The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up – by Marie Kondo

This book has the potential to change your life. The act of tidying is a series of simple actions in which objects are moved from one place to another. It involves putting things where they belong, something so simple that even a six year old should be able to do it. Yet most people can’t. A short time after tidying their household descends into a disorganised mess.

When you follow the advice of this book and finish putting your house in order, your whole world will brighten and never again will you need to revert to clutter. This is what Marie Kondo calls ‘the magic of tidying’.

If you are like most people, and don’t know how to tidy, don’t be discouraged. Now is the time to learn. By studying and applying the principles of the Kon-Mari Method you can escape the vicious cycle of clutter.

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Finish Discarding First

The main piece of the advice is around the first step to tidying: Discarding.

After tidying, you might think you’ve done a perfect job, but after a few days you notice that the room has become cluttered again. As time goes by, you collect more things and it is back to its previous state or worse.  For best results, discarding comes first. DO NOT think of putting things away until you have thought through discarding.

Selection Criteria – does it spark joy?

The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?”. If it does. Keep it. If not. Dispose of it. This is the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick to judge by.

You may wonder about the effectiveness of this vague criteria. The trick to this is to handle each item. Don’t just open your closet, give it a quick glance and decide that everything gives you a thrill. You must touch every item, your clothes, shoes, gifts and books, by hand. When you touch it, your body reacts and its response to every item is different.  Keep only the things that speak to your heart, then take the plunge and discard all of the rest.  By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.

Tidy In One Hit

If you tidy in one swoop, rather than little by little, you will dramatically change your mindset to a point that it touches your emotions, irresistibly affecting your way of thinking and your lifestyle habits. People don’t develop the habit of tidying gradually.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up method is to eliminate all clutter thoroughly within a short period of time. You’ll see instant results that will empower you to keep your space in order forever. Anyone who experiences this will never revert to clutter again. All you need to do is look at each item, one by one and decide whether or not to keep it and where to put it. Unbelievable as it may sound, you only have to experience the state of perfection just once to maintain it.

How to Manage Storage

For most people the main problem (they think) when it comes to tidying, is storage. Many people just want to be taught how to organize storage, but this is not the real issue. Storage methods do not resolve the problems of clutter, they are just a superficial short-term answer. When reorganizing storage people think they’re tidying, but they’re merely just wasting their time shoving all of their stuff out of site. Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved, but sooner or later your storage is full, and the room once again overflows.

One Category At A Time

The majority of household items that fall into the same category are stored usually in two or more items around the house. Say for example your clothes, they could be in your bedroom AND the upstairs closet. For this reason, you need to tidy by category and not by place. Take every last item in that one category and lay it out on the spot. Then pick up each item and ask the question: Does this spark joy? The Life Changing Magic of TIdying up teaches us that these are the ones to keep.

Designate A Place For Each Thing

This is the routine Marie follows when she gets home:

First she unlocks the door and announces to her house “I’m home!”. She picks up the shoes she wore the day before out of the entrance and puts them in the cupboard. She takes off her new shoes at the entrance. She pops the kettle on and goes to the bedroom, laying her handbag on her sheepskin rug. She takes off her outdoor clothes, puts the jacket in the hanger and says “good job”. She puts her tights in the laundry closet, opens the drawer, selects what clothes she wants to wear and gets dressed. She empties her handbag onto the rug and puts each item in place. She returns to the bedroom and puts the empty handbag in a bag, and into the top shelf of the closet saying “you did well. Have a good rest”.

From the time to the door to the moment she closes the closet, only 5 minutes passes. Now she can go to the kitchen, pour the cup of tea and relax. She isn’t boasting, just demonstrating what it is like to have a spot for everything after keeping your space tidy becomes second nature. You can do this effortlessly, even on the days when you come home from work tired.

You may think it will take forever to do that. But don’t worry. It seems like deciding on a place is complicated, it’s far simpler than deciding what to keep and what to discard.

The Magic Of Tidying Dramatically Transforms Your Life

Marie tells the story how many of her clients find out what they love doing through tidying. For example, one was working at an IT company, but looked at her bookcase and saw it only contained books that were all about social welfare. All the books on IT had disappeared, discarding and tidying was a process of self-discovery.

By putting our house in order we choose things that bring us joy and cherish what is precious in our lives. Nothing can bring us greater happiness than to be able to do something that is as simple as this. Life truly begins after you have put your house in order.

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