5 Decluttering Books to Bring Order to Chaos
He asked his wife if they could rearrange the apartment, swapping bedrooms with their children. Mrs. Moore liked the idea but begged him to hold off. When she went out with the kids, however, he started 'imploding' their home, he said.
Mrs. returned to a mess and told him they were going to need some help. They checked out two Marie Kondo books from the library: 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' and 'Spark Joy.' This, Mr. Moore said, was the first step in organizing their space.
Now a tidying expert himself, Mr. Moore runs a popular Instagram account called Tidy Dad and recently published his first book, 'Tidy Up Your Life: Rethinking How to Organize, Declutter, and Make Space for What Matters Most.' But he still remembers the chaos in his New York City apartment, and how Ms. Kondo felt like 'an impartial person who could step in' and guide them, he said.
Books can provide strategies and emotional support when we're trying to organize our lives. So we asked professional organizers and other experts to recommend their favorites.
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
One day, we will be gone — but our things will still be here. This 2017 book, a favorite among all the experts we spoke to, is a call for people to declutter while they still can.
'No one wants to think about their own mortality,' said Patty Morrissey, the program director of the KonMari Club, an organizing community created by Marie Kondo. But this book helps present organization in a positive way — as a 'life review,' she said.
For example, Ms. Magnusson recommends designating a 'Throw Away' box for personal items that have sentimental value — but may not for anyone else — and then labeling it so that your loved ones can discard it when you're gone.
Organizing From the Inside Out, by Julie Morgenstern
Ms. Morgenstern is known as 'one of the OGs in organizing,' Matt Paxton, author of 'Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff,' explained.
In this 1998 book, Ms. Morgenstern presents an organizing strategy called S.P.A.C.E., which stands for: Sort, or group items; purge, or get rid of unnecessary things; assign a home, or designate a specific place for every object; containerize, or organize items with the help of bins, boxes, and other containers; and equalize, or check in regularly to tweak the process when needed.
This framework, however, isn't meant to be rigid. The book 'helps us organize in a way that's right for us,' said Gretchen Rubin, host of the 'Happier' podcast. For example, Ms. Morgenstern encourages people who are chronically late to store essentials (like keys and wallets) near the door. This practical guide, full of insights, shows that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to organizing, Ms. Rubin added.
How to Keep House While Drowning, by KC Davis
Tidying up can be difficult for anyone, but it can be uniquely challenging for people living with A.D.H.D. and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. For those in search of judgment-free guidance, this 2022 book offers a simple approach.
While Ms. Davis recommends breaking things into small, manageable tasks, she stresses the importance of not being too hard on yourself, by doing things like running the dishwasher before it's completely full.
The book is also written so people can skip around, diving into the section that they need, which can be particularly useful for people who find focusing difficult. Ms. Morrissey recommends it to clients who aren't 'striving for aspirational levels of order,' but are 'just trying to get through the day.'
What We Keep, by Bill Shapiro with Naomi Wax
This book, published in 2018, isn't a decluttering how-to. Instead, the authors interviewed hundreds of people, including truckers and nuns, asking them whether important items symbolize pivotal moments or help them remember relationships and people who are no longer with them.
Each story invites readers to consider what their own objects mean. When you start to think about 'what you've chosen to keep and interrogate the 'why' — whether for utility or sparking a memory — that is really beautiful,' Mr. Moore said.
ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Kathleen Nadeau and Judith Kolberg
This 2002 book offers people with A.D.H.D. flexible ways to approach organizing. For example, many people experience the 'out of sight, out of mind' phenomenon, where they might forget about items they don't see regularly. The authors, however, suggest transparent storage containers or open shelving to keep important items visible.
It is 'even written in A.D.H.D.-friendly language,' Ms. Morrissey said, adding that it includes helpful charts and illustrations, too. This book, she added, 'is a great way to help people who struggle with the execution and completion of a task get their clutter under control.'
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Time Magazine
05-08-2025
- Time Magazine
The Unspoken Etiquette of Mourning on Social Media
When Molly Levine, 28, lost her father in the summer of 2023, 'life stopped.' Just weeks earlier, she had been dating, posting comedic TikToks, and balancing a high-stress product job at Google with sweaty nights out in New York. Now, she could barely get out of bed. She took leave from work and holed up with her family, surviving on chunks of chocolate babka she'd eat late at night, when everyone had cleared out of the family kitchen. Reading about death, finding meaning in memories, and searching for signs from the other side consumed her days. But another, more frivolous concern gnawed at her. 'After you lose someone, you have to immediately decide whether you're going to be one of those people who posts or not,' Levine says. 'And I know people say, 'There's no right way to grieve,' but on social media—it almost feels like there is.' What do you share? When do you share it? And is it bad if you don't post at all? These were the questions that tormented Levine in the weeks after her father's death. 'It feels silly,' she says. 'You're like, 'Is this what I'm really thinking about?' But you are.' Grief gone viral Jensen Moore, a journalism professor at The University of Oklahoma, studies how people grieve on social media. '[Millennials and Gen Z] post their breakfast. They post themselves on the toilet. They've done everything,' she says. 'So mourning online is just an extension of living their lives online for everyone to see.' Ten days after her father's passing, Levine crafted a 350-word caption to accompany a photo of her father to post on Instagram. Comments and DMs from her community poured in, offering their memories and condolences. But Levine, a social media savvy young millennial, knew the line between sharing and scaring. 'I really refined my message,' she says. 'I was very cognizant of how uncomfortable I could make other people.' As social media reshapes how we share—and grieve—there are many for whom public mourning still feels gauche, even offensive. Vogue editor Chloe Malle notably loathes mourning-by-emoji. 'An Instagram feed is just too public a platform for meaningful mourning,' she wrote in her 2014 essay, 'Why We Should Give Up Public Mourning on Social Media.' Yet, others are crucified for not posting quickly enough—like when 90210 fans attacked Jenny Garth for her silence after Luke Perry's death, or when the internet turned on the Friends cast for waiting days to acknowledge Matthew Perry's passing. In one of her studies, Moore examined how people self-police online grief. 'It used to be, you would never post a picture of someone grieving or a photo of the deceased,' Moore says. 'This generation is posting TikToks of themselves crying.' In 2013, the millennial 'funeral selfie' trend broke the internet, triggering a flood of commentary about the generation's perceived apathy and vanity. Over a decade later and the conversation still hasn't moved beyond moral panic. 'Do I have a photo with them? It's the first thing you think of when someone dies,' says Jay Bulger, a 43-year-old filmmaker from D.C. 'It's a mad scramble to post.' When Kobe Bryant died tragically in 2020, social media became one giant memorial. But mourners were criticized. 'Why are you sobbing online about a basketball player you didn't know?' Moore recalls the pushback. Public grief often reads as strategic—an invitation for sympathy, likes, or cultural proximity. Some call this new wave of mourning content 'performative grief,' says Moore. 'Because those likes can potentially earn you more followers, or in some cases, money.' But for those genuinely trying to express their loss, the online landscape can feel like a minefield: sincere grief is often met with suspicion, judgment, or the assumption that it's all for show. 'I have friends who've been very vocal with their grief, and people didn't know how to handle it,' Levine says. She recalls a conversation with friends, criticizing someone's post for being too raw, too unfiltered. 'People just don't know what to do with grief. We don't know how to talk about it without freaking people out.' Read More: When the Group Chat Replaces the Group There are practical reasons for grieving online, says Pelham Carter, a psychology professor at Birmingham City University. It spreads the word. It offers catharsis and connection. Engaging with a deceased person's profile can help sustain a bond beyond the grave. But every post, photo, or story risks transgressing invisible social landmines of what is and isn't acceptable. 'There are these very nuanced rules that are hard to navigate, because they are unwritten,' Carter explains. 'But you get a feeling for when there's been a breach in etiquette.' For Jack Irv, a 30-year-old actor who grew up in New York City, the entire production of grieving on social media 'feels exhibitionist.' In his early 20s, he was part of the city's graffiti scene, climbing up scaffoldings to spray paint with some of the city's best artists. But 'graffiti writers die all the time,' he says. It was the first time he saw his network mourning publicly. 'You get forced into action,' Irv explains. 'It's like proving who is closer. There's a competitive aspect.' Social media can breed competition and comparison, which extends to online grief, says Moore. 'Who's grieving better, who wrote the best eulogy, who posted the best photo, who was closest,' she says. Irv resents the tone of these posts—'It's like a long rambling story about the time they spilled making pasta together.' It feels cheap, he says, that intimacy gets flattened into a caption. Irv recalls in one instance, an acquaintance who was not especially close to the deceased, became the loudest mourner online. 'It made us all feel strange,' he says. Navigating grief's social hierarchy online can be fraught, Carter says. Posting too soon or too often can give the impression you were closer to the deceased than others believe you were. 'It's bumping yourself higher up in the hierarchy than people feel you should be,' says Carter. 'But it's very hard for us, especially in the throes of grief, to acknowledge that there are different forms of closeness.' Who gets to mourn online? In a 2022 study, Carter and co-author Rachel King found a striking disconnect: participants saw their own grief posts as genuine—but assumed others were just seeking attention. Most cited a 'genuine outpouring of grief' as their reason for posting. Yet they believed others were abusing the process. 'There was a hypocritical side,' Carter says. 'People assumed their grief was sincere—but others' were performative.' In 2019, Jennifer, 30, who asked that TIME not include her real name because of the sensitivity of the circumstance, lost a close friend to suicide. The loss sent shockwaves through her tightknit friend group. 'Privately, there were vulnerable conversations between friends where the grief felt real,' she recalls. 'But online, something shifted.' On Instagram, she says, the mourning felt curated. 'It felt more like perception management than actual grief.' In the weeks after her friend's death, unspoken rules emerged. 'The etiquette was: those closest to the deceased had the right to post, and their posts should be engaged with. If you weren't in the inner circle, the rule was: don't post,' she says. These rules were administered via cold shoulders and whispers. Digital anthropologist Crystal Abidin interviewed young people experiencing the first death of a friend to explore a core question: who gets to grieve, how, and why? She found the tension had less to do with competition between mourners and more to do with how grief was received by the inner circle. The young women in Abidin's study outlined unwritten rules: who gets to grieve first, who gets to grieve more, and what must stay private. Breaches often came down to timing—like posting before a partner or family member. On Facebook memorial pages, they didn't want the first post coming from a random friend. 'There's weight given to your tie to the deceased,' Abidin says. As consumers of the internet, 'we're savvy,' says linguist Korina Giaxoglou, author of A Narrative Approach to Social Media Mourning. 'Even at our most sincere, we still want our posts to reach and engage—that's what posting is.' But that doesn't make us hypocrites, she adds. 'You can want attention and still be fully present in your grief.' Read More: When TikTok Trends Send Kids to the Emergency Room In Western culture, open grief is often frowned upon, Giaxoglou says. There is an understanding that 'during the bereavement period you shouldn't seek attention.' But in other cultures, grief is communal. In the Asia Pacific region, where Abidin conducts much of her research, grieving loudly and publicly is 'how you show that you're a part of that community.' She says, 'It's not uncommon in some funerals to hire mourners whose jobs are to cry, because the louder the cries, the more it shows how loved this person was.' As younger generations move grief from bedrooms and chatrooms to public profiles, conversations around death are returning to the public square. 'As a community, we need to see these expressions in order to recover,' Giaxoglou says. 'Otherwise, it's like we're hiding our emotions.' A year later, Levine has developed a dark humor about grieving online. 'In some ways, if you don't post about your grief, it's like—did you even care?' she says with a smile. She remembers staring at her Instagram grid, wondering how to follow up a memorial post of her father: 'What's my re-entry going to be? I don't want to signal that I'm over it. I'll be grieving forever.' Years later, Levine is once again making funny videos on TikTok. 'I look back now, and wonder what changed where I was like, 'Okay, now I can post a sunset again.''
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Yahoo
July 4 fire cost Royal Palm family nearly everything: 'All I could do was just stand in disbelief'
A Fourth of July fire has all but destroyed a Royal Palm Beach home, forcing out a single mom and her children. Alshea Moore is now trying to figure out where to live and how to recover. She was at home with her four kids that night when smoke began filling the attic, caused by an electrical fire right above their heads. 'All I could do was just stand, honestly, in disbelief, because the amount of smoke came from the roof,' Moore said, recalling the scene outside her home along OIiver Lane, where her family had lived for more than five years. The first hint Moore got of trouble came that afternoon. She was at a party for her daughter's friend when one of her sons texted her to ask what was wrong with their air conditioning. When she got home, it was about 85 degrees inside. 'The landlord had just replaced the AC unit, probably within six months,' she said. So she called a neighbor with HVAC experience to see if a broken AC was the cause of the heat. The unit was fine, but he noticed it was right below the attic. He went up and almost immediately climbed back down, eyes red and watering from smoke, telling Moore to call the fire department. By the time Palm Beach County Fire Rescue arrived just before 8:30 p.m., she and her children were out of the house. Fire Rescue said nothing showed from the outside the home when, but inside, the home was wrecked. After using thermal-imaging cameras to find the fire, firefighters cut holes in the ceiling to release the smoke and heat. By 9:02 p.m., the fire was out. Nobody was hurt, but smoke and water damage ruined parts of the house, and Moore estimates that her family lost 85% of its belongings, including clothing and furniture. Authorities had to disconnect all power in the house to prevent another fire. It left Moore and her children — D'Ari, 9; Jermarion, 18; Jermaih 19; and Tra'Niya, 22 — struggling to find a place to live. Moore's longtime friend, Selina Ealey, started a effort to help the family. It had raised nearly $8,000 as of July 10. The money will go toward temporary shelter, food, clothing and basic household items for the family. Those interested in donating can go to and search for "Alshea Moore." Other than donations, Moore is asking for prayers and any homeless shelters or organizations she can continue reaching out to for help. 'Prayers can go where we can't go,' said Moore, who said she has put her studies to become a nurse on hold after the fire. 'I'm just depending on the community to pull together and help.' This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: July 4 house fire cost Royal Palm Beach family nearly everything
Chicago Tribune
02-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Once lost to time and circumstance, Purple Heart is back with family of Decatur veteran
DECATUR — Nearly 81 years to the date after 20-year-old Army Pfc. John L. Moore was wounded while fighting to liberate Europe during WWII, the Purple Heart he earned that day is now in the hands of his only surviving sibling. Jerry Moore was little more than a toddler when his brother went off to war. Now 86, Moore held the heart-shaped medal for what he said was the first time after Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs presented it to him Wednesday at the World War II memorial in Decatur. The poignant ceremony, which included the Macon County Honor Guard, was held just days before the Independence Day holiday weekend. 'It means a lot to my heart,' said Jerry Moore, fighting back tears. 'I don't think there can be any higher honor than getting this back.' The Decatur man was joined by several family members, including a granddaughter of his late brother, who died in 2002. Angie Holliger flew in from Colorado for the occasion. 'My grandpa would be so happy about this and that it is back with our family,' she said. Frerichs launched 'Operation Purple Heart' in late 2021 to raise awareness about war medals that had ended up in the state's unclaimed property section after they were left in abandoned safe deposit boxes at banks. The state treasurer has returned 15 Purple Hearts, including Moore's, during his three terms in office. Last winter, the Tribune wrote about its own efforts to identify the veterans who had earned the Purple Hearts that at the time remained unclaimed. After months of researching public records, unearthing decades-old war documents and interviewing people linked to the safe deposit boxes, the Tribune succeeded in 10 of the 11 cases on the treasurer's public list — including that of John Moore. The treasurer's office has been working to verify the claims of relatives who have come forward so far following the Tribune's reporting, officials said. Frerichs pledged to continue his effort. 'These symbols of honor and heroism don't deserve to be in a cold vault,' he said Wednesday. 'I don't know what it was like for John's family here today but it's frequently a reminder of that person who was special in your life. The ability to reconnect is something that is really special.' The state had preserved Moore's medal in its Springfield vault since 2001, when a Peoria bank turned it over. John Moore died a year later at age 78 from a heart attack. The only other item in the safe deposit box was his last will and testament. The box was in the name of his second wife, Linda, whom he married in 1986. Their marriage ended in 1992, according to court records. Besides tracking down Moore's brother and granddaughter, the Tribune found his ex-wife, Linda, who had remarried and was living in Texas. She confirmed to the Tribune that the Purple Heart was her former husband's and said it belongs with his family, clearing the way for Wednesday's ceremony. Two of the four Moore brothers fought in WWII, and both made it home to Peoria. John Moore survived the D-Day invasion in 1944 only to be wounded shortly afterward by shrapnel in his right wrist, left knee and lower right leg while fighting in France that July 27, according to his military records. He returned to active duty that winter for several months, but persistent nerve damage affected the use of his hand and led to more hospitalizations. Moore was honorably discharged in early 1946 after three years of service that included battles in Normandy, the Rhineland and northern France, the records state. Jerry Moore, the youngest of the four boys, still recalls his parents' anguish while their sons were off fighting in the war. 'Johnny got shot pretty bad,' Jerry Moore said. 'He had a young lieutenant who led them into what turned out to be an ambush and that's how he got wounded. There were several in his outfit that got shot. Some of them didn't make it.' He said his brother's war injuries, including chronic pain in his legs, gave him trouble but John Moore persisted. He married his first wife, Grace, shortly after his return and had five children with her, including a boy who died a few months after birth, according to the family. Relatives said John Moore enjoyed hunting and fishing and worked in carpentry and roofing, having learned the trades along with his brothers while working with their dad, a World War I veteran. John Moore also worked as a truck driver, postal worker and hospital maintenance supervisor before retiring in 1986. Moore was a past commander for Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in Peoria Heights and East Peoria, active in the American Legion and among the many who joined an effort to build Illinois' WWII Illinois Veterans Memorial in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. His name is among nearly 3,000 etched in the memorial's commemorative granite bricks. The bronze headstone of his grave in nearby Warrensburg also speaks to his proud military service. It reads: 'John Louis Moore Sr. PFC US Army WWII Purple Heart D-Day Invasion Survivor.' It was Holliger, whose mother was one of John Moore's daughters, who filed a claim with the treasurer's office for the return of her grandfather's Purple Heart after the Tribune contacted her last year. She said the Purple Heart belongs with her uncle, Jerry, who shared a close bond with John. After the ceremony, Jerry Moore went back to his Decatur home and placed the black box holding his brother's Purple Heart on the top shelf of a living room display case, next to the folded American flag bestowed upon the family at John Moore's funeral more than two decades ago. 'I'll keep this the rest of my life,' Jerry Moore said of the Purple Heart. 'We've always been a fairly close family and John, he was the rock. I appreciate all the time we had with him.'
