Marie Kondo: We Should Be Choosing What We Want to Keep, not discard.
I'm a huge fan of Marie Kondo, and her organization method. I've talked about her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" before, and got the chance to meet her in person at the beginning of her US book tour. She is thoughtful, delightful, and full of joy.
There have been a plethora of interesting articles about Marie Kondo and her KonMari method recently, so I thought I'd gather some of them together all in one place.
“Keep only the things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest,” she [Marie Kondo] advises. “When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t.”
Her “KonMarie method”, as she calls it in the diminutive and illustration-free volume, encourages a rapid, dramatic and transformative one-time organising event completed methodically and lovingly in no more than six months. It is not an ongoing battle against clutter.
Kondo sees tidying as a cheerful conversation in which anything that doesn’t “spark joy” is to be touched, thanked and ceremonially sent on its way towards a better life elsewhere, where it can discover a more appreciative owner.
“The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living within that environment,” Kondo said,
Like any lifestyle guru, Kondo has rules... The central law of Kondo’s method is to keep items that “spark joy” in an owner and dispose of items that do not.
Kondo's promise is about more than just stuff. It's about intentionality and mindfulness, with a sprinkling of Zen philosophy.
Marie Kondo has built a huge following in her native Japan with her “KonMari” method of organizing and de-cluttering. Clients perform a sort of tidying up festival: time set aside specifically to go through belongings. Each object is picked up and held, and the client needs to decide if it inspires joy. If it doesn’t, it needs to go.
Many experts say to declutter 15 minutes a day, working one room at a time. According to Marie Kondo, if you do this, you’ll be decluttering forever. She recommends that you make clutter clearing a special, once-in-a-lifetime event.
“When we take our clothes in our hands and fold them neatly,” she writes, “we are, I believe, transmitting energy, which has a positive effect on our clothes.” She proposes a similarly agreeable technique for hanging clothing. Hang up anything that looks happier hung up, and arrange like with like, working from left to right, with dark, heavy clothing on the left: “Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure.”
"Although this approach contradicts conventional wisdom, everyone who completes my private course has successfully kept their house in order—with unexpected results. Putting their house in order positively affects all other aspects of their lives, including work and family. Having devoted more than 80 percent of my life to this subject, I know that tidying can transform your life."
"During the selection process, if you come across something that does not spark joy but that you just can’t bring yourself to throw away, stop a moment and ask yourself, 'Am I having trouble getting rid of this because of an attachment to the past or because of a fear for the future?' It’s important to understand your ownership pattern because it is an expression of the values that guide your life. The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life."
I love finding these articles about Marie Kond--I am curious if elements of the Kon-Mari Method were lost in the translation (yes), and more importantly: just who is this person whose seemingly simple method has been transforming lives in the United States.
