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

I'm somewhat of a self-help book addict. I was browsing Pinterest one day and stumbled upon the "konmari method" and was intrigued, so I bought this book for kindle and read it in about an hour. I always thought I was a very organized person (because everything I owned had a designated, labelled place and my house was always super clean), but after reading this book I realized I was nothing more than a skilled hoarder. I locked myself in my house for 6 straight weeks (seriously, only came out for absolute necessary obligations and appointments) and decluttered the ever-living hell out of my house. The only thing that slowed me down was waiting for every Tuesday to roll around when the big donation truck would come and haul off all my unwanted items, or waiting for every Monday for the trash collection. I probably discarded well over 100 bags of clutter in that 6 weeks and earned over $400 selling the big-ticket items via social media, which I used to make my house prettier. I also donated an entire trunk full of books, CDs, and DVDs to my local library. My home's available storage used to be completely maxed out, and now I have empty drawers everywhere! I also have no less than 40 completely empty plastic storage bins in my garage that were previously full of clutter (and the storage bins are the next thing that will be sold!). Reading this book was life-changing. While I didn't follow it to the T (I do not thank my socks for their service every day LOL), it is the best feeling in the world to look around a room and realize you love every single item in said room. I no longer feel weighed down by "stuff". I still have a few odds and ends to finish up in my house, but I'm about 90% done at this point and loving it. I never knew getting rid of things could be so addicting. I also never thought I was the kind of person who could ever throw away a photo, but by the time I got to the sentimental items category, I discarded an entire garbage can full of photos without hesitation and it felt great!

I will admit to having a tortured relationship with stuff. I grew up in a cluttered house and married the King of Clutter (he's the type of person who'll open a credit card bill, pay it online, and then just leave the empty envelope, inserts, and bill itself randomly strewn on whatever surface happens to be nearby). I don't like the disorder of clutter, but dealing with it is such a soul-sucking experience that I haven't gotten very far. Many days I semi-wish the whole place would burn down and save me from having to deal with it.

Typically I'll catch an episode of Hoarders, fear that I'm one incapacitating injury away from being the focus of an episode (if I can't clean up all those strewn papers, they'll just pile up to the rafters, after all!), and then go through a stack of junk in a fit of unhappiness. Not the best way to deal with it all.

Marie Kondo's book is the opposite of that. It's a breath of fresh air and positive energy that brings real joy to the process of "tidying up."

I was only about halfway through before I tackled my clothes. She's right to begin there. My clothes are all mine (which also means that they're in nowhere near as terrible a state as other things in my house), so going through them affects only me and involves only my own feelings. Her advice may sound silly at first, but if your belongings inspire feelings of unhappiness, guilt, etc., her anthropomorphism of them can really help you change your viewpoint in a positive direction. I finished up with three bags for Goodwill and one for the garbage man. My drawers and closet, which were never very messy, are now exactly as I want them, and I feel fantastic!

My one quibble with her instructions has to do with folding. I've always disliked rolls of items. Instead, I fold so I can line things up like files. This makes it easy to pull things out without everything falling over. For my five-year-old, I fold his t-shirts so the front image is visible on the fold, then file them in the drawer so he can see exactly which shirt is which. (Here's an example: [...]) This works well for socks as well as t-shirts, pajamas, etc.

Most of her advice and content is really focused on a Japanese audience. There are many things in the book that won't translate as well culturally for a Western/American readership. For example, she suggests that you greet your home much as you would a Shinto shrine. That is likely to carry a different level of meaning for someone in Japan than in the U.S. Other references to spiritual practice and feng-shui are not likely to resonate the same way for an American audience. I even wonder if the preference for rolling clothes is cultural, since I have such a strong reaction against it and instead prefer folding and filing!

The examples in the book also tend toward the childless female. There is a lot of discussion of travel toiletries, but very little about kitchen utensils, toys, or other items found most often in a family home. The home workshop, which is a particular problem in my home, gets no mention at all. Don't Japanese people own countless drills, boxes of screws, and electrical tape?

But the reason for reading this book is not the specific advice about t-shirts and cupboards. It's about changing your relationship with the stuff you own. The tone of her book is so upbeat and positive, it's infectious. It's hard to keep reading it to the end, because you want to jump up and start using her methods immediately. I had little trouble adjusting her suggestions to match my own cultural perspective and physical home.

In the book she mentions that it'll take 6 months to fully tidy your home so that everything left inspires joy. I'm now a week in, and 6 months seems like hardly enough time to tackle all the junk in my house, but I can fully see how this can be a life-changing process.