Clutter Clearing Choices: Clear Clutter, Organize Your Home, & Reclaim Your Life by Barbara Tako (O Books, January, 2010

by Barbara Tako
(Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, USA)

Clear Clutter, Organize Your Home, & Reclaim Your Life
Barbara Tako

Extent: 300 pages Size: 51/2x81/2 inches 216/140mm
Paperback
World rights
First published 2010

Lifestyle/Inspiration

CONTENT: Clutter Clearing Choices is humorous, authentic, and entertaining. It is an extremely informative book on clutter clearing, home organizing, and simple living. In tough economic times, we can create a win-win-win situation by donating clutter: We help those in need. We don't add to a landfill. And, we create less clutter and more time and energy for our priorities! When it comes to getting rid of clutter and organizing what is left, there are a variety of ways to get motivated, get the job done, and be entertained all at the same time. Readers are invited to pick and choose what works for them. There is no single right way to get rid of clutter!

This book is filled with practical ideas to reduce clutter and get organized to free up time and energy for personal priorities, whatever they are! Isn’t that much more fun than hunting for car keys or misplaced paperwork?

AUTHOR: Since 1998, Barbara Tako enjoys being a clutter clearing and home organizing professional educator and published writer. She shares her techniques at business seminars, parenting groups, church groups, and other organizations in the Midwest. Barbara has been published numerous times in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, featured in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and interviewed on talk radio. For several years, Barbara wrote a simple living column for the White Bear Press and coordinated a simple living group, which met monthly in the St. Paul, Minnesota area. Barbara’s humorous stories, authentic style and concise helpful tips have entertained thousands.

ENDORSEMENTS AND REVIEWS: Funny, thorough, and not the least bit intimidating, this book is a godsend for the organizationally challenged. It makes keeping the clutter manageable seem manageable after all. Victoria Moran, author of Creating a Charmed Life

A step-by-step, concrete solution to overcoming household clutter, this book is full of helpful hints and resources. The easy-to-follow program is designed to take the reader through a whole year of clutter control. Barbara Tako’s book is loaded with common sense, humor, and good advice. Barb Szyszkiewicz, of FamilyCorner.com Magazine, Inc.

“Clutter Clearing Choices: Clear Clutter, Organize Your Home & Reclaim Your Life,” is told with simplicity and great clarity, offering ideas for clearing and managing the physical, relational and emotional clutter that we all experience in our lives… I would recommend this book to any busy individual, who wishes to feel a bit more in control (however slightly) of their world and “guilt-free” when things are not quite organized as one would desire. Beth Quist, Director of Education & Development, Working Family Resource Center

…Tako has a warm and personal style of writing which helps the reader to identify with her and with her struggles and successes at organizing and clearing clutter. This is not an overbearing one way for all people self help book, but a series of conversations with a friend about things that matter- about clearing away what weighs you down, taking care of the people you love and living what you believe. This is a book I will come back to many times as the seasons change, as the cleaning bug strikes, and as a reminder about what is truly important in life. The Reverend Michael Mortvedt, Co-Director of Alternatives for Simple Living

When I began my organizing business 30 years ago, it was based on four simple words: Clutter is Postponed Decisions®. Few of us (even professional organizing consultants!) ever reach the point of being satisfied with their ability to get rid of clutter as it just seems to keep pouring in. Barbara Tako has done a wonderful job of giving her readers practical suggestions for getting rid of the clutter in their lives. Less is more! Barbara Hemphill, author of Taming the Paper Tiger at Home

Eliminating clutter – physical, environmental, and even emotional – is an on-going, continual process. That’s the premise behind Barbara Tako’s “Clutter Clearing Choices: Clear Clutter, Organize Your Home, and Reclaim Your Life.” Tako’s tips on streamlining your space and letting go of clutter aren’t based on a deep, dark secret to eliminating clutter. She simply gives common, everyday advice for getting rid of the junk in your life that holds you back from moving forward.
Tako’s common sense approach to de-cluttering your life is simple and easy to follow. Ever wonder how people get their home neat and orderly… and keep it that way? Look to the example of Tako’s mother-in-law, who she says, “could make June Cleaver from the old television series Leave It to Beaver look like a slob.” While the goal may not be to achieve June Cleaver-level domesticity, take note of the philosophy Tako gained from her mother-in-law: “clutter control and home organizing aren’t ends in themselves. They are the means to free up time and energy for our personal priorities - whether they are spiritual, relationship, career-oriented, or anything else.”
With simple, easy-to-adopt advice such as letting go of items that you no longer use, yet keep for sentimental value, taking an hour a week to weed through and organize those papers that tend to pile up in your inbox, and giving everything in your home a “place” Tako’s book gives real, practical advice to help you streamline your life. Toi Duckworth, www.WAHM.com "The Online Magazine for Work-at-Home Moms"

Fresh and realistic approach to clearing clutter from someone who walks the talk. Clutter Clearing Choices’ is for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by stuff. Comprehensive and well organized. Barbara Tako tells it like it is and offers up a year of concrete solutions. Sherrie Le Masurier, organizing consultant and co-owner of www.decorating-kids-rooms.net (or www.familysanitysavers.com;