Product Description

At last! Here are the tried and true, fun and funny, shocking and surprising inside secrets for organizing yourself, your office, your desk, and even your life!

Find out how to streamline your work area using the little-known methods of Liz Franklin, the world's first funny professional organizer with over 23 years experience. She has helped clients achieve stunning results through her "anti-arson" methods. Follow Liz's easy advice and you'll break free from the old organizing rules that didn't work anyway.

Here are some of the juicy topics you'll find inside this amusing yet highly effective new book:

* What's your Organizing Style? (See Chapter 1)
* How does a three smell? Yes, a three! (See Chapter 2)
* How can your furniture solve most of your disorganization problems? (See Chapter 5)
* What are the nine essential organizing supplies? (See Chapter 6)
* What's wrong with most To-Do lists? (See Chapter 11)
* How can you simplify your projects? (See Chapter 12)
* How can you stay organized without ever having to use discipline? (See Chapter 14)
* What should you always throw out the door? (See Chapter 17)
* What are the Magic Questions that, once you learn them, will keep you organized forever more?

(See Chapter 18)

You'll find all the answers—and more—inside this step-by-step guide to getting organized—without panic or the use of open flame!

You'll also discover—

* How to access your "Inner Organizer"
* How to organize once and for all—instead of doing it over and over again
* Simple tips you can use immediately
* How to analyze your coworkers’ and boss’s working style
* The answer to the eternal question, "How do I get my spouse organized?"
* How to break free from traditional organizing rules that didn't work anyway
* How to save money and make money through improved efficiency

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #299102 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
(Franklin) sprinkles her advice with amusing asides, turning what could otherwise be a dull subject into an entertaining read. -- Barbara Sloane, The Montclarion, January 17, 2003

Franklin’s book is full of laughs and useful information for organizing office space. -- Jennifer Baldwin, ANG Newspapers, December 31, 2002

I loved your book! I am definitely a cross dominate! Good luck with it--it's a gem! -- Pat Stirnkorb, The Fairfield Echo, February 6, 2003The Fairfield Echo

About the Author
Liz Franklin started her first business at the age of 15. A capitalist even during the hippie era, she designed and sold her own jewelry. At the ripe old age of 19, she decided that being a business secretary was the key to a glorious future. After telling her bosses how they could run their businesses better, she was heartily invited to join the ranks of the self-unemployed. Never daunted, she turned her back on free government cash to forge a new career as a business writer.

As people watched her work and observed her breathtaking sense of organization, some of them begin asking her for help. Being the daughter of a rocket scientist and a Virgo, Liz is a natural organizer. You can often find her in better restaurants, carefully placing the silverware at exact right angles and alphabetizing all the floral arrangements.

In 1978 Liz founded The Franklin Organization (now Franklinizer), to root out and cure the underlying causes of disorganization. It worked: the problems did not occur again. (Liz has often observed that standard "time management" and organizing recommendations simply do not work—a dilemma she attributes to methods that address only the symptoms, and not the causes, of disorganization.)

The better she got at organizing, the more money her clients made. As she reassured them they were not crazy and that there was a motive behind what others saw as their madness, she realized they were also becoming incredibly relaxed and prosperous.

Today Liz works with individuals and businesses, reducing the workloads, streamlining their workflow, and increasing their income. One of her clients realized a 700% increase in 8 months. Another went from a personal income of $24,000 a year to $176,000 a year in one year. A third made an extra $200,000 on one business deal due to improved organization.

Liz wrote How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson to counter the traditional organizing books that insist on boring stuff like discipline, standardization and regulation—stuff we all know doesn’t work.

Customer Reviews

Book delivers on its promise!
For those of you who may not have known me in my "other life,"
I used to be quite disorganized . . . in fact, I once wanted to enter HOME OFFICE COMPUTING'S "Most Disorganized Office" contest,but couldn't find the application for three years because it was buried on my desk. (True story!)

So when I saw HOW TO GET ORGANIZED WITHOUT RESORTING
TO ARSON by Liz Franklin, a self-described
Cultural Anthropologist, I just had to read it if just for the title . . . and I'm glad that I did . . . the book delivers on its promise.

Franklin uses humor to get her points across, yet she also
provides a lot of very concrete advice . . . in addition, she
doesn't tell you what you have to do, and she recognizes the
fact that everybody is different.

And any author who manages to incorporate one of my
favorite stories into her writing has definitely managed to
catch my attention . . . she writes:

Albert Einstein once went to dinner with a friend and a new
acquaintance. Over dinner, the new acquaintance asked
Einstein for his phone number. "Sure," said Al. He got up,
left the table, and walked back toward the phones.

"Where is he going?" asked the acquaintance.

"I don't know," said the friend, with a puzzled look on his face.

Einstein came back and handed the man a slip of paper with his
phone number on it. "My God, you're Einstein!" said the guy.
"Why do you have to look up your own phone number?"

Einstein said, "Why should I keep in my mind the little things
I can find anywhere?"

There were several other memorable passages; among them:
* Paper flow starts at hand level. It comes into your office via people's
hands. You open the mail with your hands, you take it from the fax,
printer, or copier with your hands, you scribble notes with your hands,
clip interesting things out of the paper with your hands, and input to
your computer with your hands.

Why all the emphasis on hands? So you'll remember this important
secret of organizing: paper always lands on the first available hand-
height surface. And what do we find at hand height? Furniture. Paper
lands, and stops, wherever there is a convenient piece of furniture.
Preferably a flat piece of furniture, but almost any hand-height
furniture will do.

* Sit back in your chair, crumple some scratch paper, and let it drop
from your hand. That's where your trash can belongs. If its new
location interferes with your traffic pattern, of course you can make
adjustments. Just be sure it's easy to toss trash from your chair to
the can without bending, leaning or stretching all day long.

* Put this sign on your Central Headquarters box: "DO NOT DISTURB!
WET PAINT!" I'm not kidding! If you don't protect your stuff now,
you won't find it later. And for some reason, this is a sign that gets
people's attention. Who cares it they laugh-at least you'll have
achieved your objective: to keep them out of your stuff.

Different!
This is so refreshing! It's a totally different approach to finding your own personal organizing methods rather than using the traditional one-fits-all ways. I am already using Liz's hints as they apply to my personal style, and have noticed a definite reduction in the stress level, dealing with office matters. I can recommend this book to anyone who is ready to end the customary confusion of tracking their paperwork, their hobby, their lists, their calendar --- whatever. She's got it down cold.

If you want - no MUST - change your life, READ THIS BOOK
It's been my Bible since I took a look at it in a bookstore...and couldn't put it down. Now I carry it around with me. Or it sits in clear site, so that if I slow down or space out, I can pick up where I left off and keep tweaking my life to work better.
It's more than just "how to straighten up your office" although it does that more compassionately and with more humor than any book or person I've seen.
Since the eighties I've used the services of members of National Organizations of Organizers, and read various books, listened to tapes, but this book is the one that finally WORKS for me, maybe because my nervous system isn't wired like most organizers, and Liz Franklin takes this into account.
Besides, have you ever met an organizer who's FUNNY?
I recommended this book to my boss, who, although has a lot of heart and is a great guy to work for, is even more disorganized than me. And I recommend it unequivocally to anyone.
What happens as you start to give yourself the space and time to do what works for YOU, not for an organizer, all sorts of other wonderful things unfold in your life. Try it. I was surprised.