Hot Mess

Genre: Lifestyle

Most of us have too much stuff and not enough places to put it. Combine that with our hectic modern lives, and you’ve got a recipe for clutter catastrophe. Luckily, help is at hand. Hot Mess: A Practical Guide to Getting Organized can show you how to simplify your life—and get control of your stuff.

In this new guide to streamlining and organizing your belongings, your house, and your life, author and expert Laurie Palau gives you all the strategies you need to clear your clutter once and for all. This comprehensive book offers clever storage ideas and decorating tips, but more importantly, it shows you where your clutter comes from and how to change your approach. This makes it the definitive how-to for dropping all the dead weight that’s been keeping you stressed and anxious. Just follow the hacks, tips, and strategies Palau clearly outlines, and you’ll soon be sipping a vodka martini in your beautifully tidy living room.

Whether you’re naturally neat or a total chaos magnet, this informative and amusing guide takes an approach to organizing that’s as unique as you are. Let this witty little handbook be your new secret weapon in the war on disorder!

EXCERPT:

Before we get too far, I think it’s important that we all get on the same page. For most people, the word clutter conjures up scenes from Hoarders, or Grey Gardens with its mazes of magazines lining the hallways. You may even imagine feral cats, rodent droppings, and indistinguishable mounds of who-knows-what.

I’ll be honest; I can count on one hand (with three fingers to spare) how many times I’ve encountered a true hoarder. Yup, twice—you guessed it! It was very early in my career as a professional organizer, and it didn’t take me long to realize it wasn’t the right fit for me. It’s not so much that I was in over my head (no pun intended); the reality is that their struggles go deeper than piles of paper, overflowing loads of laundry, and rooms filled with toys. I am not a licensed psychologist, although I often like to think of myself as one, and the level of help they need is beyond what I can offer.

The majority of my clients are like you and me. Their days are spent running between work, school, PTA meetings, soccer practice, dance lessons, grocery shopping, overseeing homework, making dinner, looking after ailing parents, and whatever else we can fit into our days.

The result of all this life-madness is often a cluttered home, and with that, I can help.

MY REVIEW

I am truly an organized person.  We have moved enough times for me to learn that “less is more” or at least it’s more manageable. It’s kind of the motto in our house. However, I am a great believer in always being able to learn something else. Not only did I enjoy reading Palau’s book, I learned some tips, some new nuggets of ways to handle part of my “stuff”.  It made me get started too.  Even information can become clutter and she even touches upon some apps and new software to use.  In fact, she touches on all kinds of clutter; maybe that is the key to this book.  She talks about so many different kinds of clutter; makes you really internally think about which type is your clutter and how you handle it or maybe how you don’t handle it. No matter how organized you are I bet there are a few you haven’t heard of or at least have not looked at from this perspective.

This is a very well put together book.  It flows well and has many different layers of information.  Books on a subject like this can sometimes be laid out as a long novel; difficult and sometimes boring.  This book was easy to read.  Broken up in shorter chapters with questions for you to think through along the way. 

You could say “oh self-help books are all the same” but Palau seems to have broken this down to a science. One which would help any of us at any level of “cluttering”.  I read things I knew about but I don’t think I had looked at them in the same manner. Here is a kind of clutter she mentions that sort of stopped me in my tracks…calendar clutter. Put together with any other type of clutter you might have, this can make life pretty overwhelming.

As I said above, I think this is well-written and interesting and can be a help to anyone.

**This book was provided to me free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

    Laurie Palau will be awarding a FREE 30 minute phone consultation to help address specific organizing challenges to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Laurie Palau is the founder of simply B organized, host of the weekly podcast, This ORGANIZED Life, and author of the book HOT MESS: A Practical Guide to Getting Organized available in paperback and kindle on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

She is a go-to Organizing Expert whose advice has been featured in The New York Times Parenting Section, Family Circle, and Home + Table Magazine.  Laurie can also be seen sharing tips on the CBS Philadelphia’s Morning Show & WFMZ in Allentown, PA. Whether speaking or working with clients Laurie is authentic, relatable, inspiring, and highly entertaining.

When not organizing the world, Laurie can be found at home in Bucks County, PA with her husband Josh, 2 girls (Zoe and Logan) and 2 dogs (Jeter and Oliver).  She loves coffee and Tito’s Vodka (not together), and in her spare time she is actively involved with The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which raises money for Pediatric Cancer Research.

Visit www.simplyBorganized.com for a complete list of service offerings including free organizing checklists, links to her podcast, blog and social media.

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