Organising from the Inside Out Book

It's about time! America's number one "professional organiser", Julie Morgenstern has written an organising book that covers a new way of looking at the task of organising effectively without labelling or blaming the person behind the lack of organisation. Rather, she says, people who don't organise just never learned how to organise, through no fault of their own--after all, it's not a skill that's taught in school. That said, she gets down to work helping you figure out an organising system that will really work for you, not a system based on filing concepts or special storage units.Morgenstern's "from the inside out" system begins by laying out the possible reasons for a failure of organisation: technical errors (like having a complex organising system that breaks down), external realities (like not enough space for your belongings), and psychological obstacles (like fear of failure--or success). Then, her Analyze and Strategize steps help create a plan of action based on your needs and goals, and the brief chapter called "Attack: Getting the Job Done" offers basic ideas for making space. The largest section of the book, "Applying What You've Learned", addresses the specifics of organising workspaces, home offices, living spaces and storage areas. Each section has a "How Long Will It Take?" box that gives a realistic time estimate, and Morgenstern's "Julie's No-Brainer Toss List" for each area gives the permission and encouragement that most of us have been waiting for to get rid of things we will never use again. The section at the end, "Tackling Time and Technology", is worth its weight in PalmPilots. Whatever your organising issues are, you are not a hopeless case, and you don't need special equipment--just a little understanding of the problem and a willingness to plan before diving in.--Scarlet HarperRead More