I am a slow reader. Not as in I actually ‘read’ the words slowly (I actually read fast), but it usually takes me a month or two to get through a book, because I don’t read it every day.
Except for the last book I read. The last book I read took me 3 days. THREE DAYS. That’s it. Now, it wasn’t a huge book, but I could not put it down. I was reading late into the night, I was reading when I got home from work, or if I just had 10 minutes.
And now, I’m reading it again.
What is the book?
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up (the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing) by Marie Kondo
Marie Kondo is from Japan, where apparently, like the U.S., there are clutter problems. So she wrote this book all about decluttering, and then taking care of what you have left.
Now....there are a few things to keep in mind if you decide to read this book. Japan is a completely different culture than the U.S. Although most of the principles apply to the U.S. as well, there are a few things that Marie Kondo suggests that I will never do, because quite frankly they seem a bit crazy. Such as:
*She talks to her possessions an thanks her clothes for doing a good job, and suggests we do the same. I’m not kidding. In fact, one reviewer of this book called Kondo ‘delightfully insane’, which is spot on. You can’t help but like her because she has a very likable personality, but she’s a little nuts. I am not going to thank my sweater for doing a good job. She admits that she gets very strange looks from her clients sometimes. Ha ha. In a way though, I get why she does it. She even touches this on the book. She KNOWS that the clothing can’t hear her, but by thanking your clothes it makes them seem more ‘real’ and purposeful and prompts you to take better care of them. I get it. Although she is definitely ‘delightfully insane’.
*She empties her handbag every day. Every. Day. So she comes home from work, empties her handbag, puts her wallet and the rest of the contents of her bag away somewhere and puts her bag on a shelf. I can see this being a complete disaster if I attempted to try it and honestly I don’t see the point. She says it’s because every single one of your possessions should have a home (apparently including the contents of your handbag). ? And she says this way you only pack what you’re going to need each day in your handbag and your handbag won’t get cluttered. Well….I don’t agree with this. I have a little pouch in my purse full of cough drops, Advil, pepto tablets, etc. I don’t know if I’m going to NEED these things each day, but I definitely want them on hand just in case. So they live in my purse, and there they will stay. Along with my wallet and everything else.
*I don’t agree with some of her decluttering processes either. For example…clothes. Her method is this: gather every single piece of clothing in your house and dump them all on your bedroom floor. Coats from the coat closets, extra clothes in the guest room, everything from your dresser, master closet, etc. And do it all at once. Well, I didn’t do this. I did it one piece of furniture at a time. I took out everything from my dresser, than my closet, then the coat closet, etc. Mostly because I didn’t have a chunk of time large enough to get through every single item in one evening, and I didn’t want a massive pile of clothing sitting on my bedroom floor for a week. This method would probably work for someone who has a 4-5 hour chunk of time, but it definitely did not work for me. If I had the time I probably would have done it this way. And the idea of dumping everything on the floor in a giant pile is so that you can actually see how many clothes you have (and hopefully be appalled and be inspired to get rid of a lot of them ha ha).
So those are the few little ‘crazy’ things about her. But her concepts and ideas are WONDERFUL and they actually work! It basically boils down to this: Declutter by category, not room. That way you’re dealing with all the clothes first. Then all of the books. Then all of the paper. And so on. Pick up one item at a time and ask yourself ‘does this spark joy?’. If it doesn’t….out it goes. It seems like such a simple and cheesy question, but it actually works. Now, hear me out. You may be thinking, ‘how can my underwear spark a feeling of joy?’. Are you supposed to ask yourself if you feel just glorious when you pick up a pair of underwear and want to do a happy dance? No. You’re supposed to ask yourself how you feel about the item. Does this item of clothing make you feel good when you wear it? Or does it give you negative feelings? If it makes you happy and you like it, keep it. If not, get rid of it. She also goes into a lot of the emotional reasons for keeping things that you may not necessarily like but can’t seem to part with. Do you feel guilty if you throw it out? Why? Is it new and you never wore it and that’s why you want to keep it? Does it still have the tags on? Was it a gift? Was it expensive? She gets into all of this in her book. That one little question (does it spark joy?) packs quite a punch.
I counted up the underwear in my drawer and I had 60 pairs. That’s not even what was in the laundry. SIXTY pairs. That is INSANE! I picked up each and every pair and if they were ratty or didn’t make me feel nice, out they went. I got rid of half of them.
This book ‘spoke’ to me. I think it’s because so many of the things she suggested I was already doing to a certain degree. She suggested using shoeboxes or other dividers for your drawers for your smaller clothing items (tights, underwear, socks, etc.). I have been doing this for years, but have improved it greatly by using her folding methods (more on that in a bit).
She also suggested putting bookshelves in closets if you are able to. Which I just did in our office (before I even read her book, I might add!). She is a big advocate of ‘hiding’ things. She loves drawers and closets. She says that most houses in both Japan and the U.S. are built with PLENTY of storage….people just have TOO MUCH STUFF.
Another thing she suggested is removing labels on items. I have been doing this for years! And I always thought I was a bit nuts, but now that she suggested it, I figured I’m not as crazy as I thought. She gave an example of one of her clients that would open her closet and while her closet was thoroughly cleaned out and not cluttered, she still wasn’t happy with it. Why? Because the labels on her storage drawers and boxes were screaming at her each time she opened her closet. VISUAL CLUTTER. As soon as her client removed the labels, she loved her closet. We are overloaded with product placement, signs, words, etc. every day. Our home should be as free from that stuff as possible. I rip the labels off of most everything. They drive me nuts. I tend to de-package everything too. A box of granola bars is emptied and put in a basket. Same with oatmeal packets. Pasta is emptied and put into glass jars. Q-tips are removed from their packaging and put in a glass jar in the bathroom. I could go on and on. I may be crazy, but I swear it helps everything feel less cluttered. There’s a woman at work that I see in the cafeteria occasionally and she carries around this nice reusable water bottle, but she still has the huge ugly sticker label on it! It drives me bananas and I always want to rip it off when she’s not looking. I did this at my mother-in-law’s house once too. She had this self-feeder for her cat and it still had the ugly label on it so I took it off. So much nicer!
Another thing that Kondo insists upon is to NOT buy any storage containers at all until you are completely done decluttering. She says that about 90% of the time, people will find more than enough containers in their home to organize with. She loves shoeboxes for organizing, which is unfortunate because I never keep my shoeboxes. But most people have plenty of cardboard shoeboxes lying around. I raided my garage and closets and was able to find plenty of items to organize with and I didn’t have to buy a single thing.
She talks a lot about ‘rebounding’ in her book too. How many times have we organized and decluttered only to have everything be a mess a month later? I can raise my hand for sure about this one. Kondo guarantees that by using her method of decluttering and taking care of your stuff and (this is the key) ONLY surrounding yourself with stuff you LOVE, you WILL NOT REBOUND. If you are surrounded by only things that you LOVE and in a nice clutter-free peaceful space, you will not feel the need to go out and by new stuff to ‘replace’ the stuff you just got rid of. This will be your new, peaceful way of life. I am looking forward to it!
Now….this process would probably be much easier for a single person to do, because you only have YOUR stuff to worry about. If you have a spouse, it’s a little different. Kondo says do NOT start going through your spouse’s stuff and throwing out things. This is a big no-no. They have to do this themselves. Fortunately, my spouse that is not a packrat and is always willing to declutter and let go of things. So when the appropriate time presents itself (this is important too…timing is everything!), I will ask him to go through his clothes and get rid of anything that doesn’t make him happy anymore. But in the meantime, I can refold all of his clothes, hee hee. Like this:
Ahhh, the Kondo way of folding. She suggests folding everything in your dressers and then standing it up vertically (there are instructions in the book as well as YouTube videos. That way you can open your drawer and see EVERYTHING you have in there without having to thumb through a pile of shirts to see what’s on the bottom. Genius! She suggests this with underwear and socks as well. Plus, folding clothes this way takes up WAY less space and creates WAY less wrinkles. I am hooked! I had so much fun refolding all of my clothes while watching Netflix (can you tell I have no children? Ha ha).
She touches a little on items that do not ‘spark joy’, but are useful. Like….a toaster. If an item doesn’t necessarily make you happy but you NEED it, then obviously keep it. But she also says to really evaluate your ‘needs’. In our house, a toaster is necessary. But….are TWO toasters necessary? (we don’t have two, I’m just giving an example). Or an appliance that you bought 2 years ago and only used once? Is that a ‘need’? Probably not. I went through my kitchen and got rid of my rice cooker and an electronic chopper, neither of which I have used in the past 2 years. One was still in the box! I added them to the garage sale pile, among some other kitchen items that I did not need.
So overall, even though Kondo is a bit kooky, I LOVED this book. I am slowly going through my home and 'tidying up'. I highly recommend it!
