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Emilie's Creative Home Organizer
More than 285,000 copies of Emilie’s Creative Home Organizer have been sold! With its new cover, Emilie’s timeless household wisdom will reach even more women from all walks of life. A time and organizational management expert, Emilie offers thousands of helpful tips for cleaning, cooking, gardening, staying healthy, raising children, and more. From the kitchen to the bathroom, from doing laundry to cleaning out the garage, readers will find innovative and practical suggestions for clearing out the clutter and organizing what is left to make life easier and allow time for more meaningful and fun activities. Emilie’s Creative Home Organizer has the facts, ideas, and creative solutions guaranteed to help readers save time, use their energy wisely, and avoid stress.
- GenresNonfiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1995
About the author
Emilie Barnes
146 books63 followersEmilie Barnes was the bestselling author of more than 80 books, including 101 Ways to Clean Out the Clutter, Five Minutes in the Bible for Women, and 15 Minutes Alone with God. Sales of her books have surpassed 6 million copies worldwide. She and her husband, Bob, founded the More Hours in My Day time-management seminars.
Emilie’s heart was always to help others in practical ways as they managed their busy homes and lives, but even more, her beautiful spirit made a connection with readers that was both lovely and timeless. Her words remain as inspiring today as when they were first published.
Emilie’s heart was always to help others in practical ways as they managed their busy homes and lives, but even more, her beautiful spirit made a connection with readers that was both lovely and timeless. Her words remain as inspiring today as when they were first published.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 13, 2009
Perfect read for a new wife who doesn't know what the hell she is doing. A book of basic practical ideas on running an efficient home. If you are a type A personality and want your home to run as smoothly as a well oiled machine - you must read. If you are not a type A personality you will find yourself rolling your eyes and wanting to blow your arms off.
The perfect drink with this read would be something strong - you will be overwhelmed with how much work you need to do. Use a paper cup so you wont have to wash it later.
The perfect drink with this read would be something strong - you will be overwhelmed with how much work you need to do. Use a paper cup so you wont have to wash it later.
February 25, 2020
Honest opinion: this had a *few* nuggets of wisdom and advice for parents, mothers and anyone who runs a home.
I would relate this outdated book as a “pinterest board” style writing with a lot of repetitive advice, ideas and unrelated strings of thoughts. Reading this like a pinterest board made a lot more sense, instead of trying to read this straight through, I felt freer to skip sections that I didn’t need to read. I think this could be revised and updated for modern times. But because pinterest and mom blogs exist, much of the advice here would still be repetitive.
If you don’t have the patience to read through a bunch of bullet point lists that you can’t “control find” what you need, I would skip this book.
I would relate this outdated book as a “pinterest board” style writing with a lot of repetitive advice, ideas and unrelated strings of thoughts. Reading this like a pinterest board made a lot more sense, instead of trying to read this straight through, I felt freer to skip sections that I didn’t need to read. I think this could be revised and updated for modern times. But because pinterest and mom blogs exist, much of the advice here would still be repetitive.
If you don’t have the patience to read through a bunch of bullet point lists that you can’t “control find” what you need, I would skip this book.
June 11, 2023
Although Barnes & I are far apart on many personal elements, that did not take anything away from the strength of Barnes as an organizer. Originally I read this book 10 years ago; coming across it during a "bookshelf rearrangement" I read it again out of curiosity. I was honestly surprised by the number of her suggestions & organizational structures that I had put in place years ago & currently I still use. I am a big fan of books offering organization 101 & beyond. For me, this book was a stand-out. Peace
June 21, 2016
1.5 stars
This book is a good 20 years old, so naturally, quite outdated. On the upside, I did come across a handful of good tips, but the downside is that they weren't amazing enough to justify the amount of time it took to read the book.
The format is somewhat awkward to read. The tips are bulleted, rather than written in a conversational tone, which is fine. But within each section (i.e., Laundry, Cleaning, Storage, Garage, etc.), the tips aren't really organized by topic.
My biggest beef with this book is that though written by a Christian, with a heavy Christian theme, much of the advice seems counter to the Bible. For example, under storage, "If all else fails, you can rent a storage shed near your home to store the excess". That sounds an awful lot like building bigger barns for hoarding grain, as warned against in the Bible.
The author is also very pro-debt. There are a lot of tips on managing credit cards, but not any advice on paying down or avoiding debt - there literally is no advice regarding creating a budget at all. The finance section includes lots of terrible counsel!
There is also a ton of overlap between the various sections. I imagine the book could have been cut in half if someone had bothered to edit it.
My conclusion for potential readers is: Don't waste your time! If you're looking for advice on any of these topics, there are far better resources. (Such as Pinterest, for household tips and Dave Ramsey for financial advice.)
This book is a good 20 years old, so naturally, quite outdated. On the upside, I did come across a handful of good tips, but the downside is that they weren't amazing enough to justify the amount of time it took to read the book.
The format is somewhat awkward to read. The tips are bulleted, rather than written in a conversational tone, which is fine. But within each section (i.e., Laundry, Cleaning, Storage, Garage, etc.), the tips aren't really organized by topic.
My biggest beef with this book is that though written by a Christian, with a heavy Christian theme, much of the advice seems counter to the Bible. For example, under storage, "If all else fails, you can rent a storage shed near your home to store the excess". That sounds an awful lot like building bigger barns for hoarding grain, as warned against in the Bible.
The author is also very pro-debt. There are a lot of tips on managing credit cards, but not any advice on paying down or avoiding debt - there literally is no advice regarding creating a budget at all. The finance section includes lots of terrible counsel!
There is also a ton of overlap between the various sections. I imagine the book could have been cut in half if someone had bothered to edit it.
My conclusion for potential readers is: Don't waste your time! If you're looking for advice on any of these topics, there are far better resources. (Such as Pinterest, for household tips and Dave Ramsey for financial advice.)
July 14, 2011
Didn't finish reading this one as it definitely wasn't worth the time investment. The entire book is a bullet-ed list of advice, most of which is vastly outdated. She recommends considering the purchase of a home computer for organizing your information. I think in this day and age, most people already have a computer... Real gems of wisdom include: "invest in a telephone answering machine. It's a great time-saver" or "The average American spends 27 hours a year at red lights. Listen to an educational cassette tape of a book you've wanted to read." Not bad advice, but it does bring a smile to my face to think of buying audio cassettes... I can see, however, that this book would have been useful nearer its publish date of 1995. Nevertheless, I would weed it from the library.
February 11, 2008
This book was disappointing- you'd think a book on organizing would be, well, organized! Instead each chapter had a topic, and then was full of bulleted random tips vaguely tied to the topic. It was hard to read and I didn't find much that I could use. I didn't even read all the chapters because I found the format so frustrating.
October 2, 2011
I bought and used this early in my marriage and found it to be a lifesaver. So many great basic tips for organizing the home. Some of the information may not be as relevant now as it was when the book was first published, but I would still recommend it for people who are just starting out.
January 2, 2017
A lot of the tips in this book are common sense, but there were a few tips where I had to put the book down for a second to think to myself "Why haven't I ever thought of that?!" I recommend to first time movers & newlywed wives (like me.)
July 20, 2008
This is an awesome easy read! I love that it is all bullet point reading, makes it easy to pick up when your days are busy and read just a little. I love having this in my organizing library!
August 21, 2008
There was a lot of good ideas in this book and the home remedy tips were very interesting.
January 12, 2009
This book is pretty straight forward.
Most of the advice is common sense and it is not well organized.
Most of the advice is common sense and it is not well organized.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews