The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Most of the ideas I still apply in my daily life, though I can understand that this method is not for everyone. If is relatively easy for you to say goodbye to material things this book is for you.

I have bought way too many decluttering books over the last 35 years. Until recently, they've really been more of the "here is how you organize the stuff you have" types of books. In the last two years, I have found two books that I love and that psychologically put me in the place where I can actually make a difference in my home and, frankly, my life. Those two books are The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and Breathing Room by Lauren Rosenfeld and Melva Green. I resisted this book for so long - it just seemed like a fad that was taking Barnes & Noble and Costco by storm. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing this book and I felt like it was just another case where something became a fad because we put a Japanese aura with it. (Remember when Sudoku became big? Even though Dell's Number Place was the same thing and had been around for decades?)

But this really IS different. I'd have to say that Marie Kondo is pretty obsessive. After all, she started being obsessed with organizing around age 5. At first, this turned me off. But, just because someone is obsessive doesn't mean that they don't have amazing insight to share with others. After all, I doubt that Einstein, Picasso or Beethoven were considered normal. She has taken her obsession and examined it her whole life to come up with both the cause of the desire to organize and a method to put it into action for the rest of us to benefit.

The root of it all is a simple question: Does this spark joy? Because what we really want in both our home and our life, after all, is joy! You could, I suppose, just put this into effect without reading her book. However, reading her written expression of her method really helps put the message into your brain and feel it, not just hear it as a statement. I highly recommend this book, and I recommend getting it on Kindle so you don't have the book as clutter when you're done! (Also - be fine with ignoring some of her completely obsessive pointers, like taking your kitchen sponge out to dry outside everyday; just buy a new sponge when the last one gets too used. She can be like that aunt who worries that you should wear a jacket when it gets down to 65 degrees - a bit too obsessed.) (And one more thing - watch a couple of videos where she tackles the homes of real people. If she bugs you in the videos, don't get the book.)

My take- this book has some major drawbacks like not everything sparks joy some things are a necessity and you need them so asking 'if I am going to use them 100 times (idk my clothes are pretty sturdy and they last pretty long even after using them for a long time since I have stopped growing) before it gets worn down' is a more effective way of dealing with them.
Also, I have less stuff since I have been practicing the prototype of minimalism for a few years now so discarding is easy for me, but it is pretty difficult for a
hoarder to discard an item by asking if it sparks joy l or not and then it would be like "yeah, everything sparks joy here

Anybody who knows me knows this is a lifelong struggle for me!
I remember how great it felt, when we moved to Brooklyn, to just get rid of a lot of things I thought I'd never be able to live without. So freeing, and I never missed any of it. But (not so) slowly but surely, stuff started accumulating again...
While some of the advice is a little bit kooky-ooky, I really responded to many of her thoughts and ideas on worrying less about being "organized" and just getting rid of shit!
As I think everyone knows by now, the KonMari method is, you go through your stuff, category by category, and get rid of anything that does not "spark joy" when you pick it up. I got rid of a LOT of work clothes. ;-)
Actually, the clothes were easier than I thought, mostly because I gained a lot of weight in the last year and things don't fit anymore anyway. But I'm left with not that much (my husband will disagree), but somehow it's still enough. Also, I had hundreds of books, and I finally had to acknowledge that I'm just not going to read them all in this lifetime. So I really pared down there quite a bit. And I color-coded the books I had left on my bookshelves! (Yes, a great use of time. Plus, it helped me avoid doing any important stuff for a while.) I got rid of papers, papers, and more papers...magazines, catalogs... I went through the kitchen cabinets and threw out a ton of useless crap.
I used the KonMari method of folding what clothes I had left, and I couldn't believe how nice and neat everything looked. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to show my husband. "Honey, wanna come look in my drawers??" :-)
While this was not quite life-changing, because I still have a long way to go to reach the author's ideal results, I'll keep working at it (even though you're not supposed to -- this should be a one-and-done project). This was definitely a worthwhile and satisfying venture, and I've gained some tools that I'll hopefully remember to use going forward.

The book itself sparks joy.