This author is known as “Tidy Dad” on Instagram, with more than 381,000 followers at my last count. He’s also a New York City public school teacher who lives in Queens with his wife and three daughters. He writes about these relationships as he chronicles his adventures of bringing life into better focus through decluttering.
The book has two parts: “Tidy Up Your Mind” and “Tidy Up Your Space.” The two are interrelated, Moore explains. He summarizes the book as a “journey to tidy up your life.”
The first part includes spiritual principles including defining what “just enough” means, how to “find your rhythm” beyond things, and how to put work into a broader perspective of all that’s important. Chapter 4 is called “Embrace ‘Surthrival’” in which Tidy Dad coins a shift in perspective for readers willing to do some work to improve their situations.
Then Moore turns to tidying, ordering, and organizing, taking it all from room to room with helpful advice, often broken into fine detail according to the spaces common in any apartment or house. His own journey to do all this begins in a 750-square-foot apartment in New York City, so he really knows how to make the most of small spaces. He writes, “I love showing how we’ve made life in our small apartment work for our family of five, and inspiring others to think creatively about how to declutter and make space for what’s important in their own lives.”
There are sections the author calls “independent practice,” that are sometimes how-to but often also reflective, inspirational, and somewhat spiritual. See the excerpt accompanying this review for an example — which concludes with the author using “thirty days” as a measure for the suggested practice, perhaps not realizing the connection that such a period of time has to many ancient practices across the religious traditions.
The final pages are an epilogue called “Embracing the Beautiful Mess,” emphasizing how all the attention paid to tidying has led, in the author’s life, to more play and joy with friends and family.
