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

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you'll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo's clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house "spark joy" (and which don't), this international best seller featuring Tokyo's newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home - and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

Yes, I watched one episode of Netflix’s new show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and felt compelled to go through all of my belongings and declutter! While I finished watching the series, I read this book of hers, which is by now a few years old. Before I watched the series, I was familiar in very vague terms with Marie Kondo and her book and her tidying method, but I had not read the book.

But the show made me want a deeper dive into her method and the ideas behind it, so I used one of my Christmas gift cards to get the ebook.

For the past few months, I’ve been in a real mood to declutter. I had lots of clothes I never wore, books I never read again (and several I didn’t read even though I bought them years and years ago), and boxes of miscellaneous stuff that got put in a closet and forgotten about (or ignored). So I had slowly been going through things here and there, but reading this book was just the thing I needed to give me a push to get it all done in a couple of big chunks, rather than dragging it out over a period of weeks.

I want it to be clear that because I was already wanting to declutter my home, I was in a mindset that made me very receptive to this book. If you are totally happy with your home and not feeling overwhelmed or burdened by the accumulation of stuff like I was, this may not be for you, but obviously if you are looking for a book on tidying up, you’re probably the target audience for this.

I loved that the book advises you to take all of the items in the category you’re working on (e.g. clothing or books) and put them all in one pile in a room. It really was surprising to me to see just how many clothes or books I had, even if I thought I knew what I had. Until I saw it all taking up my entire living room, I had been able to ignore just how many items of clothing I had taking up space in my closet and my dresser.

And I was very skeptical of certain aspects of the method, like holding each item to see what sparks joy, and thanking the items you discard, but honestly as I did it, I understood. I felt like I got so much out of the process, and I was finally able to part with things that I kept even though they didn’t fit me, or that I had an attachment to because of where I got them, and I was able to let go of things guilt-free.

I also liked the thought exercise of thinking about what my ideal home and start and end of my day would look like and feel like. It helped me realize that I wanted a home that felt like a calm, peaceful sanctuary as I head out to work in the morning and when I get home after a hectic day.

My husband and I both did our clothes, our ‘komono’ (kitchen, bathroom, miscellaneous) category, and our documents, and we were able to get all of that done in about one day, without having any disagreements! That’s a big deal for me because cleaning and tidying usually makes me feel tense and defensive, so I get very short-tempered. And I took several days to do my books, but now, we feel like we are surrounded only by things that we really love.

And we’re able to donate pretty much everything that we’re discarding, so I hope that the clothing and books will bring joy to someone else!

I read this ebook and highlighted several passages, because I thought Marie Kondo made some excellent points about clutter and its impact on our lives that really rang true for me. And her folding method is such a space-saver! I’m able to fit so many things in my dresser and closet, and in a way that lets me see everything that I have at once, instead of having to dig through drawers and piles of clothes.

I loved this book, and I love the Netflix show. I definitely recommend this if you’re feeling like you want to declutter but feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.