Some consider her a madcap maven who seems to have a perfect life: She knows how to braise a pork loin, prune her bush, befriend animals and Snoop Dogg, give up real fur, trade stocks, even once going to jail for five months at a jail whose grounds were almost as lavish as Cantitoe Corners, one of her multi-million dollar estates. This home sits on 153 acres of prime real estate in Bedford, New York; the insignia of the home, er mansion, is that of a sycamore tree.
The prolific (and very very very very very rich) 78-yearold is also an author, and we must admit her really like her latest: Martha Stewart’s Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30).
The tome is just the thing for people who are cluttered and, frankly, overwhelmed by junk they refuse to toss.
Yes, we know even a cursory glance at amazon proves that there are many “how to” guides on the topic of organizing, but Martha knows the subject of bringing order to one’s life is so much more than simply discarding what doesn’t please you.
“I’m a big proponent of keeping a calendar and populating it with every task, appointment and event, big and small–down to staking the peonies, grooming my dogs, sharpening my kitchen knives, setting up my grandchildren’s sailing lessons and ordering the Thanksgiving turkey,” she coos.
The book is crammed with her own monthly calendars as templates. The calendars are easy to personalize, so anyone can achieve Martha’s level of organizational success. Through big picture advice and smaller step-by-step projects–a culmination of decades of research gathered for Martha Stewart Living, her TV shows and online videos–she helps readers craft (and stick to) a deliberate approach to organizing with clear rules, pre-set schedules and to-do lists informed by their unique lifestyles.
The manual is split into three sections (Organize Your Year, Organize Your Home, Organize Your Routine) and topics include:
- Room-by-room strategies to make spaces more hardworking and rewarding (i.e. how to sort office paperwork, when to purge the garage or attic, and ways to store perishables in the fridge or freezer for maximum shelf life.)
- Seasonal advice like when to swap out bedding and clothing and how to put away holiday decorations. For example, in January, Stewart sets days to establish healthy habits, review your financial plan for the year, clean your pantry, and make and freeze soups to get you through the cold winter months.
- Day-by-day or week-by-week plans for projects such as de-cluttering, house cleaning, creating a filing system and overhauling the closet.And for this, we thank Martha as we butterfly some shrimp.
