Is Tidying Up Really Life-Changing Magic?
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing) (amazon.com; amazon.ca) caused quite the stir when it was released. I believe this was in part because it addressed a growing problem - most of us have way too many things. Author Marie Kondo claims that "tidying up" can transform our lives. This is exactly the sort of sensational claim that people pay attention to. And her message had some staying power from the growing legion of "konverts" that preached her message to those who would listen.
BOTTOM LINE
This book is a quick read but be warned - you might feel inspired to "tidy up" your life. I had been ready to prioritize my life for some time, and I used the Konmari method set out in this book to underpin the 2018 Have Less, BE More Challenge. I'm still in the process of the challenge, so I'll post afterwards how it worked out for me. This post is about my thoughts on the book itself.
The Book
I liked the book. She explains her method (more on that below) and illustrates with examples from her life and work. Do you need the book to do the method? No. Enough has been written to teach you everything you need to know. Is it worth reading? It was for me and, frankly, it's a pretty easy read.
My favourite part was her thoughts on the psychology of owning things and how that relates to how we want to live our lives. I've explored that further at the bottom of this post.
The Method
The Konmari method is broken into two parts:
Discard everything that doesn't belong in your ideal life
Put everything else away
A lot of the interest with her method seems to stem from the "spark joy" test she uses for whether an item belongs (what does that even mean??). For those of us used to certainty, this wishy-washy test is far too subjective and unclear. And yet for all of that imprecision, the test actually makes a lot of sense in practice. For putting things away, she has two rules: (i) store all items of the same type in the same place, and (ii) don't scatter storage space. Everything must have a home. Simple yet effective.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK?
Because this book has been so popular, there has been a lot of ink spilled on what was written in the book. If you've read it all and want more, or if you've been buried under the weight of your stuff but I haven't quite convinced you to do something about it, then pick up the book (on amazon.com; amazon.ca). It's a worthwhile read.
WHO SHOULD NOT READ THIS BOOK?
Although it's a worthwhile read, the summaries are actually quite good. If you think you're ready to give it a go, just do it. You don't need to read the book first.
Also, for people who don't have or accumulate a lot of stuff (either because you don't buy much or because you purge well), there are certainly other books that might be more beneficial for you.
Finally, if you're a super skeptical/rational type, you may find some of the author's thoughts a little off-putting, so you might receive more benefit from the method by reading summaries (like mine) that don't discuss the odder concepts (like items having feelings (oops)).
What I want to highlight
I spent some time exploring her method and reasoning in the 2018 Have Less, BE More Challenge, so I encourage you to visit that page as I'll try to keep overlap to a minimum. I've set out below a few of the things I found most interesting in the book.
First Discard, Then Store
Even though the book is about tidying up, Kondo spends most of the book discussing the process of discarding all the stuff that you don't need.
Tidying without discarding just "creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved". This makes sense. If you fix a problem but not the source of that problem, the problem will just come back.
Fixing the source in this case involves identifying what you truly want to have around you and what type of life you want to lead. It makes sense that triaging your stuff can identify what you want to have, but surprisingly it can also provide guidance on the life you want to lead. For example, over the past two years I've discarded 80% of my books and clothes. You better believe that once I did that I started spending less time thinking about and acquiring new clothes and books - after all, I knew I'd just end up throwing them out again. Instead I spent more time running, painting, and just generally pursuing hobbies that I love.
If you don't discard, you're continuing to store stuff that doesn't matter. I think this is particularly interesting with items that you wouldn't buy again - you're probably only holding onto them because of the sunk cost. Mentally, you think you're saving money but (as Kondo points out), you're actually paying for the real estate to store it. If your rent is $1,500/month, your place is 750 sq ft, and the junk takes up 10 sq ft, then you're spending $20/month and $240/yr to store your stuff. For junk that you'll likely never need, this is a waste of money.
Focus On What to Keep
In Kondo's words, "We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of." That means don't focus "on how to choose what to throw away."
This makes intuitive sense. Imagine you needed to move to France for work and you could only bring what you could fit into two suitcases. You could make it work. I know I could. I would go through my stuff and only pick out the things I want to keep. All of my previous purges focused on what I wanted to discard, and they were painful processes.
As an example of how this mindset works, I have often thought that it would be easier to just move to a different country. The "necessary" purging associated with that move would bypass the guilt I feel around "wasting" my stuff. This guilt gets in the way and I might be able to circumvent it entirely by focusing "on what to keep."
The Cause of Clutter
I love learning something that's so common sense that I'm surprised I hadn't realized it already. In that vein:
Clutter is caused by a failure to return things to where they belong. Therefore, storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away, not the effort needed to get them out.
What does that mean? It means shoving everything into a drawer causes clutter. It means not scattering storage for the same type of thing around the house. It means that your storage for your daily shoes should be near the front door, not in the basement.
The Order of Discarding
Kondo advocates you tackle discarding in this order: clothes, books, papers, misc., then mementos. There are really two questions to explore here: 1) why do you need an order at all, and 2) why this order?
It's easier to deal with all like-items at once instead of starting and stopping (the same way that multi-tasking is less productive than focusing on one task). You also avoid treating similar items differently depending on when in the process you come across them. And it takes less time this way.
Kondo notes that some things are easily replaceable. If you throw away a pair of black socks, it's pretty easy to replace them. It's harder (if not impossible) to replace the birthday card you got last year from your partner. It makes sense to start with the things that are most replaceable to become familiar with the process. For those of us who buy our clothes at stores (i.e. all of us who don't make them ourselves), it's best to start with our clothes.
3 NOTABLE QUOTES
On parents' houses
Now I realize that people who have a convenient place to send things, such as a parents' house, are actually quite unfortunate. Even if the house is large with rooms to spare, it is not some infinitely expanding fourth dimension. People never retrieve the boxes they send 'home.' Once sent, they will never again be opened. (my emphasis)
I think this is pretty hilarious. Almost everyone I know with the luxury of a parental home treats it like a fourth dimension. If you don't need it again, it's junk. Just deal with it now. Personally, I know we treat our basement as a fourth dimension. That's something I'd like to stop.
On others
The urge to point out someone else's failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space.
Seems weird, but it's been true pretty much every time I want to complain about someone else.
On the psychology of tidying
The below is actually one extensive quote that I've copied verbatim from her book. I've broken it up and inserted some of my own thoughts (in italics) as you go through. Bold is her emphasis.
When we really delve in to the reasons for why we can't let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.
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 fo a fear for the future?" Ask this for every one of these items. As you do so, you'll begin to see a pattern in your ownership of things, a pattern that falls into one of three categories: attachment to the past, desire for stability in the future, or a combination of both.
I found this very interesting especially as applied to my own stuff. Upon inspection, I very much fall into the desire for stability in the future. I don't want to throw something out in case I'll need again. Even sentimental things that I'll never need again, I'm worried I might want to look at it again.
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. Attachment to the past and fears concerning the future not only govern the way you select the things you own but also represent the criteria by which you make choices in every aspect of your life, including your relationships with people and your job.
I find her quote "The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life" incredibly insightful. We spend so much of our time planning purchases, purchasing stuff, using stuff, storing stuff, feeling guilty/happy about stuff, earning money to pay for stuff. Considering how much time and energy of our life goes into it, the stuff we focus on determines so much of how we live our lives.
When a woman who is very anxious about the future chooses a partner, for example, she is less likely to select someone purely because she likes and enjoys being with him. She might choose someone she doesn't really like simply because the relationship seems advantageous to her or because she is afraid that if she doesn't choose him, she may not find anyone else. When it comes to career choices, the same type of person is more likely to choose a job with a large company because it will give her more choices in the future, or to work toward certain qualifications as a guarantee rather than because she actually likes the work and wants to do it. A person who has a strong attachment to the past, on the other hand, finds it hard to move on to a new relationship because she can't forget the boyfriend she broke up with two years ago. She also finds it hard to try out new methods even when the current method is no longer effective because it worked up to this point.
When one or the other of these thought patterns makes it hard to throw things away, we can't see what we really need now, at this moment. We aren't sure what would satisfy us or what we are looking for.
This is a jewel of an observation. When I focus on whether I might need something in the future, I'm future-focused and ignoring the present. I'm not focusing on whether I am fulfilled in this moment, or following my purpose, I'm focused on whether I've adequately prepared for the future. If my goal is to be in the present more (it is) then I need to stop worrying about the future so much. This is one way to do that.
As a result, we increase the number of unnecessary possessions, burying ourselves both physically and mentally in superfluous things.
This is really the crux of it. When we don't know what we need, we bury ourselves in new things hoping to achieve that aspirational life or mindset. Does it ever work? It hasn't for me, but I have a drawer full of different versions of the same article of clothing - none of which I like. I bought all of them hoping they would make me someone different.
The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don't. Quests to faraway places or shopping sprees are no longer necessary. All you have to do is eliminate what you don't need by confronting each of your possessions properly.
The best way to find out what we need is to get rid of what we don't. So obvious and yet not something that had occurred to me before.
The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past. Many times when confronting my past during the tidying process, I have been so ashamed I felt like my face was on fire. ... The things we own are real. They exist here and now as a result of choices made in the past by no one other than ourselves. It is dangerous to ignore them or to discard them indiscriminately as if denying the choices we made. This is why I am against both letting things pile up and dumping things indiscriminately. It is only when we face the things we own one by one and experience the emotions they evoke that we can truly appreciate our relationship with them.
As much as I wanted to throw out that entire drawer (of different versions of the same type of clothing) indiscriminately, I made myself go through it. It was a useful exercise in coming to terms with what made me throw good money after bad, repeatedly.
There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die. The choice is ours. But I personally believe it is far better to face them now. If we acknowledge our attachment to the past and our fears for the future by honestly looking at our possessions, we will be able to see what is really important to us. This process in turn helps us identify our values and reduces doubt and confusion in making life decisions. if we can have confidence in our decisions and launch enthusiastically into action without any doubts holding us back, we will be able to achieve much more. In other words, the sooner we confront our possessions the better. If you are going to put your house in order, do it now.
How many of you are thinking that the best option is to avoid it until you die? How many of you answered no but are doing it anyway?