Life's Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets

Are you a harried, overwhelmed mom — who thinks your homemaking skills don't compare favorably to other moms you know? Then you're the intended reader for this book.

Most parts of this book had nothing to do with organizing; I skipped right over the sections about selecting a color palette and choosing simple recipes for entertaining, for example. However, Lisa Quinn also writes about clutter, perfectionism and things it's not worth spending time on — all themes of this blog. So I thought I'd share a few gems with you.

First, there's this theory:

We don't slave over all this domestic drivel for our families our ourselves; we do it for the other moms. For us, the Mommy Competition is on, and dammit, we're going to win. ...

What if we manic moms stopped obsessing over the unnecessary? What if we realized that our value doesn't depend on what other people think? What if we stopped being control freaks? What if we put down the glue gun and got back to our lives? ...

It's my assertion that the real key to happiness is getting rid of your inner control freak, redefining what's real and important in your life, and the lowering your standards for everything else.

And of course this one resonated with me:

There will never be enough vacuum-pack bags, shoe racks, or color-coded plastic bins if your real problem is too much stuff. The amount of time, effort, and money that people spend trying to organize their garbage is unbelievable.

And while this may not be true for everyone, it's true for many:

Don't even think about a "Sell" bin. You are never going to get around to selling all that junk. It will sit there for years. Ask for tax receipts from thrift stores, so you can write off the donation on your taxes.