Thank you University of Chicago Press and Netgalley for an ebook review copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

More Than Pretty Boxes is an exploration of career of professional organizing and what it shows us about our culture. Lane begins with going through the history of the field and the women who started it, before describing the people currently in this field, the work they do, and the role this work has in our current culture. Throughout the book Lane describes her experiences working with professional organizing as she prepared for this book.

The first section of this book describes the history of the field of professional organizing while the second section of this book describes the place professional organizing has in the world. Each of the sections was interesting in different ways. The first section shined light on a career I did not know existed until it seemed to pop into the world through popular media. The second section provides a look at the current field while considering what organizing can and cannot do. Throughout these parts, Lane is able to take a view of organizing that considers other cultural aspects and people. I found interested her discussion of the gendered conceptualizations of professionalism and the way in which it impacts the primarily women led workforce of professional organizing. She also provides discussions of the ways in which race and culture influence professional organizers. These discussions allowed for me to understand the different ways in which different identities influence this field.

I also appreciated that while Lane clearly respects the field of professional organizing, she also acknowledges that the field has its own problems and that it cannot save our current overworking culture. Rather, she considers professional organizing as a field to provide potential lessons, in both its successes and failures that we can use as we work for change. Overall, I thought this book was an illuminating look at a field I had not considered much previously. If an approachable, but slightly academic exploration of the field of professional organizing sounds good to you, I highly recommend picking up More Than Pretty Boxes.

Fascinating book about the history of personal (home and office, not union) organizing as a profession dominated by women, mostly white, and its relationship to all the stuff we own and the precarity of American life, influenced by the author’s participant observation. Organizing has appeal as a career for women for whom conventional workplaces were insufficiently flexible, and also lets them help other women whose own lives are too inflexible, bleeding off some of the tension caused by the systemic problems we face.

Although the mountains of stuff we have are easy to blame on consumerism, Lane argues that “organizers offer forms of care and connection hard to come by in today’s society.” One reason we have so much stuff is that we have so many fewer people in our lives. We have to handle by ourselves many tasks that would have been handled by family, government, employers, or community in the past. And American individualism frames reliance on others as weakness.

Also, we engage in “wishful shopping,” “purchasing items that stand in for the activities [we] would like to do or the people [we] would like to be.” This makes decluttering psychologically fraught: Getting rid of those items is symbolically “ ‘to murder the version of ourselves we envision using it.’” Thus, one primary function of an organizer is to handle the items, which makes them easier to dispose of; telling the organizer the story of the items can also help the client (almost always also a woman) feel better about getting rid of them. Professional organizers fall within a category of expert service workers offer “the sort of assistance, empathy, and connection many Americans so desperately desire” and generally love their work, finding in it autonomy, mastery, the satisfaction of helping others, and social engagement, as well as money.
At the same time, self-employment brings its own challenges—they’re always hustling. And it’s harder for women with young children, without spouses, from poorer communities, and/or who aren’t white.

The history involves an attempt to professionalize starting in the 1970s. I didn’t know that in the early 20th century, secretaries were sometimes known as “office wives.” In order to lay claim to a higher status, many organizers— “then and now—refuse to do more than cursory cleaning on the job.” They also analogized their work to that of doctors and therapists, “albeit at the expense of potential solidarity with similarly female-dominated occupations.” Lane notes, however, that doctors do not refer to themselves as “professional doctors,” nor are there “professional lawyers.” Instead, those professions rely on their histories and credentials, which organizers initially lacked. Early organizers claimed gender as an asset, but also accepted raced and classed ideals of professionalism that privileged full-time work and dividing work from home life, demeaning “dabblers”; these ideals were inherently more difficult for women with children to satisfy. Still, these ideals of a collaborative culture had many attractions, including that members of an industry could succeed together rather than competing, especially since there was so much work to go around. But they often framed unwillingness to charge a high enough rate as a gender-specific flaw: “professionalism was framed as a non-gendered set of beliefs and behaviors, unprofessionalism was understood as the province of women.” Meanwhile, the few male organizers “tend to garner a lot of praise and positive attention,” while Black women organizers often feel isolated, even after 2020 and a lot of talk about becoming more inclusive.

Organizers end up choosing between different kinds of insecurity—traditional paid employment is incompatible with the other kinds of unpaid work they’re expected by their families and others around them to perform, but to be “professional” they often “internalized the idea that working long, unrestricted hours and being constantly available to clients is what it takes to run and grow a successful organizing business.”

I found Lane’s descriptions of the organizing process itself to be fascinating: “physically distancing clients from their possessions; encouraging clients to focus on their present-day needs and priorities, rather than imaginary future ones; creating space for clients to dwell on their feelings about a particular object—to tell its story—before releasing it; and asking clients to consider who might need or enjoy a specific item more than the client themself, thus transforming the act of discarding unwanted goods into a gesture of generosity and compassion.” The basic idea is straightforward—group, sort into types, get rid of a bunch, put the remains back in useful places—but has to be customized, especially since “seeing everything laid out in front of you also brings home the reality of how much you actually own.” The organizers Lane worked with didn’t like reality organizing shows because of how clients were treated: they didn’t like yelling at clients and preferred to convince them to part with items, including by getting them to take photos as mementoes. Apparently, it can be helpful to think about the feelings of the object, especially for people who hoard or are chronically disorganized, who “tend to personify things anyway,” and “especially when dealing with items that had been gifted or inherited.” This provides “permission to get rid of an object while also affirming that the client was a good person who valued their relationships and organizers often asked if the giver would have wanted to burden the client with the object.” But it’s not a good idea to set an item aside to sell or give later—it should go when you make that decision, and can just foist a decision onto someone else. Instead, organizers keep lists of local charities handy and know who needs or accepts what. “[A] dog lover, for instance, might be more moved by the idea of donating surplus sheet sets to an animal shelter than to Goodwill.”

Organizers also focus on feelings about space: “how it will feel to be able to walk through the guest room without having to navigate stacks of boxes,” or “what you’ll also want when you want this item” to decide what to store together. This is emotional labor: “relationships that are intimate but not equal, genuine but temporary.” Unlike many other emotional laborers, though, organizers are “self-employed, earn high hourly wages, and have similar class backgrounds to the clients they serve.” Lane writes that she was “struck by how rare it was to hear organizers frame their clients as entitled or overly demanding.” Instead, they saw their clients as “deserving of support and assistance due to the many demands placed on clients’ time and energy.” They would often give special low rates when they saw someone as specially in need.

I also learned that, as a rule, “organizers discourage clients from buying organizing products” because “most people who decide to hire an organizer already own more organizing products than they need.” People with pantries shown in magazines and TV shows are likely to have full-time staff. And an organizer can deliver that message with more conviction: “If even an organizer can’t achieve that ideal, it must be okay.” Capitalism’s reliance on women’s unpaid work is running the tank dry. Organizers help some, at the margins, but they can’t fix that.

More Than Pretty Boxes : How the Rise of Professional Organizing Shows Us the Way We Work Isn’t Working. This is a really interesting study on the rise of the professional organiser market. It is a totally different angle and provides lots of food for thought. The individual case studies made it very interesting and added lots of depth. Overall a great book.

This was a super interesting study into the rise of the professional organiser - US focused - by someone who seems to have thrown herself into the job alongside organising veterans.
Mostly discussed is the role of the organiser not only in physically clearing space but also acting as a stand in therapist for their clients; and also that the societal roles of organising generally fall to women, and that's why the industry is mainly built on women helping women.
My favourite parts were the specific case studies and getting to hear the nuances of each job, and less so the academic leanings (which are not too hardcore).
Fascinating!

Interesting background on the professional organization field. Well-researched in depth and breadth.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Carrie M. Lane’s “More Than Pretty Boxes” is a thought-provoking exploration of the professional organizing industry and its broader implications on our work and personal lives. This insightful book delves into the rise of professional organizers, shedding light on how their work reflects and challenges the overwhelming demands of modern society.

Lane takes readers behind the scenes of real-life organizing sessions, offering a detailed look at the strategies organizers use to help clients declutter and regain control over their spaces. 

One of the book’s strengths is its ability to contextualize the professional organizing industry within the larger framework of capitalist consumption.  By examining the roots of our disorganization, Lane provides a compelling critique of the way we work and live.

Lane’s writing is both engaging and accessible, making complex sociological concepts easy to understand. Her warmth and humor shine through, particularly in her descriptions of the organizers she profiles. 

“More Than Pretty Boxes” also explores the gendered dimensions of organizing work. This nuanced analysis adds depth to the book, making it not just a guide to decluttering but a broader commentary on societal expectations and gender roles.

“More Than Pretty Boxes” is a must-read for anyone interested in the professional organizing industry, as well as those looking to understand the deeper societal forces at play in our daily lives. Carrie M. Lane’s insightful and empathetic approach makes this book both informative and inspiring.

Whether you’re a fan of organizing or simply looking to make sense of the clutter in your life, this book offers valuable perspectives and practical advice.

This is a great book to help with organization and decluttering! I think it was very helpful, I took a lot of tips and tricks from this book. I suffer from clutter and I am hopeful and excited to try tactics that this book called out.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and especially the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review of the book!!