Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure


Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan - 2006
    Now Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, frequent makeover expert on HGTV’s Mission: Organization and Small Spaces, Big Style, shares the do-it-yourself strategies that have enabled his clients and fans to transform their apartments into well-organized, beautiful places that suit their style and budget. Week by week, Apartment Therapy will guide you to treat common problems, eliminate clutter, and revamp even the tiniest space. Here is an eight-step process that includes:A therapeutic questionnaire to help you get in touch with your personal taste and diagnose your home’s physical, emotional, and energy flow issuesA prescription with recommendations for each room based on your needs and lifestyle–including tips on how to use color, lighting, and accessories A treatment plan, including regular maintenance schedules to ensure the ongoing health of your spaceIllustrations of floor plans and decorative examples that allow you to visualize concepts before you beginWith surprising ease and without elaborate professional help, Apartment Therapy will help you clear a path through disorder and indecision–to reveal a home you’ll love.

Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back


Brooks Palmer - 2009
    In this insightful book, Palmer shows how to get rid of the things in our lives that no longer serve us. By tossing out these unneeded items, we are also eliminating their negative influences, freeing up energy, and unlocking our potential.Loaded with inspiring anecdotes and practical tips, Clutter Busting is based on the premise that your things are not sacred, but you are. The book explores such fundamental topics as the false identities we assume through clutter, the fear of change those junk piles represent, the addictive nature of holding on to objects, how clearing clutter makes room for clarity and sweeps away confusion and stasis, and much more. With Brooks’s upbeat and compassionate guidance, you’ll find yourself clearing the way for new and exciting things to come into your life.

Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home


Martha Stewart - 2006
    The key to that is managing the upkeep without feeling flustered. Until now, there has never been a comprehensive resource that not only tells how to care for your home and everything in it, but that also simplifies the process by explaining just when. With secrets from Martha Stewart for accomplishing the most challenging homekeeping tasks with ease, this detailed and comprehensive book is the only one you will need to help you keep your home looking its best, floor to ceiling, room by room.In Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook, Martha shares her unparalleled expertise in home maintenance and care. Readable and practical–and graced with charts, sidebars, illustrated techniques, and personal anecdotes from Martha’s decades of experience caring for her homes–this is far more than just a compendium of ways to keep your house clean. It covers everything from properly executing a living room floor plan to setting a formal table; from choosing HEPA filters to sealing soapstone countertops; from organizing your home office to polishing your silver and caring for family heirlooms.Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook is organized for clarity and maximum practicality:Room by Room covers the upkeep of the appliances, tools, furnishings, and surfaces found in each room, from the entryway to the kitchen, from the attic to the laundry room.Throughout the House instructs the reader on the proper ways to routinely clean and periodically maintain everything in the home, including dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, polishing, scrubbing, waxing and much more.Comfort and Safety focuses on techniques to ensure your home is running properly and safely, such as recognizing when to clean vents, fixing a leaky faucet, and eradicating pests.A-to-Z Materials Guide provides an invaluable resource that explains the unusual materials that many favorite objects are made of–from abalone to zinc–and how to care for them so they last.Encyclopedic yet friendly, Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook is a seminal work–a must-have for everyone who wants a well-cared-for home that will endure for generations.

The Art of Happy Moving: How to Declutter, Pack, and Start Over While Maintaining Your Sanity and Finding Happiness


Ali Wenzke - 2019
    But it doesn’t have to be! Instead of looking at it as a burdensome chore, consider it a new adventure.Ali Wenzke and her husband moved ten times in eleven years, living in seven states across the U.S. She created her popular blog, The Art of Happy Moving, to help others build a happier life before, during, and after a move. Infused with her infectious optimistic spirit, The Art of Happy Moving builds on her blog, offering step-by-step guidance, much-needed comfort, practical information, and welcome advice on every step of the process, including:How to stage your home for prospective buyersHow to choose your next neighborhoodHow to discard your belongings and organize your packingHow to say goodbye to your friendsHow to make the transition easier for your kidsHow to decorate your new homeHow to build a new communityAnd so much more.Ali shares invaluable personal anecdotes from her many moves, and packs each chapter with a wealth of information and ingenious tips (Did you know that if you have an extra-large welcome mat at the entrance of your home, it’s more likely to sell?). Ali also includes checklists for packing and staging, and agendas for the big moving day.Whether you’re a relocating professional, newly married, a family with kids and pets, or a retiree looking to downsize, The Art of Happy Moving will help you discover ways to help make your transition an easier one—and be even happier than you were before.

The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life


Robin Zasio - 2011
    But sometimes, this emotional attachment to our belongings can spiral out of control and culminate into a condition called compulsive hoarding. From hobbyists and collectors to pack rats and compulsive shoppers—it is close to impossible for hoarders to relinquish their precious objects, even if it means that stuff takes over their lives and their homes. According to psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio, our fascination with hoarding stems from the fact that most of us fall somewhere on the hoarding continuum. Even though it may not regularly interfere with our everyday lives, to some degree or another, many of us hoard. The Hoarder In You provides practical advice for decluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on clutter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety. Dr. Zasio also shares some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she’s encountered, and explains how we can learn from these extreme examples—no matter where we are on the hoarding continuum.

Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make More Room for Happiness


Gretchen Rubin - 2019
    In a new book packed with more than one hundred concrete ideas, she helps us create the order and organization that can make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. In the context of a happy life, a messy desk or crowded coat closet is a trivial problem–yet Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of the stuff of life makes us feel more in control of our lives generally. By getting rid of things we don’t use, don’t need, or don’t love, as well as things that don’t work, don’t fit, or don’t suit, we free our mind (and our shelves) for what we truly value. In this trim book filled with insights, strategies, and sometimes surprising tips, Gretchen tackles the key challenges of creating outer order, by explaining how to “Make Choices,” “Create Order,” “Know Yourself–and Others,” “Cultivate Helpful Habits,” and, of course, “Add Beauty.” When we get our possessions under control, we feel both calmer and more energetic. With a sense of humor, and also a clear sense of what’s realistic for most people, Gretchen suggests dozens of manageable steps for creating a more serene, orderly environment–one that helps us to create the lives we yearn for.

Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals


Michael Hyatt - 2018
    We all want to reach our full potential. But too often we find ourselves overwhelmed by the day-to-day. Our big goals get pushed to the back burner--and then, more often than not, they get forgotten. New York Times bestselling author Michael Hyatt wants readers to know that it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, he thinks that this is the year readers can finally close the gap between reality and their dreams.In Your Best Year Ever, Hyatt shares a powerful, proven, research-driven system for setting and achieving goals. Readers learn how to design their best year ever in just five hours- three simple ways to triple the likelihood of achieving their goals- how to quit-proof their goals- what to do when they feel stuck- and much moreAnyone who is tired of not seeing progress in their personal, intellectual, business, relationship, or financial goals will treasure the field-tested wisdom found in these pages.

Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess


Rachel Hoffman - 2017
    Unf*ck Your Habitat is for anyone who has been left behind by traditional aspirational systems: The ones that ignore single people with full-time jobs; people without kids but living with roommates; and people with mental illnesses or physical limitations, and many others. Most organizational books are aimed at traditional homemakers, DIYers, and people who seem to have unimaginable amounts of free time. They assume we all iron our sheets, have linen napkins to match our table runners, and can keep plants alive for longer than a week. Basically, they ignore most of us living here in the real world.Interspersed with lists and challenges, this practical, no-nonsense advice relies on a 20/10 system (20 minutes of cleaning followed by a 10-minute break; no marathon cleaning allowed) to help you develop lifelong habits. It motivates you to embrace a new lifestyle in manageable sections so you can actually start applying the tactics as you progress. For everyone stuck between The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Adulting, this philosophy is decidedly more realistic than aspirational, but the goal is the same: not everyone will have a showcase of a home, but whatever your habitat, you deserve one that brings you happiness, not stress.

Getting Organized


Stephanie Winston - 1978
    A handy guide that has been helping people manage their daily lives since 1978 is revised and updated to apply the principles of organization to today's lifestyles.

Organize Yourself!


Ronni Eisenberg - 1987
    Organize Yourself! provides readers with essential rules for better time, money, space, and paper management. It also addresses major events, from preparing for a move to planning a party or vacation. It reveals a professional organizer's proven techniques for streamlining daily life and provides fast, effective relief for common clutter and help with overcoming procrastination and every other organizational ailment.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing


Marie Kondō - 2011
    Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo's clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house "spark joy" (and which don't), this international best seller featuring Tokyo's newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home - and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think


Laura Vanderkam - 2010
    This is your guide to getting the most out of them. It's an unquestioned truth of modern life: we are starved for time. We tell ourselves we'd like to read more, get to the gym regularly, try new hobbies, and accomplish all kinds of goals. But then we give up because there just aren't enough hours to do it all. Or if we don't make excuses, we make sacrifices- taking time out from other things in order to fit it all in. There has to be a better way...and Laura Vanderkam has found one. After interviewing dozens of successful, happy people, she realized that they allocate their time differently than most of us. Instead of letting the daily grind crowd out the important stuff, they start by making sure there's time for the important stuff. When plans go wrong and they run out of time, only their lesser priorities suffer. Vanderkam shows that with a little examination and prioritizing, you'll find it is possible to sleep eight hours a night, exercise five days a week, take piano lessons, and write a novel without giving up quality time for work, family, and other things that really matter.

Clean Mama's Guide to a Peaceful Home: Effortless Systems and Joyful Rituals for a Calm, Cozy Home


Becky Rapinchuk - 2020
    But too often the mess and disorder only add stress.For years, Becky Rapinchuk has taught people how to simplify and improve cleaning routines, and now she reveals a game-changing method to help us find joy and make our chores effortless. By pairing up systems—how we get things done so that they become automatic—with rituals—tasks that bring calm and happiness—we can feel more at peace in our homes.Walking readers through each room of the house, Rapinchuk shows how to put new systems and rituals in place that will make the whole home operate more efficiently. Featuring decision trees, checklists, and space to reflect and record progress, Clean Mama’s Guide to a Peaceful Home makes homekeeping a breeze, allowing us to slow down and focus on the things that really matter.

Houseworks: Cut the Clutter, Speed Your Cleaning, and Calm the Chaos


Cynthia Ewer - 2006
    Where there is hope, there is help. You can win the chore wars! Author, founder, and editor of the top-ranked website OrganizedHome.com Introduces easy-to-remember tips for organizing the home Step-by-step photographs throughout show how easy it is to reach your goal

The Complete Tightwad Gazette


Amy Dacyczyn - 1998
    Now The Complete Tightwad Gazette brings together all of her best ideas and thriftiest thinking into one volume, along with new articles never published before in book format. Dacyczyn describes this collection as "the book I wish I'd had when I began my adult life." Packed with humor, creativity, and insight, The Complete Tightwad Gazette includes hundreds of tips and topics, such as:Travel for tightwads¸ How to transform old blue jeans into potholders and quilts¸ Ten painless ways to save $100 this year¸ Picture-framing for pennies¸ A comparison of painting versus re-siding your house¸ Halloween costumes from scrounged materials¸ Thrifty window treatments¸ Ways to dry up dry-cleaning costs¸ Inexpensive gifts¸ Creative fundraisers for kids¸ Slashing your electric bill¸ Frugal fix-its¸ Cutting the cost of college¸ Moving for less¸ Saving on groceries¸ Gift-wrapping for tightwads¸ Furniture-fusion fundamentals¸ Cheap breakfast cereals¸ Avoiding credit card debt¸ Using items you were about to throw away (milk jugs, plastic meat trays, and more!)¸ Recipes galore, from penny-pinching pizza to toaster pastries¸ And much much more . . .