Organize As You Go

Organize As You Go BOOK REVIEW

Review by Janet Jensen, author

Visit Marie’s House of Order website and you’ll find the most organized and user-friendly website I’ve ever seen. That’s to be expected, because Marie Ricks is The Real Thing, a professional organizer. I met her at a book signing, and as always, I learned so much from spending two hours sitting beside another author.

She’s outgoing, a wonderful trait for an author. She’d approach people by saying, “Hi, my name is Marie and I’ve written a book on how to be organized. And after you get organized, you’ll want to read Janet’s novel!” Obviously, Marie is more than an author. She is a wife, mother, teacher, radio talk show host, web designer, self-publisher, motivational speaker, organizer . . . and a wonderful person.

Some of us are born organized. I suspect Marie was. I know her aunt well, and she, also, is very organized. So was Marie’s grandmother. I think it runs in the family.

However, some of us are organizationally impaired. That would be me.

However, I think everyone struggles with organization at one time or another, and Marie has easy-to-implement systems for all of it: household organization, mission and travel, schoolwork, finances, paperwork, meals . . . you name it. At her website are some great free downloadable forms. For example, do YOU know where to find all of your favorite websites, usernames, and passwords? I do now, because Marie has a convenient print-out form you can download for free, and now I can find all of that information in one place.

Marie’s latest book, Organize As You go, Successful Skills for Busy Lifestyles, is based on the author’s simple premise that “It takes a lot of work to be organized, but it takes a lot more work to be disorganized!”

Chapter headings include: Organized Every Day, An Organized Home, Organization Challenges, Organization for Parents and Children, Organized for Big Events and Holidays, Organized for Traveling and Moving, and Organized for the Future. At the end of the book is a twenty-year plan. Wow! I’m not quite there yet (thank you very much, I’m still on chapter one) but it’s a marvelous idea to put your life goals in writing.

Of course organization affects all areas of your life; it’s not just about improving your efficiency at home and work. It affects the very fiber of personal, family, and spiritual life. That concept is at the heart of this book. We don’t organize just to establish a neat, orderly, low-stress life; organization will help us to find more joy and satisfaction in all aspects of life, too.

I can’t recommend Marie, her books and products and her website, or her personal influence, highly enough.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Organized Every Day
 1 Ten Minutes a Day Keeps Disorder Away
 2 Get Ready for the Day
 3 The Slinky Principle
 4 Do What Will Stay Done
 5 Personal Speed Limits
 6 Slow Life Down
 7 Time for Little Things  
 8 New Habits for Forever

An Organized Home
 9 Ninety-Minute Miracles
10 Prune Back Personal Possessions
11 Redefine Refrigerator Organization
12 Regularly Replenish
13 A Functional Home Filing System
14 Your Password Cracker
15 Take Control of Endless Emails
16 Organize Digital Photos

Organization Challenges
17 Organization Monsters
18 From Frazzled and Frustrated to Focused
19 Think It Through
20 Double Discouragements
21 Change the Unchangeable
22 Withdraw, Regroup and Reemerge
23 Time to Catch Up
24 Confront Personal Confusion
25 Bad News to Good Progress
26 Transition Times
27 Stop Before You’re Tired

Organization for Parents and Children
28 Do the Worst Jobs First
29 The Oops Syndrome
30 Teach Others to Wait
31 Summer Chores for Children
32 Tell, Teach, Time, and Self-Initiative
33 Warm Weather Clothing Standards
34 Summer Stress and a September List
35 Regroup When They Get Grumpy
36 Teach Children Not to Hit
37 The Power of Nurturing
38 The Answer Is No

Organized for Big Events and Holidays
39 Organize for the Holidays
40 Finish Up and Move Forward
41 Have Backup Plans
42 A Thanks Bank Perspective
43 The Angel on Your Street
44 Maintain Functional Chaos
45 Catnap Craze
46 The Day After
47 Shed and Share New Stuff

Organized for Traveling and Moving
48 Your Motel Stay
49 The Big Move
50 Urban Camping in a New Abode
51 Finish the Move

Organized for the Future
52 Weekly Maps
53 Map out Twenty Years