Magic of Tidying Up

Alright, I finally got a hold of this book. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, about really cleaning out your house and lifestyle; and read it in one evening. (I'm a fast reader). The Japanese author Marie Kondo describes her lifelong path of figuring out how to permanently clear out the clutter in her home and how she uses her self named Kon-Mari method of  tidying up. In no way does she endorse "clean a little at a time", new and improved storage solutions, or even swapping out seasonal clothing twice a year. Amen to that, sister! She does encourage discarding things a category at a time, not a room at a time.

The first category is clothes. She figured this would be the easiest category for everyone because of the least emotional attachment to clothing. Kondo asks her clients to go and gather every single piece of clothing in the house and put it all on the floor. If you're a clothes horse, it may take you a while. This includes everything in your closet, in the spare bedroom closet, in the seasonal clothing boxes and your winter coats and hats. It must be all your items. She had a bad experience involving her family's possessions that they didn't know went missing.

Now, here's the key to deciding what stays. Does it bring you joy? You are required to touch and handle everything and ask if it makes you happy. If it did at one time and not so much anymore, then it goes in the discard pile. She does this for every category; clothes first, books, paper, miscellaneous and last is mementos. If there is anything there that doesn't make you light up with joy every time you see it, then you thank the item for its purpose and send it on its way.

The slight sticking point I have his Kondo's reaction to what she calls stockpiling. One of her clients had 64 toothbrushes under the bathroom sink. She figures use what you have and when it's worn out go and buy a new one or replace what you need. Mormon families are asked to have an emergency supply of food and what-not to last a year in case of a disaster when there isn't a grocery store open. So Kondo would probably be in shock when she'd see the mini-mart in the food storage room. While I think families should have their emergency store, it would make sense to still use Kondo's method of going through that too. Get rid of expired food, put all the like items together, get rid of the stuff your family won't eat, even in a disaster.

There are some other things specific to Japanese culture in her book, that would be easy to translate to American culture. I would love to have a Japanese style closet instead of the standard US closet of 'here's one shelf and a clothes rod from one end to the other'. Kondo came to the conclusion that clearing out the physical clutter from your space can make you physically feel and look better as she went back to check on her previous clients. They all were looking better than they were before they started her program. And to make sure that the new space stays that way, put everything back where it belongs.

We'll see if this works for this mess of a house.