Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Book 30: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo is a minimalist style decluttering book with a delightfully positive psychology.  I love the quote:  "We should be choosing what we want to keep not what we want to get rid of."  It puts me in a mind frame of thankfulness for and contentment of the items that I am keeping rather than felling guilty or stressed about what to give away.  The basic idea is to work through items by category, handle one item at a time, and ask:  “Does this spark joy?”  If unsure, then she recommends considering when and why the item was originally purchased.  If it has fulfilled its purpose (even if that purpose is to teach you that it is not quite right for you) then it can be let go.  For items that hold sentimental value she states:  "No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past. The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important." If the item still brings joy, it should stay.  If not then perhaps it's time to let go.  The memories will still remain once it is gone.

Her organizing techniques are reminiscent of the old adage "a place for everything and everything in its place".  She advocates storing like things together and prefers vertical storage even for folded items going in drawers.  I am definitely going to give her folding techniques a try although I did have Google for video directions to completely understand them.  Otherwise, her actual organizing section is very short since she believes that the decluttering will free up sufficient space for storage.

I will not deny that part of her philosophy is a little quirky (I have no plans to talk to any of my stuff not will I ask my house where something should be kept), but it does not diminish the value of the program overall.  While I consider her method minimalist, she doesn't truly stress how much or how little of something should be kept relying more on a person's intuition to determine how much to keep.  Unlike many decluttering books which focus on every possible category in your home, her focus seems to be primarily on the items belonging specifically to one person.  The big categories are clothes, books, papers, and sentimental items.  Other household items would fall within the miscellaneous section.

The book is almost devoid of any discussion of children.  I remember one example of a mom setting up space for her three year old's possessions and a section for adult children not to leave or store items at their parents' home.   There is nothing for kids old enough to have their own opinions of what they want.  Teens are probably included in the overall book, although they would only be responsible for their own space and possessions.  She does advocate allowing other family members to have their own space to keep their items, and the other members just learn by example or maybe osmosis to tidy their own stuff.  Honestly that wasn't clear.  I  plan to help my kids sort through their own items to decrease the overflow in the common areas. Telling them to keep their stuff in their own rooms will only result in chaos if I don't give them some kind of guidance.

Overall I would give the book 4 stars.

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