in book for may be all some families need to make a breakthrough in their lives and to begin to coexist with more care for the other member's learning styles.

All in all, the book is a concise guide to organizing solutions through the lens of learning styles. I'm a visual learner with a strong dose of kinesthetic thrown in for good measure, and I picked up more than one useful bit of information from Organizing Outside the Box.

Interested in my other books reviews? Check out the complete archives!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

The Other Side of Organized

I'm in the middle of the book The Other Side of Organized by Linda Samuels. I heard about on professional organizer Monica Ricci's blog, and ordered it from Amazon recently as I wasn't able to get it from my library system. The slim book is organized by season and its subtitle is Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection. It differs from other books about organizing in that it doesn't focus on lots of concrete tips and specific ways to get organized, rather the author takes you on a journey about the different things being organized means.

A couple of things have stood out at me so far. One was about change. Samuels writes about her childhood being very stable and living in the same house for her entire life until she went away to college. She feels that this might be one reasons she says she has to work hard toward being flexible and embracing change instead of shying away from it.

I've been thinking a lot about how the things we see and do in childhood affect us as adults. People often ask me how I decided to be a professional organizer, and as part of the story I tell them that I have always been naturally disposed to being organized. This is true. I wasn't obsessive or extraordinarily neat, but I had a system for things and I was content when I had the clothes I wanted to wear to school laid out the night before, when I had my homework assignments all written out in a to-do list and every week I'd spend part of Sunday afternoon straightening my room and getting ready for the week ahead.

We moved every four or five years when I was growing up, sometimes more often. I think one gets used to saying goodbye to a space one has loved because you learn that you find different things to love about the new space you will inhabit. It makes you less afraid of change when you are exposed to it and it doesn't turn out badly at all.

Similarly, my mother never used the words "clutter clearing" or "purging," but every year or so we'd gather all the stuff we were no longer using or loved, from toys and clothes to artwork and furniture, and put it all outside for a garage sale. By the end of the day my mom would sell a book for 10 cents just to not have to bring it back inside the house! It was our version of clutter clearing and I always looked forward to it. It's funny to look back and realize the feeling of letting go, of renewal and finding the best in a changing situation is something I get to help people find through my professional life now.

My father is a different type, one who buys junk at garage sales and keeps empty (clean) peanut butter jars to store all his gnarly old screws he's picked up over the years, just in case he needs them someday. I feel lucky that I didn't inherit that inclination, but also glad that I've learned compassion for people who think like him.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reviewed: The Happiness Project

I've been following Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project blog for over a year, and enthusiastically bought her book at a book signing she did in Pasadena in January. It took me a few months to get around to reading it. I started it on my honeymoon, which I think is an apt time to take a look at one's happiness levels, since every day of life doesn't usually involve sleeping in, reading by the pool under sunny skies and spending lots of quality time with your significant other. Unfortunately.

Anyway, there are truly too many epiphanies, wonderful quotes, stellar suggestions and all around good sense moments in this book to give you an accurate portrayal in a few sentences, so I'll just say I heartily recommend you read it. It isn't a daunting read; it is very accessible. The analytical approach (Resolution Chart and all) to something as seemingly ineffable as happiness appeals to the logical thinker in me. Perhaps people who already think about happiness (as I do) will get more out of it, and be more inclined to read it, and that's fine, but Gretchen Rubin makes a solid case that trying to be happier isn't just a selfish act, it truly affects others and therefore is not always easy, but definitely important.

What does this book have to do with organizing? Well, the author giddily recounts her experiences of clutter clearing and closet organizing with the gusto to rival any professional organizer. It's a key component to her happiness project, and could be part of yours, too.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Reviewed: Clutter Busting

I just finished the 2009 book by Brooks Palmer, Clutter Busting. The book's subtitle is Letting Go of What's Holding You Back and that is the book's essential premise. Palmer, using anecdotes culled from his "clutter busting" professional organizer practice, explains how important it is to let things go. People are sacred, he reminds us, not things.

The content of the book is rather similar to Gail Blanke's Throw Out Fifty Things. Palmer, like Blanke, shows how mental clutter and our internal problems lead to our external clutter problems and our desire to hold onto stuff that no longer fits our life. What differentiates this book from other "get rid of everything you don't really use, need or love" books is the tone. Palmer is straightforward and direct with lines like "You are born with nothing, and you will die with nothing." He puts things in such a way so that even the most uncomfortable idea seems obvious to the reader, yet he does it in a nonjudgmental way. Instead of feeling guilty for buying stuff because you think it will make you happy, you feel refreshed and transformed at the possibility of being able to stop the cycle and change your life. I especially liked his reminder that we, as individuals, are enough to sustain us in life. Ourselves and our loved ones are what make life worthwhile, not a single thing that we own.

Brooks Palmer has a blog, called Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer, that I think is required reading. His bio states that he is a stand up comedian, and from time to time reading his stuff I laugh out loud due to some terribly apt description, but for the most part the tone is calming, and encouragingly matter of fact. Of course, you don't need all that stuff that is cluttering up your living room. Of course, you are capable of letting it go and creating room for new joys and experiences to come into your life. Of course, you should pick up a copy of this book or borrow it from your local library (which is what I did.)

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Reviewed: Unclutter Your Life in One Week

I just finished reading Unclutter Your Life in One Week, the 2009 book written by Erin Rooney Doland, editor of the blog Unclutterer.

If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to organizing your life from your sock drawer to your weekly meal planning, you can't do better than this book. By breaking the contents of your life into the days of the week, Rooney Doland offers concise but thorough recommendations for organization. Rather than simply tell you to create a "reception station"in the entryway of your home, she tells you exactly how to behave and use the station in order to make the repetitive actions of coming home at the end of each day smooth, enjoyable and, of course, uncluttered. Her advice is specific but applicable to a range of different lifestyles and schedules.

I particularly liked her ideas for letting go of a hobby (and its stuff) that you no longer spend time on, as well as collecting small toiletries that you no longer want and putting them in a box for guests--overnight and otherwise--to use.

Her tone is also not overly rah rah. She knows what it's like to have a busy schedule and an overstuffed living space, but she also knows that it is 100% possible to remake the space and clear the hours of the day for things that really matter to you, and that is truly inspiring.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reviewed: Throw Out Fifty Things

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I was reading some interesting books on the topic of organizing.  I finished Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke and thought it was fascinating. The format of the book is simple. Gail, a motivator by trade, among other things, is extremely inspiring and motivating as she talks you through various areas of your life and why and how to throw out the things that are weighing you down and stopping you from living the life you want. I thought the book would be more focused on physical clutter, but throwing junk out of your kitchen, garage and attic is just a warm up for the real work Gail wants you to do. She spends over half the book on emotional clutter, i.e. the “mental mess,” and it’s kind of shocking how much each of us is carrying around with us just in our heads that sucks our energy at least as much as that pile of year old magazines at the foot of the bed does.

Gail’s approach is folksy and full of anecdotes about herself and her clients. Some of the extreme cases she talks about serve to put in persective most of our problems and make us feel like we can throw some of this stuff out and it won’t be that hard. Gail tells us what she’s throwing out right along with us, which make the entire process seem really doable. Therefore, I recommend this book to anyone who wants someone to hold their hand while getting rid of some stuff, but who maybe don’t want an actual person there to witness the process. I also think that even fairly well adjusted people can learn a lot from the emotional clutter portions of the book. Who among us can say that they’ve mastered all of these things:

• Letting go of the regrets and mistakes of the past
• Letting go of being right about everything
• Letting go of thinking the worst
• Letting go of waiting for the right moment

Seriously, if everyone were able to let go of the things she talks about in these chapters, the world would be a lot less of a tense, anxiety-ridden place.

I didn’t actually follow the "throw out fifty things" mission of the book, but if I was a place in my life when I was feeling really stuck and needing help making a big change, I wouldn’t hesistate to pick this book up again and follow the instructions to the letter.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

My reading list

I just got three books from the library that I’m very excited about reading. One is the highly popular and well-reviewed 2009 book Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke. I’ve read a lot about this book and the way it has inspired people, even professional organizers, to get rid of some things in their life that have been weighing them down.  I’m can't wait to read this book as it is sure to be inspirational.

The second book on my shelf at the moment is ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. Judith Kolberg is a professional organizer and Kathleen Nadeau is a psychologist and ADD specialist. I have been encountering more and more clients and potential clients who have some form of ADD. This disorder can lead to chronic disorganization and pose some unique challenges. I am really looking forward to expanding my knowledge base on this subject.

Last on the list is Chocolat, by Joanne Harris. That’s the February selection of my book club, and I have to read the book, then watch the movie based on it. We’ll discuss both works and compare them at our monthly meeting. It should be a fun read and I remember enjoying the movie when it first came out.

I'll share my thoughts on Throw Out Fifty Things and ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life soon!

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by heliosphan

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reviewed: Organized to be Your Best!

Organized to be Your Best! by Susan Silver is a classic among organization books. It has been revised five times, most recently in 2006. This is a great overall read for someone seeking to streamline or put in place basic organizational systems, or for people who want to refresh their systems and maybe learn more about what’s available electronically. Silver does a great job of covering modern tools, from mobile devices to lower-tech tools like Mind Maps. Her book is organized in such a way so that you don’t have to read it all, only a few essential chapters and any you feel apply to you. This is so sensible—most people would prefer to read only those applicable sections and skip the rest, and Silver makes it easy to identify which ones you want to read. One thing I really like about this book is that Silver goes into equal detail for basic concepts, like to-do lists and charts, as well as for more advanced or newer topics, like personal information manager software. Her writing is clear and concise, and she stresses that not all of the solutions in the book will work for every reader. Yet, she has a terrific approach that is simple and I’m sure proves to be effective for most. Though the book is aimed at working professionals, the advice and concepts are easily applicable to any area of life that needs organizing.

Some great takeaways from this book are about messy desks. She talks about the “Accessibility Principle,” which is “The more often you use an item, the more accessible it should be.” Silver also talks about paper management and sets forth very clear guidelines for how one should approach paper sorting, categorizing, filing and managing. An oft-repeated organizing mantra is that avoiding decisions leads to clutter. Silver reiterates that here regarding paper clutter and insists, “Making decisions about paper shouldn’t be arbitrary. They need to relate specifically to your values and goals in life.” That requires you to figure out your values and goals, both personal and professional, before you can accomplish a fully functional paper management system.

I especially liked her chapter on collectors and collections, subtitled “How, When and What to Save.” I have a tendency to collect things. If I find something I like, I want to have more than one example of it, such as all of the books written by my favorite romance authors, or lots of little tins to store tea in. But I am not a person who collects useless detritus because I might need it one day. No sir. This chapter addresses moderate and severe collectors and walks us through the decision of what the keep and what to get rid of, then how to sort, store and maintain what we choose to keep. Her instructions are particularly useful for people who collect every piece of paper they come into contact with because they aren’t sure if they might need it. Following Silver’s lead, those people will be able to get rid of a vast amount of what they’ve been hanging on to.

One of the parts of organization nearest to my heart is that of organized computers. Silver, ahead of many of her field, dedicates multiple chapters to organizing and protecting digital information. As we move more and more of our daily lives and most of our information to a digital format, it because increasingly important to keep this area as organized as our hard data, and perhaps more so, in order to protect sensitive information and our hardware itself from outside forces. This area can be scary for many people, who many know they should organize and back up their digital files, but are paralyzed by technophobia and unable to do so. Silver says that computer data should be organized; you should be able to find it easily, back it up regularly and protect it from damage, loss or thieves. Silver does more than just tell you how to name your file folders, she actually shows you how the hierarchy of a folder system works so you know why you are doing what she suggests you do. She also has a lot of resources for protecting your digital information, both from potential damage or erasure, and from nefarious types who might want to infiltrate your systems.

Organized to be Your Best! is a well written and enormously helpful volume that will help any working professional order her approach to her workspace, work tools and work systems.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reviewed: Organizing for your Brain Type

I just finished reading Organizing for your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone, M.A. This book takes a somewhat scientific approach to organizing, positing that the world can be divided into roughly four types of people whose unique way of interacting with their environment means that they should approach organizing differently. 

I am all for the idea that there is no one right way to approach organizing, and that what works for one person won’t work for another. I took the quiz at the beginning of the book to see which of the four types I was classified as. At first I was skeptical that I would fall squarely into one of the categories, but after I completed the quiz I discovered I was overwhelmingly a “Maintaining Style” organizer. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, since I’m a professional organizer, and this style is defined as “adhering to traditional organizing methods.” But I also identified with portions of the other three styles: Harmonizing, Prioritizing and Innovating. 

Though Nakone does a good job of explaining where each of the types' strengths and weakness lie, where the book succeeds most is in communicating to the reader how others they may live or work with deal with stuff like clutter and time management differently. It's good to be reminded that we can all benefit from a hefty dose of patience, tolerance and flexibility.

Since one of the greatest challenges to getting organized can be dealing with the stuff—and attitudes—of the people we share our spaces with, it helps to have some of these differences identified and explained. If you are having trouble working with someone in your immediate environment, maybe you should both sit down, take the quiz and find out if you are operating from opposite sides of your cerebral cortexes.

 

Thanks to Brandie Kajino at The Home Office Organizer for turning me onto this book via her website.