The Home Edit Workbook: Prompts, Activities, and Gold Stars to Help You Contain the Chaos

by Clea Shearer, Joanna Teplin

Overview

The New York Times bestselling authors of The Home Edit and stars of the Netflix series Get Organized with The Home Edit present 52 home-editing challenges and activities to get you motivated and organizing every room of your house.
 
Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin are back with a fun, practical workbook to jumpstart your home organization. Here are 52 challenges for every room—from clearing out a junk drawer to measuring your cabinet for storage bins to arranging the apps on your phone by color. The workbook is structured so you can tackle one challenge a week or breeze through your whole home in a few months, featuring:
 
• Space for writing checklists, shopping lists, and to-do lists
• Activities that help you accomplish your goals at your own pace
• Writing prompts for capturing memories connected to the things you own and love
• Helpful organization tips and tricks
• Plus, gold star stickers for rewarding yourself along the way!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593139820
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

The stars of Hello Sunshine's Mastering the Mess and the Netflix series Get Organized with The Home Edit, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin founded The Home Edit with the goal of merging conventional organization and interior design. With clients all over the country, they offer both full and virtual services through their website. They have also been featured in People, House Beautiful, and Architectural Digest and on Goop, among other places. They are the authors of the New York Times bestseller The Home Edit and The Home Edit Life. Clea and Joanna live with their families in Nashville, Tennessee.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction


We’re all for decluttering. But you don’t have to live like a minimalist to feel organized. It’s okay to own things—your things serve a very real purpose and deserve a space in your home. Maybe they help you keep your home clean or your kids alive. Or maybe some of your things are simply there because they make you happy, and that’s a good enough reason to keep them. But here’s the catch: You need a place to put all those things. They need to be easy to find, ideally at a glance. And you have to be able to maintain your system for storing them, or what’s the point of it all?

In decluttering hundreds of homes, we’ve learned a ton of organizing tricks along the way. So let’s team up! In this workbook, we’ve divided the typical home into categories so you can tackle your things-to-space ratio in a manageable way before the piles get so high you’re left with no room to breathe. Each chapter helps you conquer one room or area, like the kitchen or your bedroom. And within each chapter smaller challenges break down that room or area into zones, like the fridge or the dresser. But here’s the deal: You know your home best! So, first choose a chapter (it doesn’t have to be chapter 1) and dive in. Jumping around from zone to zone within each chapter has our stamp of approval. It’s just plain realistic. And if one room or zone doesn’t apply to your home? Skip it.

Tip: We suggest beginning with the easiest challenge, The Junk-No-More Drawer (page 10). That’s also where you’ll find our how-to on Home Editing your space, tips you’ll want to implement throughout the entire house.

Once you’ve chosen the chapter where you want to start, flip through the challenges and rank them in this very simple way: On a scale from one to ten, rate the space’s mess at the top of the page. Then start with the challenge you gave the lowest number. Always tackle the smallest messes first. Gradually you’ll work your way up until, check, that chapter’s done and you can kick up your feet before you’re ready for the next one. Each challenge and each chapter gets easier once you find your rhythm. You don’t need to be as obsessive about organizing as we are. You just need to develop a system that works.

Along the way we’ll check in to help you think about how you want each space to make you feel. You’ll get to write lists—are we the only ones who do a happy dance every time we check something off one of our lists?—answer fun questions about yourself, and sketch some plans (IN PENCIL PLEASE! Unless you’re an architect, in which case you’ll probably nail it on the first try).

You’ve totally got this. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re in the right place, because conquering clutter and making homes pretty—it’s kind of our thing. But trust us: When it comes to organizing, if we can do it, you can do it. It’s easier than you think, and we’re going to have a blast—you’ll see.

—Clea and Joanna