I enjoyed the author's philosophy and thought this was a charming, quick read. Some parts got repetitive, but I thought the way she approaches the idea of "tidying" and getting your house in order was intriguing and gave me some new things to think about.

"Effective tidying involves only two essential actions: discarding and deciding where to store things. Of the two, discarding must come first." Her assertion is that once you get your house in order ONCE, where you've gotten rid of everything you don't love/need and you've found a place for everything, "tidying will be reduced to the very simple task of putting things back where they belong."

Her strategy is to tidy by category, not by location--because we usually store items in more than one place, we'll keep going through similar things over and over again (toiletries, clothes, etc.). "Clothes first, then books, papers, miscellany, and lastly, momentos."

(Note: She does say ONCE that it take about 6 months to do the kind of de-cluttering/re-organizing that she recommends.)