I love putting away holiday decorations each January and cleaning up my house. The beginning of a new year always feels like a fresh start, a time to clean out what encumbers to get on with new goals and endeavors. I always use January to thin out my files, de-clutter my counters, and get rid of the clothes I know I won’t wear. And this year, I’ve got extra motivation: The Life-Saving Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.
Tidying Up was published in 2014, but I didn’t pick it up until last spring after spending several weeks cleaning out my father’s cluttered house. The experience was difficult and eye opening. I found a box in my father’s study I’m sure he brought home from his last day at work with a government contractor in the late 1980s and never cleaned out. I also found Christmas napkins that screamed 1978 and too many expired jars of food in his pantry. The energy required to sort through his detritus of 45 years gave me the motivation to get a handle on my STUFF.
We’ve been living in our current home for over ten years, and the with four kids and three dogs, the STUFF has accumulated. And so, since child number one launches to his own home and career next month, and child number three prepares to head off to college this summer, I consulted Marie Kondo for some serious help with organization and minimization. She did not disappoint.
The premise
Kondo has a successful business in Tokyo helping people de-clutter their homes, and she built that business on a method she calls the KonMari method. It demands serious full scale commitment, evaluating items in the home by category and removing anything that doesn’t spark joy. Kondo believes instead of working room by room or little by little, or just finding a better way to organize and store things, people need to figure out what they truly need and junk the rest. Well, almost everything. (We can’t pitch tax paperwork after all.) I haven’t used her method fully, but I have gone through all of my clothes (from all places and closets in my house), and I’m already feeling better about the space I now have after giving many unwanted clothes away.
What I liked
Kondo blends a very precise, detailed method with consideration for wellness/ mental health / spiritual awareness. This, along with the “do it all at once” philosophy, separates it from other approaches to organization. For example, regarding clothes, Kondo says you must take everything out of your closet, actually touch each item of clothing, and see how it makes you feel. If it doesn’t immediately spark joy, you should get rid of it.
When I first told husband about clothes sparking joy, he scoffed. “Clothes can’t make you happy,” he said. However, a few weeks later, when he discovered his new favorite pants from an online retailer, and proceeded to wear the pants often and buy another pair in a different color, he admitted, “Okay, maybe they can spark joy.”
Kondo suggests setting up your closets and drawers so the arrangement of colors and fabrics pleases the eye, and so that you can see everything at once. (Nothing should be buried in piles). She also places emphasis on gratitude for your belongings. While thanking your purse for the service it did for you and cleaning it out at the end of each day is a bit over the top for me, I think Kondo’s focus on appreciating the things you have could lead to more contentment and less materialism.
I also liked Kondo’s method because it involves not just organizing and labeling, but truly downsizing. It’s not about finding better ways to store everything you have but figuring out what you really need and getting rid of the rest. This kind of minimalism appeals to me because clutter and disorganization give me anxiety.
What I didn’t like
Some things in The Life Saving Magic of Tidying Up didn’t sit right with me. For example, Kondo argues that balling up socks in a drawer is not the right way to treat socks. They serve an important purpose each day – providing feet comfort – and shouldn’t be stored stretched out of shape. However, I always have balled socks so that they stay together in pairs. Loose socks flying around the drawer drive me crazy.
Kondo also advocates storing all paperwork in one place (e.g. one file) (?!?) because you really don’t need a lot of it anyway. I must say, I was very grateful my father had a clearly identified and organized files for his paperwork. It helped immensely with paying bills and closing accounts. I’m a big fan of filing, so I will overlook that bit of KonMari magic.
Recommendation
In The Life Saving Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo offers an insightful and unique approach to to cleaning out your home, and I recommend it. I enjoyed her suggestions for a spiritual approach and a structured framework for clearing out things you don’t need. While I must admit, I’ve only tackled my clothes, I plan to use the KonMari method as I clean out the rest of my house.
Have you read The Life Saving Magic of Tidying Up? What parts of KonMari did you find helpful or not so helpful? Can you recommend any other books to help with tidying?
Thanks for getting organized with me!
I like the getting rid of things that don’t bring you joy idea! It also justifies me having (and wanting) excessive amounts of colored pens! I use them all AND they bring me joy. Marie Kondo approved?
Yes, definitely. And she has suggestions for organizing by color. 😉
Funny this came out today. I had gone down to the basement to do another clear-out of stuff and then saw your post. I think that cleaning out after parents should be a huge lesson to the remaining generations. I keep going through and getting rid of stuff. There always seems to be a group of items that we feel we need to hold on to for just a little while longer. Marie Kondo has two programs on Netflix if you want to take the time to watch them.
I didn’t know she had shows! Thanks Carol!
She recommends setting aside a few days and getting it all done AT ONCE! It would be nice to get it all done. 😊