The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
House & Home
Ten Speed Press
October 14, 2014
Kindle e-book
226
Presents a guide to cleaning and organizing a living space, discussing best methods for decluttering and the impact that an organized home can have on mood and physical and mental health.
Kondo does an excellent job of highlighting the most important parts of the book as she goes along, so it’s rather easy to skim back through the book for important parts.
The basic gist is to get rid of everything in one’s home that doesn’t “spark joy” when physically holding it. It’s not too dissimilar to the philosophy set forward by designer/artist William Morris who once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Most of the book is devoted to some of the basic philosophy as well as recommendations about how to go about paring things down and storing them. In particular I found some of her ideas about folding things interesting and I was a bit surprised at how one can differently fold things to not only save space in drawers, but to also make them easier to see and choose.
I went so far as to watch some videos about how she folds:
This series of short videos and a few longer talks do a relatively good job of encapsulating the contents of the book.
An interesting thing I find in what I’m supposing is a translation from Japanese is that though the translation is strong, the flavor of the writer’s Japanese culture still burns through the philosophy and story of the work. To me these were some of the most interesting parts of her story.
Reading Progress
- 05/06/17 started reading
- 05/06/17 72.0% done; “A quick and breezy read with some simple prescriptive actions.”
- 05/08/17 100.0% done
- Finished book on 05/08/17
Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia
If you tidy up in one shot, rather than little by little, you can dramatically change your mind-set.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to establish the lifestyle you want most once your house has been put in order.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved. […] This is why tidying must start with discarding.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
…the space I live in is graced only with those things that speak to my heart.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
Start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
The urge to point out someone else’s failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
In fact, that particular article of clothing has already completed its role in your life, and you are free to say, “Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you,” or “Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me,” and let it go.
\Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
You may have wanted to read it when you bought it, but if you haven’t read it by now, the book’s purpose was to teach you that you didn’t need it.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
…storage “solutions” are really just prisons within which to bury possessions that spark no joy.
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
Never pile things: vertical storage is the key
Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017
Never hang on to them in the belief that you might use them someday.
Added on Monday, May 8, 2017
This is why I urge you to refrain from stocking up on things.
Added on Monday, May 8, 2017
This is why I urge you to refrain from stocking up on things.
Added on Monday, May 8, 2017
When you treat your belongings well, they will always respond in kind. For this reason, I take time to ask myself occasionally whether the storage space I’ve set aside for them will make them happy. Storage, after all, is the sacred act of choosing a home for my belongings.
Added on Monday, May 8, 2017
I truly believe that our possessions are even happier and more vibrant when we let them go than when we first get them.
Added on Monday, May 8, 2017
Guide to highlight colors
Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category below
Orange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare word
Green–Reference to read
Blue–Interesting Quote
Gray–Typography Problem
Red–Example to work through
❤️
She has quite the following.
I appreciated what she was going for, but I found her tone smug and wanted to bop her upside the head.
Chris , what did you think about her position on books and papers?
There are a few books I could stand to get rid of, but in general the ones I’ve got give me a spark of joy. When I think about the thousands of papers I’ve kept over the years and never needed or referenced, I have a feeling she’s completely right there.
Great review! I actually just tried folding clothes based on her descriptions and it did save quite a bit of space and is very visually pleasing.
Someone else finding wisdom in the Marie Kondo thing. I’m not the world’s tidiest person, and I am a bit of a hoarder, but I live with someone who is both less tidy and more of a hoarder than me. That frustrates me, especially over shared spaces, which almost all of them are. Chris highlighted one passage which suggests that blaming someone else for their untidiness is really about one’s own untidiness. I really don’t see, though, how to impose tidyiness on another. I can put stuff back in the “right” place over and over again, doesn’t seem to change anything.
I think her most valuable thesis is really the “only keep things which spark joy in you.” I suspect that I’m just as messy/untidy as you are (perhaps worse) in terms of having things everywhere and not necessarily putting them away. The difference with her “method” is that you’ve first gotten rid of a magnitude of order of junk. Thus the new “mess” that surrounds you (even when things haven’t been put away) is at least the things that bring you joy and make you happy. She does discuss in that one portion you mentioned that tiding up your own space first will likely help to encourage those around you to do the same–that old “lead by example” chestnut.
Another aspect of her thesis, which I haven’t seen laid out anywhere else, is that it dovetails somewhat with some of the GTD (Getting Things Done) and Bullet Journal philosophies which tell you to write everything you need to do down on a piece of paper. This helps to keep your mind clearer of all the minutiae you might otherwise try to hang on to (and typically forget), but still know in the back of your mind that you’re forgetting to do something, but aren’t sure what. Kondo’s piece helps you clear the physical clutter (compared with the mental clutter) out of your life.
Of course it all sounds lovely on paper. We’ll see what it looks like a few days, weeks, months hence… I will happily report that after donating away a lot of clothes and refolding things, I’ve got several additional empty drawers which I can put tsundoku into.
Someone else finding wisdom in the Marie Kondo thing. I’m not the world’s tidiest person, and I am a bit of a hoarder, but I live with someone who is both less tidy and more of a hoarder than me. That frustrates me, especially over shared spaces, which almost all of them are. Chris highlighted one passage which suggests that blaming someone else for their untidiness is really about one’s own untidiness. I really don’t see, though, how to impose tidyiness on another. I can put stuff back in the “right” place over and over again, doesn’t seem to change anything.
I have a special round paper file just for them.
Don’t go overboard, but there are some YouTube videos I linked to if her verbal descriptions weren’t clear enough… 😉
Are you using Bridgy to communicate with Goodreads? This looks awesome.
Doug, To my knowledge brid.gy doesn’t have any support for GoodReads (yet), but I know silo.pub has some capabilities, though likely not what you may be in search of. I typically manually POSSE to GoodReads at the moment.