‘10-Minute Declutter’ by Skye Alexander is a practical guide for organizing your home efficiently. This book breaks down decluttering into easy tasks that take only minutes to perform. A great resource for those seeking quick and effective ways to tidy up.

Disappointed that this isn’t really as advertised.
I was hoping for inspiration on how to do this in bite size chunks but was a lot of feng shui.... this I was not interested in in any way. I didn’t really find the points that the title suggested would be there.

This book is not what I thought it would be to be honest. It gives a reasonably interesting overview of the ancient Chinese art of dengue shui, although there isn’t anything new or particularly interesting there. The decluttering however, I had hoped to find some nuggets of inspiration, of new hints and tips to organise my home...but sadly it was all a bit lacklustre and felt like so much other stuff already out there.
This book is easy enough to read and if you haven’t looked at other books/articles about fend shui then you will probably find it interesting. But if you have read other books in a similar vein then this is unlikely to give you anything new.
My thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

I was quite disappointed with this book. It contained a disproportionate amount of the book devoted to Feng Shui. Even within the decluttering sections it was regularly referred to. Of the tips supplied many did not appear to be more than basic common sense and some were strange, with nothing to do with decluttering, such as ringing a bell before eating.

What do you do when you need to declutter your home, but you want more than just a cleaning plan? For that you can pick up 10-Minute Declutter, which offers lots of quick tips for ridding your house (and your mind, and your spirit) of clutter while also adding more to your life by using author Skye Alexander’s tips for incorporating Feng Shui into your rooms.

Alexander starts by explaining some basics of Feng Shui, an ancient Chinese art of placement that offers up “cures” for an area that can help restore balance, create harmony, and attract health, wealth, and happiness. Many of these cures can be symbolic as well as practical, and as clutter is often seen not just as the physical stuff around us but also the blocks we set up for ourselves, then using Feng Shui to help declutter adds an extra dimension to the finished rooms.

After the primer on Feng Shui (which you can skip over if you want to, and come back to that later after you’ve decluttered), Alexander goes room by room with ideas to declutter and add warmth and harmony. And as each tip is a quick, simple idea, you can take 10 minutes a day to use one tip, and slowly uncover the comfortable, clean home that you’ve been wanting.

Alphabetize your spices. Organize your fridge. Rethink your small appliances. Clean the fireplace. Use coat trees. Get rid of objects that have unpleasant associations. Group photos on walls. Organize hobby items in your creativity area. Wash plant leaves. Pare down holiday decorations. Give away books you’re done reading.

Discard old medications and cosmetics. Keep your entrances free of obstacles. Clear passageways. Replace light bulbs. Backup your computer. Delete old files. Rearrange items on your desk occasionally. Recycle what you can. Fix cracked and broken pavement outside. Trim shrubs and tress near entrances.

Get your kids involved in putting things away. Keep screens out of the playroom. Give each kid towels of different colors. Rotate chores. Allow each child one idiosyncratic collection they never have to prune (what a great idea is that?!).

Meditate. Find a centering ritual. Use a bell to focus yourself. Organize your schedule to fit your own rhythms. Think positive thoughts while cooking. Fight fair. Pay bills as they arrive. Clean out your bag or wallet. Use calming scents. Don’t put things off. Take time out. Learn to say no.

As you use these ideas to declutter your rooms and your spirit, you can add in some of the Feng Shui cures to help you make your home cozier and more personal. Use plants and mirrors in your spaces. Choose colors and shapes that create the feelings you want. Live intentionally and with focus, and you can discover a life beyond clutter and all the stress it brings.

While I probably won’t use all these ideas, there are more than enough to get me started and to give me inspiration to clean out a bunch of the obstacles that are holding me back from feeling more free and calm. And while I’m not a hardcore Feng Shui proponent now, I do like the idea of there being “cures” for what’s holding me back, that there is hope for me yet.

I do wish that there had been more focus on the decluttering and less on the Feng Shui, but I still found a lot of ideas I can incorporate into my home. 10-Minute Declutter is a great jumping off point for creating a warm, comforting, safe home without all the clutter that’s been holding you back.

Galleys for 10-Minute Declutter were provided by Quarto Publishing Group through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Thank you Netgalley, author and publisher for this book.

I requested it having read "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" but this is more focused on energy at work and home (I'm now trying to put things into practice at work but others aren't up for it!) and generally decluttering.

The book made me feel like I'm already quite neat thanks to my already tidying up.

Having done Feng Shui in the 1990s I did know a lot of what this book is based upon. I wasn't expecting it to be so focused on Feng Shui and found a lot of the book talked about this before it even got to decluttering. The 10 minutes from the title I did not find. I was hoping for quick wins but didn't find them.

I think this book is better suited for individual purchase, coffeeshops, etc. Very much a browsing book rather than a circ-ing book. Otherwise, quite informative in easily digestible sound-bites.

This is a well designed and very helpful book. It is complete and provides details for organizing every place in your home, office and more including your life, which is wonderful! Even this book is well organized and perfect for quick decluttering. Take on easy tasks such as one room at a time, but also learn how to put aside the habits that have lead to the clutter. You will learn how to manage the clutter and create the organization you want from here forward. This is a book to keep handy as a guide with tips for every aspect in your life and every location even your car to help you declutter. Ease your mind knowing things are in order and be inspired knowing you have what you need and know where things are located as well as having a place for the things you want and need. But, there is more to it than that. This book helps with all aspects of organizing leading to a better balance in life.

The title of this book is a little deceiving, as it's less about decluttering as it is about Feng shui, and I didn't really see much that had to do with 10 minute increments at all. The first half of the book is basics of Feng shui, and the second half is assorted tips for all different areas of life (computer files at work, relationships, etc.).

The author does not seem to have training in Feng shui and seems to write quick books on all sorts of subjects from tarot to witchcraft to sex to unicorns. As such, I don't know that this is the best place to get basic information on Feng shui or decluttering. The tips are pretty standard and borrowed heavily from other sources like Marie Kondo. You may pick up a couple of new ideas but not much is new here. As other reviewers have noted, there seems to be quite a bit of cultural appropriation here too, from Native American traditions (there's lots of emphasis on smudging, though she seems to think burning incense is the same thing) and Chinese Feng shui traditions.

Ultimately, I didn't get as much from the book as I hoped to.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

I wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it was too repetitive and too long. I liked the Feng Shui bits (but there is a 10-Minute Feng Shui book too, by the same author, and it is pretty much the same), but I felt like a lot of the information was duplicated. Kitchen: clear the paths, Hall: clear the path etc. The author could just say clear the paths all over the house and be done with it!

This book is an easy read. The language is clear, but not technical. I found all of the ideas, simple to implement but not causing me to totally overhaul my life.

This book is not what I was expecting. It was common sense and not really a 10 minute declutter book. Very long winded and nothing that was earth shattering.

This is not a book about decluttering, this is a book about feng shui and has a bit of a side deal in practical tips for decluttering. Thanks, I would have never known about CLEANING MY STOVE. Sigh

This book is something I'd love to have on my shelf. With small, digestible tidbits, there are plenty of tips on how to declutter your home, your work, and your relationships. With a mixture of eastern and western designing ideas, you'll be living a simpler, more focused life.

Lovely little book that explains the basics of feng shui and provides a wealth of practical tips for decluttering. I even found the illustrations to be restful and inspiring. I’ve jotted down some of the tips and plan to use them in my home.

10-Minute Declutter is a new release in a series of how-to books (10-minute series). This content was previously released in 2004 as 10-minute Clutter Control by Skye Alexander. This re-format and re-release by Quarto on their Fair Winds Press imprint came out 17th Sept 2019, is 208 pages and is available in ebook and hardcover formats.

The author is well known for her alternate philosophy books and readers should expect a book in accord with those alternative thoughts. There -are- a number of common sense reasonable bits of advice to glean here which will help all readers with streamlining and simplifying their day to day lives; keeping track of tools and supplies, throwing away outdated medicines and food items, keeping the house and yard tidy and other similar good habits to cultivate. There is also a fair bit of 'woo-woo' which can be implemented or selectively ignored for some readers.

I am a fairly logical, rational, 'left-brain' engineer and despite that, I found the first section of the book describing and explaining some basic feng shui concepts interesting. I don't expect to be ringing a bell every time I come into my lab at work, or rebuilding my house (even symbolically) to acquire a better bagua profile, but reading about the concepts was informational. Some readers will enjoy and implement the suggestions from this section, but there are also other good bits of common sense advice to be gleaned here.

The author's style of writing is chatty and conversational. She's easy to follow and has a very upbeat, positive style. If I can be forgiven for saying so, the book has a good 'vibe', and I enjoyed reading it. There are some high-contrast simplified graphics and illustrations, but no photography. It's word-dense with a simple layout.

Three stars.

10-Minute Declutter is a book I was intrigued to read as it claims to offer lots of tips and tricks that will change your life. What you actually get is far from that! I was really disappointed with this book and find even the title deceiving, I am not sure where the 10 minutes comes in as the book is very lengthy and not 10 minute chunks and if it's the tidying that takes 10 minutes I think that's highly unlikely also.

When starting the book it takes sixty pages of lengthy Feng Shui descriptions before any of the decluttering even begins. I understand that the book does use Feng Shui from the descriptions I'd read previously but I didn't expect it could go on that long and even the quotes from famous people regarding clutter are not necessary and just seem to be placed in the book to prove that there is a point to all of the Feng Shui discussions.

From page 60 on the decluttering tips and tricks begin with them being sorted into chapters on home, work, children and clutter outside your home. I was quite surprised to see not only tips for physical clutter but also mental and digital clutter too. I didn't find the tips in this book very useful at all, they were just common sense, but somehow each tip managed to have a couple of lines on why you should (often because of Feng Shui of course!)

From throwing out broken jewellery to cleaning plant leaves and everything else in between this book reads like one long list of things to do. I think in this way it would be helpful as a reminder of what could or should be done for a thorough house clean but I didn't find it inspiring to clear clutter, it just seemed to make you want to make up a reason to make yourself feel better about the clutter which is contrary to the purpose of the book, e.g. if you have a cluttered office you don't like work, if you have a cluttered living room you don't like guests, well actually I don't have storage space!

To finish the book off you are left with a resource page of four books, I'm amazed that she needed four books to refer to to find the simplest of tips and disappointed that a book is allowed to be published which now seems to be put together with help or tips from other similar books. If the author wants me to trust anything she says maybe it would be best for original ideas and something that makes this book different and stand out from others but sadly this doesn't seem to. I wanted to like this book but found it most unhelpful, it's only purpose could be a checklist for a big spring clean!

This book is chock full of information about decluttering. The basics are grounded in Feng Shui and followed through by effort and common sense. You will definitely want to refer this book time and again. I appreciated the style of writing, how the book is organized. It's very useful and interesting.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing, the author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A good introduction to feng shui - some of the theory is included alongside practical tips to apply this to your home and your life.