Stephanie Winston's Best Organizing Tips: Quick Simple Ways to Get Organized and Get on with Your Life

The author of Getting Organized and The Organized Executive offers an efficient time and space saver for all areas of life, complete with anecdotes, exercises, and examples. 50,000 first printing. Fortune Bk Club Main. BOMC & QPB Alt. Tour.

Winston, founder of the consulting firm Organizing Principle, doesn't promise to add more hours to the day, but she does present practical guidance on doing things faster and more efficiently. Setting priorities and "getting it done" are the focus here. Winston profers advice on handling "paperwork gridlock," filing, paying bills and taxes, even dealing with junk mail. She suggests ways to manage your kitchen, clean your house and tidy up car clutter. Oddly, the book is addressed to women, but men would profit as well from Winston's tips. Fortune Book Club selection; BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Professional organizer Winston follows up her Getting Organized (Warner, 1994. rev. ed.) and The Organized Executive (Norton, 1994. rev. ed.) with this collection of Heloise-like hints and tactics on organizing our lives. She covers the paper shuffle, using calendars and time management, office and home clutter, cleaning up the home and organizing chores, and even organizing your kids. This is an A-to-Z assortment of suggestions that are nicely designed for easy surfing, but it misses the more difficult, fundamental issue of controlling one's life that is very effectively covered in Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (LJ 3/15/90) and First Things First: To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy (LJ 4/1/94). This is a rehash of Winston's previous work, and although it may be of limited use, it is recommended only if you haven't yet acquired her other books.?Dale Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Many people think an uncluttered desk (or car, house, etc.) is a sign of a seriously disturbed mind. Winston notably disagrees. She offers organizing tips for all phases of existence, including (it's chapter 5) "Reading Expeditiously--Zipping through Newspapers, Magazines, and Catalogs." She emphasises retrievability as a function of organization and organization for its own sake in advice that encompasses the proper filing of addresses and business cards, setting priorities, storage space, kitchen organization--in short, nearly everything a person seeking the shapely ship is likely to want to do. Although her comprehensive attention to detail might make Winston an unappealing dinner companion, it allows her to create an admirable book of advice. What with its bibliography (for further research into organizing the bejesus out of your life?) and form for sending in tips for the next edition, it's a tome worth living by--as long as you don't put it down somewhere and forget where it is. Mike Tribby