Book Review: Pretty Neat & Chance to Win $250

When gazing at beautiful images of meticulously organized rooms, color-coded closets and flawless family schedules, does it make you think you are not measuring up? Some suggest at least 80% of of women feel organizationally challenged. Wow. Could this be true? Buttoned Up’s co-founders, Alicia Rockmore & Sarah Welch sadly found this to be the case when interviewing hundreds of women for their new book, Pretty Neat: The Buttoned-Up Way to Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection : Simply put, many thought their “imperfect” ways left them short of the mark organizationally.

In the introduction, Alicia and Sarah state, “Chasing perfection fuels something we call organizational inertia, a type of paralysis that makes it virtually impossible to get started. All too often, the most difficult part of getting organized is knowing where to start. If perfection is the objective, paralysis makes sense. Keeping your house, work and schedule magazine-ready requires a superhuman effort to achieve and constant superhuman vigilance to maintain. The goal of getting organized isn’t necessarily to have everything picture-perfect, but rather to eliminate inefficiency so that you have more time to do what you actually want to do.”

Pretty Neat is just that. The book drives home that getting organized can be approached in a practical way and insists women need to stop holding themselves to ridiculously high standards. Once readers get past these psychological hurdles, the book provides simple solutions for taking control of their time & stuff without having to become anal. Pretty Neat’s collection of road-tested tips from real women show busy people how to:

* Take charge of to-do lists
* Tame inboxes
* Temper toy tsunamis and more!

I love this simple solution found on page 103 for helping reduce clutter in our closets:

Place a large cloth bag or two on the floor of your closet. Each day as you stare at your wardrobe, ask yourself three questions about one piece of clothing, a pair of shoes and an accessory: 1. Is it flattering? 2. Do I love it? 3. Does it represent who I am today? If the answer to any one of these questions is no, put the item in the cloth bay straight away. Don’t rationalize. When the bag is full, take it to Goodwill. Repeat as necessary until your closet only contains clothes, shoes and accessories that you truly love and wear.

Wanna win $250? I would love to here your best organizational tip or shortcut. Share your tip here by commenting on this post no later than December 31st at midnight! The reader who submits the best tip across all participating blogs will win $250.  The winning tip will be selected by Alicia and Sarah of Buttoned Up and announced on January 10th.

Can't wait to hear all of your get tips for getting organized!

* images via Martha Stewart and Buttoned Up

** I received no monetary compensation for this post. I received one copy of Pretty Neat (book) for review. The opinions herein are my own.