Organizing from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life

This book addressed issues that I have alway had with organizing. I thought organized meant neat clean and out of sight and putting things in a "logical" spot according to world standards. I was pleased to find that organized is being able to find what you want or need when you want or need it. And that it's not done in a day.

Julie Morgenstern's "Organizing from the Inside Out" is such a fantastic and valuable book. Her approach to organizing, as the title suggests, is whatever you are organizing -- your work/family schedule, your office, your kitchen, or your basement -- needs to reflect you: what's important to you, who you are and your value and logic system. I found it so refreshing and exciting how the focus in the book is about getting interested in who you are and how you operate and then creating a system of organization based on that. This is a more organic, natural, effective and lasting approach than the one most of us have where we impose an outside system that will "fix" our disorder. Often, those outside systems do the opposite. Reading this book demystified and made accessible the topic of organizing, one that I often found daunting and overwhelming. Julie applies conventional wisdom to organizing in a way that makes it easy, logical and even fun. Her mottos are: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"....and "You can't fix it till you know what's broken". Applying these ideas and without even thinking, I organized in 10 minutes, a whole section of my closet that had bothered me for about 10 months!

This approach of investigating and discovering who you are and how you operate is in line with two other authors who have made a huge impact in my life: Ariel and Shya Kane. Their books, Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation, How to Create a Magical Relationship and Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment, are all based on a similar idea that you don't need to do anything to change or fix yourself in order for your life to be satisfying, less stressful, fun and enjoyable. If you are interested in getting the most out of all aspects of your life, I highly recommend all of these books!

I personally didn't get as much information out of this book as I would have preferred, although I did like the set up of her book. She takes the first section of the book to set up her basic organizing philosophy, and then repeats that philosophy in each different area of the house (kitchen, living room, bedroom, office, etc). She has several great ideas and practices that originate with each person's personal preferences in mind. She advocates a lot of common sense ideas like containerizing, labeling and filing as well as other unconventional and creative means of organization and storage (like setting up your home office where you will actually enjoy working).
The problem I ran into is that I would go to a certain section looking for a way to improve and find that I was already utilizing most of her suggestions, and really didn't have much left to organize.
I would recommend this book for anyone who honestly believe that they REALLY need help organizing, and are ready to start the process. If you're already pretty well organized for the most part it still might be a worthwhile read, but I would suggest looking for a more advanced book on organizing (and let me know if you find one).

I really liked both this and her other book Time Management from the inside out. Both books give you great steps to take to declutter your life.

I've been a packrat hoarding things all my life. After reading this book, I got rid of all this stuff that I probably shouldn't have bought in the first place. I look at my car, my office, my bookshelves, my clothes and shoe closets, and my kitchen, and I'm amazed by how neat, clutter-free, and ORGANIZED everything is.

If you want to get your tax, banking, investment, and financial records organized, I recommend reading "File Don't Pile" by Pat Dorff. Her filing system is a lot simpler. Personally, I don't think Quicken has made a huge difference. I tried it and thought it was OK. I use an old-fashioned paper day planner to keep track of where I spend my money everyday. I plan on signing up for a Franklin Covey seminar this year.