4 comments about Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time.

1. Donna Otto's Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time has dummied down the business model of time management and organization into a format that anyone can easily apply. Her common-sense approach to organizing life management is written in a conversational format for the reader.
   
   She shares her own experiences to de-mystify how use a day planner and make it work, how to personalize her organizational tips to accommodate your own style or how to unravel the confusion and paralyses of clutter, holiday pressures and every-day household responsibilities.
   
   Donna's well-rounded view of organizing includes adding prayer time. This additional aspect to her secrets ensures a time of rest and nourishment to the soul through adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: Anyone who is at the beginning a new job, a family or project will appreciate Donna's encouragement as they embark into the unknown to accomplish their goals.



2. You can't remember what time an important meeting is. You missed your niece's birthday AGAIN, and you have to sidle into the closet past shelves with protruding rolls of wrapping paper and clothes left from ten years ago. You know you should do something about it, but every time you think about it, the project sends you running for chocolate to stave off depression. Sound familiar? Me, too.
   
   Home- and life-management expert, Donna Otto, finds it familiar too because she helps people like us organize our lives. She shares her strategies in Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time, an update to her former book, Get More Done in Less Time. Donna offers ideas on managing your time, household, closets, and papers, but she also guides you in teaching your children how to help, making Christmas less stressful, and inspiring your prayer life.
   
   Otto spends four chapters on organizing a day planner which helps with time, finances, planning, shopping, and more. She includes forms that you can copy for everything from shopping lists to birthdays to calendars to camping lists. Though the chapters on the day planner seemed a little much for my quiet lifestyle, others might find them helpful.
   
   Utilizing humor, quotations, and anecdotes, Otto writes directly to her readers. Most of the book applies to the home, though some chapters overlap to the office, such as the chapters on efficiently caring for paperwork and some of the day planner chapters. Many of her ideas are useful and sensible without requiring a lot of money. - Debbie W. Wilson, Christian Book Previews.com



3. I just finished reading this book and I loved it! Donna's writting style is easy and fun to read. She gives many practical advises and motivates to become organized. Great book! I am going to reread it many times!



4. Right off, I have to say that Donna Otto is perhaps the most organized person on the planet. This woman's custom-made super planner is beyond anything I've ever seen on the market. Her planner contains her entire life and she has everything from her plans for the day, month, and year through important addresses and phone numbers for all sorts of occasions to detailed plans and reminders about how she is going to achieve her short and long term goals for her intellectual, physical, emotional, financial, social, spiritual, and family pursuits. This planner even has built in quick methods for creating shopping lists and counting calories.
   
   Wow! We may not all become as organized as the author but Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time definitely contains a good deal of food for thought. I found the sections on goal planning and actually examining what was eating up my time particularly useful.

2 comments about The Smart Approach to Home Renovation (Smart Approach).

1. I like the opening sentence of this book, 'Before you take a single step toward fulfilling your remodeling dreams, do a thorough reality check.' Having been through a serious remodel (after a fire) I can assure you that the advice she gives is well founded. Her ideas on working with contractors are very good, but I'd add one more thing to check - contractors are bonded. Find out how big the bond is. If it's say $20,000 and he defaults on four projects, you're only covered to $5,000, max.
   
   Kitchens, this book, and most other books on remodeling show kitchens that have commercial grade gas stovetops. They're really neat, but wait until you see the price of new ones. However, restaurants go out of business and the stoves last forever, you might get a really good price on a used unit. Or in my kitchen I got one that had been used by the restaurant supply company at a trade show. It wasn't new, but the price was less than half.
   
   Tile floor in the kitchen? It looks great. Don't drop anything. A jar of mayo that falls on a carpet is usually OK. On tile, it's a mess.
   
   All in all, lots of good words here that if heeded can save you a bundle of money, of aggravation.



2. This book is wonderful. The pictures are beautiful and the content is very usefull. I loved the tips for renovations, what to look out for and the step by step process to follow in a renovation.

5 comments about Living Homes: Integrated Design & Construction.

1. 
   Most would-be home builders believe a dream house would cost a fortune to construct from scratch: that isn't true, maintains author Elpel, who built his dream house with his wife. The planning of such a home is the key - and is the key to Living Homes: Integrated Design & Construction. Chapters cover energy efficiency concerns, home construction basics, and water supply and management with an eye to revealing how design and construction can work together to fit into both a budget and a dream plan. From strawbale walls to interior finishing, Living Homes provides a gold mine of construction specifics for any neophyte builder.



2. While the author is a knowledgeable on the subject, if you are looking for a book that covers the topic in greater detail then check out Tomm Stanley's book "Stone House: A Guide to Self-Building With Slipforms". The material is covered in greater detail and in a well thought out manner.



3. Touches on a variety of "green" living homes. Not too many specifics on each type of construction. Good for an overview of options available. Not for the builder who has a particular form of construction already in mind.Good for starting the research process of green living.



4. The house of your dreams needn't be unaffordable: integrated design and construction methods can help in the planning process and can result in much savings, and LIVING HOMES: INTEGRATED DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION is the perfect guide to that process. Chapters cover everything from calculating energy usage and efficiency to considering water supply and waste system options, bonding walls, and more. Black and white photos throughout reinforce instructions on how to cut construction costs along the way. LIVING HOMES deserves ongoing recommendation as an excellent choice for any who would pay attention to cost-efficient design.



5. Most of the housing being built today is shoddy. Volume homebuilding corporations breeze into town, rape the land, slap up substandard cardboard-quality "houses" on postage stamp-sized lots and charge hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. Many of these contractors get run out of the state, change their corporate name and then move on the next urban sprawl boom.
   
   If you're sick and tired of seeing beehive neighborhoods spring up in your town with siding walls you can put your fist through, do yourself a favor and take this crash course on alternative homebuilding. This book will give you an excellent starting place to learn about how you can build your own high quality, inexpensive home with low environmental impact.
   
   There is a lot of detail in this book on the methods presented. The "butt and pass" log home building chapter alone is worth 20 times the cost of the book. You won't easily find that information anywhere else outside of taking a log home building class from the Log Home Builders Association in Monroe, Washington, which is the only place I know of that teaches that method.

4 comments about Ultimate Kitchen Design (Ultimate Books).

1. Whether you are working with a designer, building a house or just looking for ideas, this is an important and valuable book. NOTE: it is 99% photos of different styles and designs of kitchens. It is broken up into modern, country, minimalist, etc, and each section has about 30 photos of different kitchens. It contains no descriptions of materials or how toos. The photos are fabulous and the ideas are varied. I guarantee that you will find a kitchen that fits your style in this books. Good luck!



2. I think the kitchens are all european. The pictures are mostly full page. There is almost no text. There is very little sourcing (names of some designers in tiny type on the side of the picture, you'll have to google to find contact information, and then they'll be somewhere in europe.). This isn't a guide to fixtures. This is a book you'd use to communicate what you want to architects.
   
   I love this book, but again, there is no sourcing, and you can't use it as a guide to fixtures.



3. The book is great if you want 700 pages of sterile looking European kitchens. But if you want lots of ornate wood and raised panel cabinet doors, find a different book; this isn't it.



4. Some comments about this book:
   
   1) It's all pictures, not text. Something which I like (personal preference though). 700 pictures/500 kitchens.
   
   2) Most of the kitchen (including the "romantic/traditional" ones) are really modern ("European" as some would call it here), not a book for people looking to create the "traditional" kitchen. Something I like, but again a personal taste.
   
   3) I actually do not like most of the kitchens layouts in the book (again personal taste), but it helped me a lot to decide about combinations of materials (dark floor/light floor, corian/stone, metal/wood, etc.). I now know what NOT to do.
   
   All in all, a good source of ideas.

5 comments about Home Theater for Everyone: A Practical Guide to Today's Home Entertainment Systems.

1. This author obviously knows what he's talking about, but the book is dated and too detailed on some topics and not enough detailed on other topics to really provide a good broad brush of the topic. There's lots on audio, but not enough on much of what is going on today, like Windows XP Media Center Edition and PVRs and DirecWAY and other things. This is a consumer electronics focus in an increasingly broader industry. I've put a lot more into my home theater than he's talked about. I'm buying Home Theater for Dummies to see what they say -- their outline is broader and their edition is just out.



2. Much of the information in this book is good, but a couple of issues need to be addressed. Tomlinson Holman, a good engineer, is the man behind both the THX professional cinema house certification and the Home THX certification program for home theater components. I have a substantial issue with, particularly, the latter because it consists of a secret set of parameters, which are divulged only to licensees under nondisclosure. Because the requirements are themselves secret, how can anyone judge their validity, or the comparative value of the certification?

   Mr. Harley, on the other hand, is no engineer at all, nor even a hands-on amateur, but a promoter. He combines occasionally astute observations with technical nonsense, so that even when his conclusions appear to make sense you have no idea how he got there. Simply put, he often either doesn't know what he's talking about, or he does and is simply writing what equipment vendors and the gullible want said.




3. Robert Harley is a "high-end audiophile" and you need to keep that in mind when reading thru any of his books. In "Home Theater For Everyone", he provides a lot of useful information. But he also supplies a lot of "hokum" as well. That is, there is much in this books that he states as fact when infact it is nothing more than his own (often erroneous) opinion.
   
   If you are already well-versed in audio/video equipment, you'll know when Mr. Harley goes "off-the-wall" with his crazy statements and conclusions. But if you're new to the world of audio/video, I say "buyer beware". If you follow all of Mr. Harley's advice, you will end up spending thousands of dollars on overpriced equipment and unnecessary frills.
   
   Buy the book for the great general information Mr. Harley provides. But be wary of some of his conclusions and advice. One area where I strongly agree with Mr. Harley is when he advocates to do your own shopping and make your own judgements.



4. I purchased this book as a requirement for a new job. I recently left the practice of law and went to work for a company that designs, sells and installs home theaters. Having graduated from law school, one would think I could understand just about everything. Wrong. This book touts itself as one that is for the masses - the everyday schmo who is looking to do this themselves. While extraordinarily well written, it is NOT for everyone. It is overly complex and technical for the everyday guy and is more apropos for electrical engineers or experts in the field. finally, the issue I received was supposed to be a recent edition and, if it was, it's already painfully out of date and needs revamped.



5. I have been keeping up with AV via periodicals and product pamphlets. This was to me not a lot of new information but for folks who are just starting out, this would be a GREAT place to begin. Not too tech-y, tech-y enough when it needs to be. A decent overall offering that does what it says.

5 comments about Parenting Teenagers: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting of Teens (STEP).

1. I recently found this book in a Recource Center's lobby. I Started reading as I wated for my teen to finish his counseling session. I found this book to be an excellent source of helpful information. I have been searching for my own copy for a week now.

   Why don't any of you " BIG" book stored cary it?????????




2. this was the poorest book i read on this sub.

   this book was the poorest book on this sub.




3. I thought the book was very informative,it lets a parent look at somethings in a different way and helps with better communication between the parent and the teenager. I thought some things were very helpful and some were a little tough to go with, I still feel some rules of grounding are still old fashion rules but they do work and you need to keep them guided on the right track towards their future.



4. I am a clinical psychologist and have used this (and earlier editions)as a reliable, understandable, and highly useful resource for families that I deal with professionally in my professional practice of over 30 years.



5. Dinkmeyer's parenting books for children and for teens are the best I've used as a parenting expert. The books are easy to understand and put into practice. The parenting principle is based on the "Father of Parenting" - Rudolph Dreikurs. Any book on the use of natural and logical consequences is a spin off of Dreikurs' work. Dr. Don Dinkmeyer was a student of Dreikurs. His books have had great popularity by those who know about parenting counseling.

4 comments about All-New Hints from Heloise Updated.

1. This book is a must-have if you have kids or pets. A good friend has this book and I called her so often about stain removal I finally bought the book myself. The day after I received this book, it paid for itself after I got chocolate and then gum out of 2 of my son's outfits. It also includes many helpful hints on everyday household problems. The only thing I would change about the book is the organization - now and then it can be hard to find specific things. I always find the item, it just takes a few minutes. Overall, I highly recommend this book.



2. Remembering Heloise's books I received 33 years ago as a bridal shower gift, I turned to Heloise again when I needed a gift for my new Daughter-in-law-to-be AND for my daughter who was also getting married. Soon after the wedding my new daughter-in-law thanked me for the Heloise books and informed me they had already come in handy!



3. I enjoyed reading this book especially because it brought back memories of when Heloise had a column in the newspaper. I remember thinking how inventive she was in renewing/restoring items with local products found in the everyday home! I'm always looking for new ways to approach cleaning !!



4. I got it for my 77 year old mom who works at a Laundry. I thought she knew everything about stains but this book gave her more information and so much more. She loved it.

5 comments about Transforming Fabric: Thirty Creative Ways to Paint, Dye and Pattern Cloth.

1. This book is particularly strong on explaining the theories behind the different fabric types and why they react as they do to dyes and paints. Some of the instructions are very clear and good photos of stamps and other printing techniques. I found the finished items and cloth a bit messy - not really my style. But a good addition to the library.



2. I've already collected a number of painting/dyeing/surface design books for working with fabric, and this makes an excellent addition. I don't think it could stand alone as the be-all and end-all, but it is comprehensive in the sense that the author presents all kinds of ideas and inspiration, as well as photographs and instructions/resources. The one thing I might have found more helpful would be greater detail in the steps she took to achieve certain results. Although she does offer descriptions, it seems that sometimes steps and/or details of the process are missing.



3. I think it is the clarity and precision with which the author presents her ideas. Very good resource material for my daughter. She uses it!



4. A good book if you are looking for technical information concerning ways to colour cloth. However, the book does not contain much in the way of finished examples, an element which I always appreciate in a do-it-yourself craftbook.



5. Transforming Fabric: Thirty Creative Ways to Paint, Dye and Pattern Cloth
   
   The book is very informative, but I have not been able to spend much time with it due to the smell. I do not know where it was stored, but it smells like it was in the garage with puppies or kittens.
   The ideas & methods in the book are clearly presented & I am hoping that the smell will disipate to the point where I can use the book to it's full advantage.

2 comments about Antique-Style Duck Decoys: Contemporary Techniques to Carve and Paint in the Folk Art Tradition.

1. After buying and trying Tom's first book. I was amazed that in the end, I had a decoy I could be proud of; all on my first try. I am not a stranger to woodworking so having a band saw and drill press helps, but you can always find a friend with one or order roughed out blanks on the internet. This book is a great opportunity to try another style of decoy. It is not a follow-on but stands independantly with start to finish photos and detail. The spring Woodcarving Illustrated has a companion Wood Duck Hen to the book's feature Drake. After talking with Tom Matus via web ring, the first thing I learned was this is art, not science. Variations are okay and his sketches are by hand. My first duck sits on my mantle, but it is water ready. That is the goal by the way. Nothing prouder than hunting over your own "rig"



2. Another great book by Tom Matus. I finished both projects in the book and I'am very pleased with the results. The book has great pictures and clear instructions. Tom tells you how to carve, paint and antique birds. The wood duck was a hard paint job for me but the end result was worth it. Thanks J. Mallory

No comments about Home Office, Library, And Den Design (Schiffer Design Book).