When my husband and I moved into our first home together, we discovered that the previous owners had left behind a few things, all of which we gratefully kept and used for years. One of these bonus treasures was a perfectly lovely wide-mouthed wicker wastebasket that had a sort of billowy plastic lining.

It moved with us two times, and though I didn’t love that the wide rim made it impossible to line it with a trash bag (meaning that when gum was tossed in there, it would stick to the plastic lining… nasty!), I kept it because I never throw out something that is perfectly passably doing its job. Well, it was—at least in theory—doing its job, because every week while celebrating Garbage Eve (the night before the garbage collector comes and we empty all our indoor garbage cans), I would inevitably find evidence of well-intentioned but missed free throws of all sort of detritus: spent floss, errant nail trimmings, and the occasional stray cotton swab. I found myself silently fuming at my husband for believing too firmly in either his aim or the wideness of the wastebasket’s opening and sending his biohazardous waste on a wing and a prayer in what can only be described as the general vicinity of that old basket.

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When Ashley Murphy and Marissa Hagmeyer—co-founders of NEAT Method and authors of The NEAT Method Organizing Recipe Book—stopped by our Brooklyn HQ recently, they didn’t just come for a quick hello. They came armed with drawer dividers, stylish bins, and a vision. In just a few hours, they transformed our most chaotic corners (think: a junk drawer overflowing with cords, a coat closet with mismatched hangers, and the under-sink abyss in our studio kitchen) into Pinterest-worthy spaces. But what stuck with me even more than the aesthetic glow-up? The way they made organizing feel approachable—even fun.

Their first ever book, which dropped in January, reads like a friend holding your hand through the chaos. It’s packed with more than 70 step-by-step projects, from refreshing your fridge to finally figuring out your bedroom drawers. “It’s about finding what works for you and what makes sense in your routine,” Marissa told me. “We thought the recipe concept would make it more bite-sized—you can follow the steps, take small doses within your home, and curate exactly what you're looking for.”

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