Organizing from the Inside Out
Book Review by Lori

                            Organizing from the Inside Out

                                   by Julie Morgenstern

          Julie Morgenstern is the founder of Task Masters, a professional organizing company, Her clients, which ranged from individuals to companies such as Microsoft and Sony Music, told her for years she should write a book and with her daughter’s inspiration she did. 

          Her book Organizing from the Inside Out is among the New York Times Best Sellers.  Ms. Morgenstern focuses on the key issues to organizing your home or office as well as your life.

          I personally found her book to be quite insightful.  Her approach to organization is focused on not only eliminating the clutter in your space but your life as well.  She encourages her readers to focus on finding what “works best for you” by looking inward to yourself and overcoming the “psychological aspects” of clutter.  She talks about how certain circumstances one may be facing or has faced in his or her life may affect how we deal with other things in our life that “keep us busy.” She states that the first step to overcoming clutter is to take a step back and look to circumstances in your life and be sure to understand if it is the clutter or other factors that are taking over.

          Her approach to organization is not one to make one feel inadequate or lazy by no means.  Instead she actually encourages the reader to take their time and find a system that works for the individual.  Even if your own method of organization looks like a tag sale gone horribly wrong to someone on the outside looking in, it may be the best way for you to know exactly where everything is.  She points out in her book that organization is not having the kind of environment that one may see on the front page of Home and Garden Magazine, it is being able to get to what you need when you need it without searching and being able to have your space function for you.  

          No book on organizing would be complete without helpful hints on how, when, and where to start.  Her book is full of helpful tips and funny anecdotes on organization and the gizmos and gadgets that are on the market these days.  She has sections in her book devoted to each room of a home or office. Ms. Morgenstern goes by the “Kindergarten Model” for organization, which focuses on devoting a space for each task or workable centers for just about anything you can put into a home.

          The advice and ideas she offers in her book are the same techniques she applies when organizing the homes and offices of her large clients.

          Overall, I found her book very insightful and incredibly helpful.  I have already started to apply a few of her techniques in my own home and life, which are working quite nicely.