Rereading Organizing from the Inside Out Julie Morgenstern

I used to own this in paper, and in an earlier getting-rid-of-paper-books round, I bought it on kindle (circa 2016). I am highly uncertain when I last reread it. I misspoke at FF saying I was rereading a book, when it was a first read, and this lead to a tangent about Why I Don’t Reread Books Any More. H. had some comments, and it occurred to me that I had become hazy on the details of why I thought Morgenstern’s book was no longer relevant any more. It especially seemed weird that I could see so much of Morgenstern’s organizing structure in later works by other authors that clearly built on her work, and yet I saw Morgenstern as painfully out of date.

So I’m rereading the Oldie!

Rather than liveblog this reread, or nitpick it to death, I waited until I hit something that was so obviously, damagingly, everyone knows this is wrong. And I did!

“Put it into Storage: Getting unused things out of your home or office into off-site storage will allow you to experience clutter-free living without the trauma of parting with them permanently. Rates are not high, and some companies (like Public Storage) offer pickup and delivery service; they bring a container to your door, you fill it, and they whisk it away. Couldn’t be more convenient! Once it is off-site, you may even find it easier to decide what to keep long-term.”

This is the second edition of Organizing from the Inside Out, dating from 2004, but even by then, a lot of people had figured out what a bad idea this was, altho, to be fair, far more have figured it out since then. Over in the declutter subreddit, I found this post and discussion from three years ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/declutter/comments/yd3ul9/are_there_any_success_stories_for_decluttering/

This post specifically asks for successes, and still, most of the comments involve Not Successes. And many of the successes are extremely specific circumstances with complex moving in and out / roommates / family members / etc.

The suggestion _before_ “Put it in Storage” is:

“Have a tag sale or sell through a consignment shop.”

While this is another piece of advice infamous for causing people to have bags and boxes sitting around for days / decades waiting to finally be sold, I did NOT stop at that one, because there are people who have successfully sold a lot of things and decluttered / downsized / gotten organized with that approach. You can find posts on the declutter subreddit to that effect.

But it’s worth drawing attention to the fact that two piece of absolutely horrifically bad advice occur in quick succession in Organizing from the Inside Out. The first edition of that book was published in 1998, and the author’s organizing business started in the 1980s in NYC, with a focus on people who were successful enough to afford her and busy enough to need her. By the time she was on Oprah, she was attempting to turn her Pay Me to Do Stuff That You Don’t Have Time For self-exploitative (and daughter-exploiting) business into something with more leverage and a mass-market appeal. It’s hard to believe that anyone was paying her $10 more per hour than her competitors in NYC to run tag sales, altho it is straightforward to imagine her customers having clothing that would sell in consignment shops in that time and place. In NYC, it’s extremely easy to imagine even a relatively organized person who is good at moving things along getting overwhelmed in tight living spaces, so putting things into storage makes a ton of sense in the NYC context but in a suburban sprawl context, it’s just taking a problem enabled by large houses and setting it on fire.

I’m going to finish the book, and may or may not return here with more. It’s been a really interesting reread so far.

Liveblogging miscellanea from Organizing from the Inside Out

”If you put each group into a plastic basket, and label the baskets on the shelves, retrieval and return will be a snap. As will cleaning the shelves: Just remove the baskets, wipe the shelves off, then return the baskets. Try doing that as easily with eighty loose bottles, jars, and boxes!”

This is describing a linen closet.

Why would you need to clean the shelves UNDER the baskets? They won’t get dirty unless the baskets leaked something that spilled within the baskets. And if the baskets leaked something within the baskets, then you are going to have to take everything out of the basket and clean it thoroughly.

Look, I’m entirely here for containerization of small items stored in a large space (classic situation in linen closet / bathroom storage closet). But come on.

“Joseph, a marketing manager, needs a place in his briefcase for his cell phone, Palm Pilot, and project files.”

“Colin, a freelance writer, needs a place in his bag for reading glasses, sunglasses, keys, notebook, handheld tape recorder, and his laptop.”

I feel like Joseph is coming to us from the 1998 edition, and Colin arrived with the second edition. But who really knows.

“Packing light requires releasing the “ready-for-anything” mentality. Instead, visualize where you are going, what you will actually have time to do, and what you will actually need.” Written like a theater person trying to figure out what props are needed and which ones need to be pared down.

I also cannot help but notice the wild lack of water bottles and hot and cold sipping bottles with the adults in these books. I definitely remember this evolution in this time period, but seeing that absence in this book is kind of amazing. It makes me wonder if water bottles had to happen, to replace all the things we were no longer carrying around.

ETA: Water bottle showed up! Altho so have rolls of film, so, there’s that. Oh goodness, and carrying a checkbook around!!!

ETAYA: I guess if you are already carrying both a laptop AND files around, maybe this makes sense. No. No it does not.

“Pack a scrapbook, tape, a gluestick, and scissors for vacation trips. Each night, the family can write a description of the day’s highlights and paste in the treasures and mementos collected. By the time you come home, your memories of the trip are all containerized! Your scrapbook is complete and ready to be enjoyed.”

I would note, you will be checking the scissors [ETA still further: as long as they are 4 inches or less from the pivot, you can carry them on, says TSA], except this whole thing is so unhinged. However, the scrapbooking subreddit indicates that people do actually do this, and go so far as to having those fold up scissors for this purpose. Amazon carries scissors like this labeled “TSA compliant”. Some of them are quite attractive.

It’s Easter, so why not stay home.

There’s nothing to do out there anyway. Conversations (A.) and zoom (I., family zoom, my daughter’s play date) with west coasters reminds me that things are open on Easter over there. Just not around here. Which is fine by me.

T. came by and when R. left, T. parked in the garage. He came in at an angle, dinged the house and scraped the heck out of his front right corner. *sigh*

We did family zoom, which was fine. If I make it to Portland this summer, I want to try Screen Door.

Someone came by and picked up a whole bunch of stuff, notably, the bubble makers and bubble juice and walkie talkies. Hilariously, someone said they’d be by at noon to pick up the bicycle basket, then said 1:15, and then showed up at 11:45. Happy to see him, and he had a bike on the back of his vehicle, so I’m sure the basket will see some use.

I walked with M. I moved that walk twice because of the pickup time changes. I’m sure it all came down to gps predictions being wildly off due to the complete lack of traffic out there.

I wound up listing a bunch of stuff I pulled out of my closet, and someone is coming by tomorrow to pick up a bunch of that, plus the popcorn buckets from a few days ago. I continue to see things in my office and go, why do I still own that? Mostly because I stopped seeing it there. The latest was a pair of Pier One or equivalent tealight holders. Including battery tea lights. I actually gave the rest of the box of battery tea lights to someone who picked up the Kosta Boda Snowball and a couple other crystal tchochkes. I cleared those out because R. ordered a bit purple glass “orb”, looks like a giant eyeball that some social media glassmaker makes. It needed space in the cabinet, and it seemed easiest to just clear some things out.