The NEAT Method Organizing Recipe Book: 70 Simple Projects to Take Your Home from Chaos to Composed

Murphy and Hagmeyer, founders of the organizing products brand NEAT Method, debut with an underwhelming manual for tidying one’s home. The eponymous method involves bringing all the items together; sorting them into categories; getting rid of redundant or unneeded items; selecting a place to keep each category; and using bins, drawer dividers, jars, and other organizers to separate categories within the same storage space. Showing how to straighten up each room of the house, the authors start with the kitchen, recommending that readers install turntables and risers in pantries to ensure food at the back doesn’t get forgotten. Elsewhere, they encourage readers to use modular drawer organizers in their nightstand and office “junk drawer,” and to transfer laundry detergent and snacks into their own reusable containers. Though the authors include some helpful tips on how to, for example, fold a fitted sheet, other pointers are obvious, as when they recommend nesting pots and pans for storage. Some guidance feels aimed at selling the authors’ products, such as when they suggest transferring cooking spices from their original containers into uniformly sized jars. There’s not much here readers don’t already know. (Jan.)