Rachel R. (A2JC4life) reviewed How to Get Organized When You Don't Have the Time on + 40 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 14
I don't believe I've ever read such an unhelpful organizing book. Much of the book is spent on describing the assumed state of the problem, rather than on offering solutions to the problem. (Do I really need half a chapter to tell me that my kitchen is disorganized? If I didn't already know that, why was I reading the kitchen chapter?) The remainder of the "stuff" organization chapters (as opposed to the time management chapters in the first section of the book) consists of lists of tips. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these tips are things that most of us could have figured out on our own. "Write down what you're running out of BEFORE you run out of it." We don't necessarily all DO this, but I don't think we needed help coming up with the concept. Moreover, most of the methods the author recommends will only work well for a small segment of the population - that is, those who don't actually struggle with disorganization but who have simply not gotten around to getting organized before. For example, the method given for organizing a room is to dump EVERYTHING into the middle of the room, from all of the drawers, shelves, etc., and start from there. For some people, this may work great. For many of us, it would result in being immediately overwhelmed, crashing and burning when barely into the project, ending up with a much larger mess than what we started with, and, possibly, giving up on any further attempts to get organized.
Besides the lack of helpful instruction offered, I did not care for the author's tone/attitude. The entire thing - especially the first section - made me feel as though I was constantly being beaten over the head. The author continually railed against the "excuses" I was supposedly making for not getting organized and why I needed to just suck it up and do it. Well, contrary to the author's perception, I had every intent of "sucking it up" and doing the job - that's why I bought the book and was reading it. She also operates on the assumption that everyone has loads of disposable cash lying around and that everyone's lifestyle is - or should be - like hers. ("When have you ever used more than one paper bag in a month?" How about when we had the newspaper delivered every day and we used paper bags for holding the newspapers and taking them to the recycling point? Does the author truly believe that NOBODY, ANYWHERE has a use for more than one paper bag per month?) She recommends paying someone else to do nearly every imaginable task, and her not-so-creative solutions to most organizing problems are to just "buy such-and-such a gizmo." If I HAD plenty of money to buy every organizing gizmo on the market, I WOULD NOT BE DISORGANIZED in the first place.
Finally, she routinely discourages respect for the other people in our lives. If someone is late for dinner, she says don't heat up his dinner, because his own poor time management is not your problem. So if my hard-working husband is late for dinner because a job took longer than anticipated I should leave him to fend for himself because it's technically "not my problem"?
I would skip this book, in favor of others whose authors are a little more knowledgeable AND gracious.
Besides the lack of helpful instruction offered, I did not care for the author's tone/attitude. The entire thing - especially the first section - made me feel as though I was constantly being beaten over the head. The author continually railed against the "excuses" I was supposedly making for not getting organized and why I needed to just suck it up and do it. Well, contrary to the author's perception, I had every intent of "sucking it up" and doing the job - that's why I bought the book and was reading it. She also operates on the assumption that everyone has loads of disposable cash lying around and that everyone's lifestyle is - or should be - like hers. ("When have you ever used more than one paper bag in a month?" How about when we had the newspaper delivered every day and we used paper bags for holding the newspapers and taking them to the recycling point? Does the author truly believe that NOBODY, ANYWHERE has a use for more than one paper bag per month?) She recommends paying someone else to do nearly every imaginable task, and her not-so-creative solutions to most organizing problems are to just "buy such-and-such a gizmo." If I HAD plenty of money to buy every organizing gizmo on the market, I WOULD NOT BE DISORGANIZED in the first place.
Finally, she routinely discourages respect for the other people in our lives. If someone is late for dinner, she says don't heat up his dinner, because his own poor time management is not your problem. So if my hard-working husband is late for dinner because a job took longer than anticipated I should leave him to fend for himself because it's technically "not my problem"?
I would skip this book, in favor of others whose authors are a little more knowledgeable AND gracious.
Robbie N. (robbie) reviewed How to Get Organized When You Don't Have the Time on + 28 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
This is the third book of hers that I have read. So far one has been worthwhile, two have not been worth the time. This would be one of the not worth the time ones as it duplicated a lot of information in her book on time management. I only got one new tip out of it that I am considering using. I read this book in anticipation of an organizing job that I was doing for a friend, hoping to get some new ideas, but a good part of the book focused on organizing time not things.
