Giveaway Closed
Winner: No one entered 
Recently, I’ve become embarrassingly unorganized. I’m afraid to let people come over to my house, see the inside of my vehicle or even glance into my purse. I am even beginning to fall behind on projects and I’m afraid to take on new projects. So it was pretty much out of need that I volunteered to write a review on Pretty Neat by Alicia Rockmore and Sarah Welch.
Pretty Neat is a laid back how-to get organized guide with a collection of easy going tips from a variety of women who have a variety of perfect and no so perfect organization tips. I found the easy going, easy read book to be inspiring and have actually begun to try some of the advice provided in the book to see what suits my life style best. For example, I’ve begun to look at Google Calendar to keep my husband and I on schedule in our ever-increasing busy life. I’ve struggled a lot with delegation. I think this has been one of my reasons for my organization down fall. Pretty Neat has given me an insight to what kind of delegator I am and how I can work on becoming a better one. The Learn To Just Say No chapter gave me the courage to politely say no, “I can’t at the moment”, to someone asking me to add another girl to my already large troop. I still felt an obligation to explain myself, but I was able to explain myself in such a way it gave her no room to try to change my mind. She did not try. In fact, she didn’t reply at all.
Thanks to the book I also came to terms (I was in denial) that my office is my biggest stressor. I work from home and my office (once a small dining/breakfast room) is right next to the living room. There are no doors or walls to hide my mess and keep my kids and husband out. This means more than one thing: my messy office can be seen easily and right away by anyone who comes to my house. It also means it is nearly impossible to keep my kids and hubby out of my office. So my mess is jut made worse by their mess. Any time I’ve panned to move my office out of sight the plan has fallen through, besides I’d still have the mess and would still need to figure out a way to clean it. The good news is that I have found that my mess isn’t as big as I make it out to be. It looks terrible, but it’s just a matter of tackling it one box or pile at a time.
“And unless you have enough time to make organization a full-time job, you’ll need to embrace shortcuts and imperfect approaches to getting organized” (pg 3).
I feel there is too much emphasis on technology. I did notice the paper and pen options and appreciate them, but felt there wasn’t enough. I know technology has become an extremely important part of our society (my job would be a lot more difficult without technology), but I fear depending on technology too much or worse, others depending on everyone having access to technology may lead to chaos in the future, such as during a blackout. Also, not everyone has the convenience of technology. There are many of us out there without cell phones or even without computers. My husband and I don’t have cell phones anymore and our computers stay home. Cell phones are not in our budget right now. Truth be told, except for emergencies we also don’t really need cell phones. When we had cell phones people expected (demanded us) to be at their beck and call. Now we are in control of when and whom we answer to. In the future we may cut off our landline and switch to cell phones, but unless it’s free text messaging and Internet will probably not be part of our cell phone package.
In addition, my computer crashed this week. Right now, I am typing my review on my husband computer. He uses it for work and school. Until my computer is repaired we will have to work on a schedule just to share this thing. So on that note, I felt my family’s lack of technology kept me from connecting completely with this book. I felt the book was written more for super busy metropolitan women. This is not a bad thing, it just that personally I would have liked perspectives from men and women of all types with or without technology.
My future organization goals: declutter (clothes to be donated to Japan), make a family schedule, tackle my office one pile or box at a time, delegate (with positive feedback and accept my way is not the only way) once I feel less overwhelmed get back to cooking easy healthy home cooked meals and living my eco-friendly ways.
Giveaway: One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of Pretty Neat. In addition one reader from across all participating blogs for this book campaign will receive a $200 gift card plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50). US only, please. The giveaway deadline is March 21st 2011. To win the book leave comment below about any of your organization stories. Here are a few suggestions for creative giveaway entries:
*Share the area of her home or life that has become the biggest source of organizational stress.
*Share one tip for how to delegate an organizational task inside her home.
* Confess a funny story about either an area that has become out of control inside her home or a way in which she has given up organizing and covered up instead (i.e. shoving items under the bed, designating one room or closet as the catch-all, etc.).
Disclosure: Pretty Neat was sent to me via Global Influence for free for my review. My opinions are my own.
