Friday, August 17, 2007

Book review - The organized life by Stephanie Denton



The organized life - secrets of an expert organizer by Stephanie Denton

I loved so many things about this book.

It is small enough to hold comfortably and best of all, has gorgeous, bright, thick, glossy, coloured paper. I’m a very tactile person and this book feels just yummy in one’s hand.

I also loved the way it was written – not too wordy, but extremely rich in content.

The one thing you need to remember on each page is set in a huge font, like “the less you have, the less you have to organise

It’s divided into different sections for clutter, paper, closets, kitchen, time, storage, home office, bed and bath, garage, holiday shopping, photos and kids.

There are gorgeous pictures on the pages, checklists, questions to consider and it is chock-full of great tips that you can implement immediately afterwards.

There was one page I disagreed with:

The author says that we need to shape our day according to our energy levels. This is exactly right – I teach the same thing.

She gives a couple of examples of tasks that are low-level (filing papers and paying bills) and high-level (making important phone calls). And all I’m saying is that what’s low-level for one person is not necessarily low-level for another.

Many of my clients need to be in real high-level mode to take on these supposed low-level tasks above :-) and I feel that you need to determine your low-level and high-level tasks according to your personality.

However, this is only one page out of 217 and I would definitely get the book. In fact, I considered buying my own copy. It’s only when I thought about where I would put yet another organising book that I thought twice about it.

If you've read the book, let me know what you thought in the comments!


Did you know this specific book is going around the world?

It started off with Suzanne in Arizona, made its way to me in South Africa and is going to Laura in Canada next.

2 comments:

Laura said...

Woohoo, I can't wait!

Miss you :)

Laura

Anonymous said...

Hi Marcia!

Wow – I’m so grateful for all the wonderful comments on The Organized Life. A lot of thought went into not just the content, but also how the content was formatted and how the book was physically constructed. I’m gratified to know that all of those aspects were meaningful to you. I appreciate your feedback on the “energy level” concept.

Thanks for sending it on its way to its third stop around the world. I look forward to hearing what Laura has to say next. And, of course, thanks to Suzanne for getting the whole thing started.

Stephanie

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