Tidy Up Your Life

December 2, 2024
In this amiable debut, “Tidy Dad” Instagrammer Moore details what he’s learned about maintaining a clean home from living in a 750-square-foot New York City apartment with his wife and three young daughters. Moving into the smaller of the apartment’s two bedrooms so his daughters could share the larger one taught him to get by with “just enough,” Moore writes, recounting how he downsized his wardrobe to fit in the room’s cramped closet by only keeping clothes in a few colors so most items matched. Though Moore contends that organizing solutions will depend on an individual’s priorities, he offers useful general rules of thumb. For example, he suggests setting a “physical boundary” to prevent excess accumulation, noting that he allows his daughters to keep only as many hair accessories as can fit in a designated container. Throughout, Moore emphasizes practicality over aesthetics, describing how he reconfigured the layout of his first child’s nursery so the crib no longer shared a wall with neighbors angered by the crying. The personal stories breathe life into the advice, and Moore brings a welcome recognition of how clutter often stems from stress, as when he urges readers to “get clear on the why behind the accumulation of all your stuff—physical, mental, and emotional.” This will help even the messiest readers bring order to their homes.