The Burning House

In Parade magazine of all places I saw a mention of a book coming out called The Burning House by Foster Huntington. It is also a blog, and it documents through photographs of beautifully arranged objects what a person would take if they could only grab a few things and escape from their burning house. It's a powerful question and the images are also powerful, able to communicate what a person values above all else at a single glance. I find the blog fascinating and I'm sure the book is interesting as well.

What would you take?

Happier at Home

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, has a new book coming out in September called Happier at Home. I'm super excited to read it, as The Happiness Project Blog and book are chock-full of amazingly simple but important thoughts on happiness, and Happier at Home seems like it is going to be a wonderful follow-up, and particularly applicable to me, as I am spending more time at home than ever with my almost four-month-old. Gretchen Rubin posted a link to an excerpt of the book, which I lapped right up. Here's a quote from it that is just too perfect not to share:

"Many aspects of my life contributed to my feeling of hurry. Time might seem to be a very separate issue from possessions, for example, but I'd noticed that after I tackled clutter, not only did our apartment seem more spacious and organized, I also felt less hurried, because I could find and stow things easily. Having more order in my cabinets and closets made me feel as though I had more time in my day. Instead of scrabbling away at high shelves in search of a flashlight, or jamming the heating pad into some odd corner, I had a place for everything, with nothing superfluous in my way, which gave me a feeling of unhurriedness and mastery of the space around me."

- Gretchen Rubin, Happier at Home

Just put it down

I just read a fantastic post by Jeri Danksy of Jeri's Organizing and Decluttering News, titled Not Every Book is Worth Finishing. She quotes a number of writers and readers who give their cutoffs for when to put a book down. The main thing is to give yourself permission to stop a reading a book, and then give yourself permission to not finish it. I have a category I created just for these types of books on my Goodreads profile, since I do it so often. I love to read, and I just don't have time to finish books that aren't doing it for me.

Thanks, Jeri, for the wonderful reminder that not every book is worth finishing.

Books!

Okay, I'm writing another post about books, but I just can't help it. I recently read a fun Agatha Christie called Postern of Fate, starring the married sleuthing duo Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. This installment, published in the early 1970s, finds them in their retirement years fixing up an old house in a small seaside village. The first chapter made me laugh. It is titled "Mainly Concerning Books," and, as in her way, Christie finds a way to talk about life's fundamental truths, in this case, regarding books.

Here are just a couple of selections:

"Books!" said Tuppence.
She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered explosion.
"What did you say?" said Tommy.
Tuppence looked across the room at him.
"I said 'books,'" she said.
"I see what you mean," said Thomas Beresford.
In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of them various books had been extracted. The larger part of them were still filled with books.
"It's incredible," said Tuppence.
"You mean the room they take up?"
"Yes."
"Are you trying to put them all on the shelves?"
"I don't know what I'm trying to do," said Tuppence. "That's the awkward part of it. One doesn't know ever, exactly, what one wants to do. Oh dear," she sighed.

"...I think if I could just finish this side of the room, just get the books in here..."
"Well, I'll help you," said Tommy.
He came over, tilted the case more so that the books fell out, gathered up armfuls of them and went to the shelves and shoved them in.
"I'm putting the same-sized ones together; it looks neater," he said.
"Oh, I don't call that sorting," said Tuppence.
"Sorting enough to get on with..."

Books with inscriptions

It probably seems like I'm always writing about books - both what I'm reading, and how to keep books from overrunning your space. I love reading, and books themselves, so they occupy more of my organizing attention than crafting, for instance.

Here's a problem many of us have. We get books as gifts from friends, relatives, or even just acquaintances. They have written a lovely inscription, or perhaps just the date and a quick scribble. We thank them. We read the book (or not). Then we put the book on a shelf, and are never going to read it again. What to do when it is time to de-clutter the bookshelves? I have found those books that have been marked by the giver tend to stick around, for a few reasons. We feel more connected to them. We don't want to offend the giver (what if they should be poking around a used bookstore and see their own gift to us on the shelf!?!). The inscription might remind us of a happy memory associated with that person rather even more than the book does.

Obviously, you can always keep the book. However...I'd suggest that if the book itself is not meaningful, and the inscription isn't that meaningful, then it's perfectly fine to let it go. Like any gift, the giver was pleased to give it to you, and that's what's important. If the book isn't meaningful and the inscription is, you can do a couple of things. One, take a picture of the inscription along with the cover of the book and keep it with your keepsakes, then let the book go. Two, carefully trim out the page with the inscription using a straightedge, and keep it with your keepsakes, then let the book go. Either way, the positive association you have with the item doesn't have to stand it your way of a light and clutter-free bookshelf.

Room switching and life changes

A little over two years ago, when my husband and I were still living in our previous apartment, we spent a couple of days switching most of the furniture between our upstairs and downstairs rooms and changing the configuration of my desk area and some of our other spaces. We did this a couple of months before we got married, and I documented it with this blog post.

A few weeks ago, shortly before the birth of our son, we did something similar in our current apartment. We moved my husband's office configuration to a different part of the house and moved a bunch of furniture around, repurposing some of it. The result is a dedicated baby room and a new set up in our living room/dining room area. 

Empty bookcases -- look familiar?

Books everywhere during the move.

The resulting baby room. Pretty cute!

New bookcase configuration.

One of my favorite observations about organizing is by Julie Morgenstern who says, "Every time we go through a major change, we experience a breakdown in our organizational systems." Last time that change was marriage, this time it was a baby, and each time reorganizing our space and shedding some of our stuff was a huge help in preparing us for those major life changes.

 

March reading list

I just finished reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, in case I get a chance to go see the movie. I usually prefer to read the book before seeing the movie, and it seems like one of those movies everyone is going to see. Plus, I'm trying to go to the movies as much as I can before I give birth, after which, all bets seem to be off.

Because of that impending newborn, I'm also reading Caring for Infants with Respect by Magda Gerber, and finding its simple approach to interacting with babies very appealing. We'll see how it works in practice soon!

Also on the reading list, The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, which is the NAPO-LA book club pick for April, and one of those business books I've been meaning to read forever. This month I read Moneyball for my other book club, and though it's not exactly a book about business, it has some pretty amazing insights about looking at data and the reality of situations versus seeing what you want to see when it comes to people's performance. I thought Moneyball was fascinating and highly entertaining, and really recommend it, unless you couldn't care less about baseball, in which case it might not be for you.

What are you reading today?

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The stickiness of books

Of all the items I've helped clients sort through and evaluate during my years as a professional organizer, it never fails to amaze me how books above pretty much all else are considered off limits for purging. People who otherwise have no qualms about donating all manner of other things, even about ditching sentimental items, have a thing about books.

On the one hand, I understand, because I have plenty of books in my apartment that I'm probably not going to read again, that still have value for me. But I'm able to be fairly rational about them and don't have qualms about taking those that really aren't useful or loved right down to the used bookstore or Goodwill.

I think books hold a lot of power for people because they seem them as containing knowledge, and if you own the book, than somehow you own the knowledge inside, too. Books can be very aspirational for people. I know I've been hanging on to a copy of Henry James's The Americans for a few years, thinking I'm going to read it, but it usually gets pushed down the reading list by the latest Eloisa James historical romance.

If you have enough bookshelf space for your books, then I'm not suggesting you have a book problem. But many people store books in boxes in garages, attics and basements. This is a recipe for ruined books.

It can be kind of fun to quickly scan your shelves and pull out those books you really didn't like when you read them, or that you have two of, or reference books that are completely outdated. Gather them up, put them in your car and drop them off at your nearest donation site. You'll be just as smart as you were before, I promise!

How do you feel about letting books go?

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.

The Book of Household Management

Though the phrase "A place for everything, and everything in its place," may predate the publication of the book The Book of Household Management, it surprised me that the saying is generally attributed to the author of that volume, Mrs. Isabella Beeton. The book was published in 1861 and is a handbook for a woman running a household in Victorian England. It never occurred to me that the quote could be traced back to one person. It's a marvelous aphorism that holds up in any era.

"A place for everything, and everything in its place," must be her rule, in order that time may not be wasted in looking for things when they are wanted, and in order that the whole apparatus of cooking may move with the regularity and precision of a well-adjusted machine;—all must go on simultaneously.

~Mrs. Beeton, The Book of Household Management

You can download a free copy of The Book of Household Management in numerous formats from Project Gutenberg.

In my reading pile

As you know, I'm a couple of book clubs. Here are the books I've got on deck:

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi - I'm looking forward to reading this popular tome about networking.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum - I've never read this, and it's free for the Kindle and iBook apps.
Moneyball by Michael Lewis - We'll be reading the book and comparing it to the recent movie. I really like Michael Lewis's writing style, so I'm looking forward to this. I've also heard that it's a great book about management, so it kind of crosses over between my two book clubs.

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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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Review: Partners in Crime

I read a lot, and one of my favorite genres is romance. I also love Christmas, and I've been binging lately on Christmas-themed romances which seem to be in abundance at my local library. One story,  Partners In Crime by Cait London, is about a professional organizer who gets involved with a undercover cop on vacation and a string of burglaries of Christmas presents in her small town. It was a cute story, but the way the author portrayed her main character, Cecilia Lattimer, as a fairly OCD person who thrust her unwanted organizational solutions on everyone from business owners to the hunky cop-who-she-thinks-is-a-drifter was a little off-putting.

I suppose I'm overly sensitive, being a professional organizer in real life, but it was hard to see her try to give advice to everyone about how their lives could be organized better. I would never presume to do that, since part of being a professional organizer is being non-judgmental about people's situations and stuff. By offering to "fix" their space for them, the character in the book is implying that there is something wrong with them, which is not only presumputous, but insulting and it doesn't get her very far with any of these characters, anyway. 

So, the takeaway for me is that even though it was neat to see the main character in a short novel share my profession, it made me wonder how others see the job I've chosen. I certainly hope they don't think I'm a nosy person who wants to fix their space whether they like it or not!

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How to organize a book club

Book clubs have been around forever, and I like them because, as an avid reader, I sometimes need a reason to break out of my usual genres and stretch myself to read something new, and potentially amazing.

Image from Evite.

I'm a member of two book clubs. One I've been a part of for about three years, the other I started this year as a way for members of NAPO-LA to get together and discuss business development books. The two clubs function very differently, but they are both organized to a point where making the book club happen takes very little effort on any one person's part.

If you'd like to start a book club or are in one that isn't functioning very well, here's my advice:

• Clarify the purpose or theme of the club. For instance, is your club more of a social occasion or a networking opportunity? The tone that you want the meetings to have will also dictate the book choices. For instance, one of my clubs is more social, and we have a fun theme: we read books that have been made into movies, read the book and watch the movie and then use the similarities and differences between the two as a basis for discussion. The NAPO-LA book club isn't dry and boring, but we read business development books and the conversation does focus more on our businesses and our business goals.
• Take a poll of members to get a sense of how often they want to meet. Once a month is standard, but you might find that every six weeks is more doable for your crowd. The NAPO-LA group meets every other month.
• Invite lots of people. You can have a good discussion with just two or three people, but if you want a variety of opinions and a good turnout for each meeting, you either need a small group of really dedicated people who never miss meetings (unlikely) or a larger pool of people who are interested in the group, but might not make it every time. 
• Make the meetings effortless by either rotating hosting duties among the members, so one member might host every year at the most, and then make it a pot-luck or wine and cheese kind of event. Alternatively, find a venue that can accommodate your average group size and hold it there every time. Consistency takes the work out of finding appropriate locations and minimizes confusion. 
• If you can, make one person in charge of invites and scheduling. If that job is too big for one person, rotate so the host is in charge of getting the word out about the book and the meeting details. In my social club, we use Google Docs to keep track of group member's emails, all the books we've read, and ideas we have for future book choices and then use Evite to spread the word about upcoming meetings and to get a sense of how large the turnout will be.
• If you've been in a club for a while, but attendance is dropping off, create a free survey using SurveyMonkey and send it to the group, asking questions about meeting frequency, book choice, etc. to see if you can figure out how to make the group work for more people.
• One of the best innovations of the social book club I'm in that I brought over to the NAPO-LA club was choosing the books two meetings ahead of time. For instance, at the September meeting (Misery), the group decided that in November we'd read The Cider House Rules, and we were reminded that the October choice was Interview with the Vampire, which we'd decided back in August (The Help). Planning ahead gives people more time to track down and read the book, which is helpful if you get the books from the library, as I usually do.

Above all, book clubs are supposed to be fun, so don't stress and enjoy your book-loving friends and acquaintances.

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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.

Poll #6: Books

I've been more and more curious about the proliferation of e-readers and e-books as I do two things: look into publishing an e-book, and contemplate buying an e-reader (well, an iPad). I've been planning to purchase an iPad for a while. In anticipation, I downloaded the Kindle app for my iMac and bought my first e-book. The experience of reading it on my desktop was not very pleasant, but it was pretty amazing to browse, purchase, and have a book instantly downloaded from the comfort of my desk chair. I wanted to know how most of my readers currently get their books. Here are the results of the poll:

The two books I'm currently reading for my book clubs.

50% said they get their books from the library, just like me. I rarely buy a physical book, and I have about four books out from the library at all times, both fiction and nonfiction. The library has a fabulous selection, you can order books online and pick them up when available at your local branch, the cost is free, and it's also a clutter-free option.

25% said they read e-books. That's quite a high percentage, I think, and I also think that's the way that we're headed. As more and more devices are available, the advantages and ubiquity will convert a lot of people over to e-books, especially as the younger, tech-savvy generations get older. We'll always have paper books, but e-books have lots of things going for them, from speed and price to not taking up shelf space.

12% said they borrow from friends or buy them from a traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore. No one responded that they bought their books online. I love to go to bookstores, and I do trade-ins at used bookstores all the time, which is a wash for me in terms of clutter. However, I rarely buy books new at bookstores. Instead, I get ideas for books I might be interested in, make notes and then order them from the library.

Thanks for participating in the poll and check out the new one!

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.

Poll # 2: Organizing books

I was interested in what my readers think of books that try to help you become better organized through motivation, tips and step-by-step plans. In my experience, some of the most disorganized clients I have often have five or six of these books somewhere in their house. I think it's great for people who want to learn more about a subject or get inspired to change to read books about it, but it is usually not enough to make real lifestyle changes. But, I learn something from every organizing book I read, so I think they can be useful, too.

What did you think? Almost half of the respondents, 42%, answered pragmatically with "who has time to read organizing books." Then voters tied between being inspired by organizing books, and reading them but not getting a whole lot out of them. No one admitted to being made depressed by these books, which is just as well. The authors are usually looking to inspire, not demoralize.

The newest poll is now up, asking about the state of your last will and testament. This can be a touchy subject, but it is extremely important.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by tsmall

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.

The E-Myth and organizing

The E-Myth Enterprise by Michael E. Gerber is one of several business books in the E-Myth series. Gerber is a business and entrepreneurship guru and The E-Myth is a classic book in this genre. I liked The E-Myth Enterprise, as it talks about the various traits and practices needed by a company in order to become a truly amazing one. Here's a quote that I found thought provoking:

There are three things that can be so organized: time, space, and work.

The organization of time prevents the over utilization of energy to achieve one's objectives; just enough time--and no more--within which the right action can be efficiently performed.

The organization of space produces the right tools in the right place in the right quantity to support the right action with an economy of effort.

The organization of work identifies the natural way to take action, the relationships between functions, and the coordination between the two.

When employed with skill, organization always produces a sense of great ease.

When employed unwisely, organization always produces resistance.

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.

Everything must go

The bookstore Borders is going through bankruptcy and is closing many of its Los Angeles locations. Saturday I stopped by the Hollywood location at Sunset and Vine. It was the second-to-last day of operation and the store was stripped, with a few books left on the shelves and everything, including the fixtures, for sale at a huge markdown. There were also a lot of customers, people with an eye for a bargain stocking up on books by the armful. I bought three paperback romances for five dollars, a better price even than buying used, but it made me a little sad to see a bookstore I used to browse now nearly empty and ravaged.

The people who walked out with many bags of books were lured by the steep discounts. 80% off a book's cover price is a tempting deal, but I'd argue it's worth it only if you wanted to own the book in the first place. How many of the books being bought that day were high on the new owner's to-read list? Did they buy out of desire for the book or the desire to "save" a lot of money on the book? Stuff that's on sale, just like stuff that's free, isn't always a great deal for the person buying. You still have to take home, store, use and then dispose of the thing you just spent actual money on.

I'm not saying sales aren't good things, or aren't fun. I didn't technically need two new Nora Roberts books, but I did buy them knowing I had a place to put them on my bookshelf, and can trade them in at my local used bookstore when I'm finished with them.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by scazon

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.

Anthony Bourdain on lists

This weekend I was glancing through a friend's copy of the Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain has a really direct and entertaining writing style. I really enjoyed his memoir Kitchen Confidential. I also ate at Les Halles in New York City once. It was a delicious, memorable meal. In the cookbook, he was talking about how to start thinking like a chef, and I wanted to share his take on lists with you.

I'm a list fanatic. Write it down on a list, I believe, and there is far less chance that you will ever find yourself beginning a sentence with the pathetic excuse, "Sorry...I forgot to..."

The very process of writing a list clarifies and focuses the mind.

I love the phrasing...lists really do clarify and focus the mind on what's important. The power of the list cannot be overestimated, I feel.

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