In my early married life, I read Sandra Felton’s The Messies Manual and received her newsletter for several years. Those helped me immensely. I don’t know if my husband realizes how much he’s indebted to Sandra. 🙂
But I realized that organization isn’t a destination. It’s a continual journey. You can’t just set up routines and places for things: you have to maintain them. And you continually get new things, get rid of old things, or get ideas of ways your organization could work better.
So I still read occasional books about organization. I don’t read books on decluttering because, though decluttering is a part of organization, it’s just one part. I don’t read books on minimalism because they go too far for my tastes.
Some of the more recent books I’ve read on time management and productivity focus on the larger principles. Those are needful and foundational. I need those reminders sometimes. But I’m more in need of practical everyday life hacks, those “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” ideas and solutions.
I just recently discovered Dana K. White’s Organizing for the Rest of Us: 100 Realistic Strategies for Keeping Your House Under Control when it was on sale for the Kindle. It’s full of great ideas, laced with humor, and written concisely. You could easily skim through chapter titles and just read about the areas you want help with. But I enjoyed the whole book.
Dana started sharing tips on an originally anonymous blog titled A Slob Comes Clean. It resonated with so many people that it grew into books, podcasts, and speaking engagements.
Dana was one of those people (like me) who wasn’t naturally organized. She discovered her tips one at a time while trying to “deslobify” her own house.
One of her principles I liked is that clutter is personal. Maybe that’s why I don’t like decluttering and minimalist books—I didn’t always agree with what they said I needed to get rid of. Dana defines clutter as “anything that gets out of control in your home” (p. 6, Kindle). “You can keep anything. You just can’t keep everything” (p. 58).
One of my favorite tips from this book was not to take everything out of a closet or cabinet when trying to organize it. Most of us do that, then we get tired or need to go tend to something else, and we have a massive mess on our hands. Instead, Dana urges taking one thing out at a time and deciding immediately what to do with it. Have a trash bag and donation box handy to put items that you want to get rid of. If you decide the item is something you want to keep, immediately put it where it goes. That may seem to take longer in the short run. But dealing with the item immediately saves having a pile of items to put away when you’re done and fatigued. Plus handling it just once cuts down on rethinking it. And if you’re interrupted or tired, you don’t have a mess to clean up (or shove back into the closet) before you can move on.
This was a fun and very helpful book. Highly recommended.
Stray Thoughts 
This was fun to read! I enjoy reading about organizing/decluttering/etc. although at this point I don’t know how much more can be said. Dana sounded familiar, and sure enough I’ve seen her in videos I’ve watched. I watch a lot of “Minimal Mom” videos on YT with a lady named Dawn. She sometimes has Dana on her videos. I agree that things go farther than I am comfortable with — Dawn has said her family got rid of 80% of their things, she has only one box of Christmas decor, etc. I just can’t do that. I like Dana’s advice to not take everything out of the closet (as many organization people advise). That’s just overwhelming. I’m sentimental and struggle with a lot of the “getting rid of” process. It honestly feels painful to look at things full of memories and realize I don’t need them anymore and should part with them.
The sentimental things are hardest for me, too, because they can’t be replaced and emotions are involved. I’ve tried to manage them by keeping representative things–a few pieces of kids’ artwork, not all; one baby outfit, not a whole box. Sometimes I’ll take a picture before getting rid of something to remember it by.
Great review! I’m going to bookmark this one. I am a natural born organizer. I tend to want to organize my organization so sometimes I go overboard. But to me, organization is what keeps me sane. I’m always up for any tips that I can get though. This sounds like a book I want to get.
Thank you for this post.
I love Dana K White. She has helped me a lot from watching her YouTube videos. I love her sense of humor. Thanks for doing the review of her book!
I appreciate that she accounts for differences in tastes and tempers. For me, when it came to clothes, it helped to get out every stitch of clothes from every corner of every closet. Rather than dealing with one thing at a time, it showed me that there were 6 or 7 cream sweaters that were never going to be worn. Once that big task was done (it took at least a full day, if I recall), I can see going through a section at a time and making an immediate disposition.
(p.s., I loved your opening paragraph in this post.)
Right after I posted this, I kept thinking of exceptions to the one-item-at-a-time process. 🙂 Sometimes you do have to take out everything to see what you have or what you need to organize it.
Thanks for recommending this book. I’d like to read it to get fresh ideas and strategies for organizing my home. Saw it at SSPS#298. My shares this time are#37 through 41. Warm regards, Nancy Andres @ Colors 4 Health
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Sounds like a great read. I like that it’s “average” and “normal” which means “doable.” :) Visiting from Sweet Tea & Friends.
Sounds like something I need, thanks for sharing your thoughts
I used to follow the Fly Lady routine of cleaning. I’m not a fan of minimalist either I think it’s a bit far too. You gleaned some great ideas from your read and I gleaned from your review.
Thank you so much for sharing this with Sweet Tea & Friends this month dear friend.