The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Hardcover – October 14, 2014

I adore this book. I first heard about this method on message boards online. Everyone was talking about it. At first I started going through some of the advice from her book second hand, but eventually I got caught up enough in a decluttering whirlwind that I decided to buy the book (ebook format of course!). I'm really glad I did! It's a very fast read and does tend to repeat itself at times (I think there may be some awkwardness from translation) but well worth the read through.I love that in the book she tells about her own journey involved in developing her method. We see the places she stumbled and get to learn from her experience.Marie Kondo seems to have stumbled upon a lot of concepts that have been heavily researched in the social sciences sciences without knowing about the evidence base form them, just drawing from her own experiences.To me this method maps on conceptually to the concept of mindfulness although the book never uses the word "mindfulness". (Buddhist scholars forgive me here, as I am going to talk about mindfulness from a western psychological research perspective rather than a religious one since that is that area I am familiar with.)Kondo instructs people to attend to their present moment feelings as they hold each object. Even when discarding objects it is done so in a way that expresses gratitude an acceptance for all experiences the objects brought both positive and negative. Did you love this object in the past, but now it is worn out? Taking Kondo's advice of thanking each object for the role it had before discarding it may seem a little silly, but it works. It creates a context in which removing the object from your life is not about you expressing hatred for the object, rather it is acknowledging that it has served it's purpose and can move on. This makes it easier to discard objects like that dress you used to wear all the time and loved, but now has a stain on it. In Kondo's method discarding is not about you waging a battle against your stuff, rather you attend to end object and the feelings it evokes in the present. By removing this antagonistic perspective about cluttering I was able to part with some formerly beloved objected that at present no longer evoked that that feeling of joy that they had in the past.Similarly I love that in this method a similar expression of gratitude is used when discarding object that never met expectations. Kondo recommends thanking the object for teaching you about what you like and/or for bringing you joy at the time you bought it. She targets logical fallacies suck as the sunk cost fallacy without using technical jargon.One of the most brilliant parts of this method is the emphasis on separating the process of identifying what to keep and the process of organizing. These are two very different types of mental processes. To me this again maps onto the concept of mindfulness. This process of attending to the feelings evoked by each object requires one to attend to their feelings in the present. As soon as you switch to organizing you are no longer in that same mindful present-focused place because organizing requires thought about future use of the object.Kondo does a brilliant job of targeting common reasons why people hold onto objects they no longer need. This was very helpful for me regarding books. I had a large number of books that had moved with me 6+ times in the past 10 years. Kondo pointed out that often the thing we needed from the book is already inside of us after reading it. I had held onto so many books because I had fond memories of reading them, and Kondo helped me realized that for many of these holding onto the physical object was not important because I had gotten everything I needed from the book.I love that she does not emphasize going out and buying a million containers. That has long been my decluttering downfall. I am great at having lots of neatly organized stuff in lots of little containers. With Kondo's method though I realized that much of this neatly organized stuff was not actually stuff that brought me joy. This book is not just for someone who is very messy, it can also be for the person who is overorganized to the point where they have lost sight of what they really want to have.Don't be tempted to reject her method of folding clothing. I was skeptical but decided to try it out. Over a month into this with many laundry cycles, the organization has held up for me. This is the most sustainable clothing organization method I have ever used. It's not burdensome to put clothing away and it is so easy to find each item in the drawer.I love this this method has helped me become more attuned to how items I own make me feel. Those little feelings of irritation can add up and it's lovely to look in my drawers and on my shelves and have a feeling of quiet contentment.I am close to reaching the goal of going through every object in my home. There have certainly been bits that didn't resonate as much. For example, I'm not super into the idea of greeting my home. But some of the anthropomorphizing of objects does resonate with me and help me keep things more organized. When I see my shoes out of place thrown out on the floor now I feel a twinge of empathy for my shoes which pushes me to place them gently in their proper location.I'm not on board with her suggestion to empty the purse each day. I understand why, it helps reduce clutter from accumulating there, but I am someone who has enough trouble just remembering my phone and car keys. I don't want more things I can forget in my half awake morning state.There are some areas I think she could have better addressed though. I think there are a lot of ways that a functional necessary object might be modified to bring joy rather than being discarded. I realize this could be a slippery slope making it harder to discard, but I have personally found that items I have modified with crafting in some way have become favorite items. Similarly some clothing items may be able to bring joy if repaired in some way.Overall I loved this book and have been recommending it to everyone I know.

Review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Declutteringby Marie Kondo.The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is an absolute gas! I can’t find any other way to say it, but to use that old fifties slang word, for a very new book. I never knew cleaning up your crap could be this much fun.I’m not sure why I picked it up to read? I had lots of vital reading/research to get done for my own book. I certainly didn’t have time for someone else’s. But that title: ‘Life changing?’ Tidying up could be life changing? Oh, come on. It drew me in. I needed to know what this woman had in mind. On top of that, there was that word: “Tidying.” Who says that? Say the word out loud. Doesn’t it feel strangely wonderful in your mouth. These must have been the things that got me to purchase the book. But could what was inside keep me going?Well, I’m here writing this review, so you know the answer to that. There was much to keep me going and I found myself totally excited about the potential of ‘tidying’ up my apartment by the KonMari Method. There was really only one spot in my place that visibly looked messy and then, of course, there was the closet. But, I didn’t think this would be all that much of a job; I was eager to go on a spiritual journey by tidying up. I was ready to have my life changed through the KonMari Method.This book is about much more than just “tidying up.” Let me share how to store your socks according to the KonMari Method. Kondo tells a story about an interaction she had with a client. (Professionally, she consults with individuals and groups about tidying up) She opened the woman’s sock drawer and “gasped. It was full of potato-like lumps that rolled about.” I found Kondos’ reaction hysterical; she certainly takes her work seriously. In bold, she says, “Never, ever tie up your stockings. Never ever ball up your socks.” This sounded like good advice even though I was guilty of this shocking behavior. I thought it made sense because you could stretch out the tops of your socks. But this was NOT Kondo’s reasoning:“Look at them carefully,” she says. “This should be a time for them (the socks) to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like that?” I discovered I had been torturingmy socks and knew I couldn’t ever ball them up again. The guilt would be toogreat. I switched to the KonMari Method for storing socks. Wonderfully explained in the book.Some Tenants of The KonMari Method1. Do it all in one day (This prevents rebound)2. Take out all your things—and she means everything—and put them on the floor.3. Don’t even consider putting anything away. Discard first. (“Keep only those things that speak to your heart and discard the rest)4. Fold, hang and store by category, not location. (Sorting by location is a “fatal” mistake)5. The special order for tidying that you must follow is this:a. Clothesb. Booksc. Papersd. Miscellany (Kondo calls this komono)e. MementosHow to Decide What to DiscardNow, here’s my favorite part of the book. Throughout she tells you things likeyou have to pick up every single item in your space one by one, hold it in your hand and ask yourself if it gives you joy. The question is NOT whether it gave you joy at some past time; the question is ‘Does it give you joy NOW.” If not, it goes in the Discard pile, but FIRST, you must thank it for giving you joy in the past. When I was only thinking about doing this tidying project, I found this humorous, later I thought of it as kind of cute and now I love the whole idea of it. Kondo thanks objects all day long and I’ve begun to see what a terrific idea that is. You begin to live in a world in which everything is alive and you’re always grateful.There are lots more goodies in the book. These were the things that endeared me and made me decide to go on my own spiritual journey. I chose a day (Kondo says the day you choose to tidy up should be especially chosen. Make it an event) I decided that I would not just clean up that one messy area and the closet. I would, instead, use the KonMari Method to tidy up everything: my closets, my drawers, my desk, my medicine cabinet, the whole place.The Results of My Own Tidying Up Spiritual JourneyI started at seven in the morning and ended at ten at night when I could barely move. I was attempting to follow Kondo’s rule to do it all in one day to prevent rebound.I got a lot done in that day, but I did not finish. I was slowed down by deciding whether items of my clothes gave me joy or not. The only way I could tell was by putting them on. How I looked in the clothes was what generated the joy, not the simple fabric by itself.I probably saved some time on the books, however. A few weeks before I read Kondo’s book, I had organized my bookshelves and turned them into a kind of library giving each book its own place and recording the location on my laptop. As a researcher I often have to go back and read a section of a book. I am frequently frustrated by not being able to find a book among the many I have on my shelves. Sometimes, I’ve bought the same book a second or third time. It turned out that my organizational system wasn’t too different from Kondo’s, except there was one giant difference. She says you should throw out books you’ve already read because you’ll never re-read them. As a researcher I may not read a book cover to cover, but I’ll go back to the same section or sections often.Kondo has a unique way of storing clothes. She recommends folding some blouses in a specific way, instead of hanging them on a hanger. This type of folding allows you you to stand your blouses up in the drawer. I tried it and I liked it. I also liked the extra space I had in my closet.But as I said before, I didn’t finish in one day and I only have a studio apartment. I think someone with two or three rooms would have a worse time getting done in one day. Kondo doesn’t mention the bathroom, the kitchen, or the bedroom which I consider part of my tidying up.Overall, though, I learned a lot from Kondo’s book, and I think I’m going to continue using her approach in the future. Instead of risking rebound by doing the tidying I have left in short bursts over a number of days I have planned a second event for next week in which I will complete my spiritual journey.Kondo says, “Tidying is a dialogue with one’s self…There is a significant similarity between meditation under a waterfall cascading down your body and tidying.Personally, I’d rather have the waterfall, but I do love Marie Kondo’s approachto tidying up and life.”