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 bestseller will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'GoodReads'
5 stars
This is a really inspiring book. I would say the hardest thing about the book was trying to hold off on implementing the recommendations until I finished the whole book. It's repetitive in some sections, but not in an irritating way. She reinforces the concepts she's trying to convey by referencing them multiple times throughout the text.
Some of the Shinto practices that KonMari mentions threw me off at first until I realized what they were. When she talks about things having energy or life or greeting your objects, that's part of her religious belief, but it makes sense in a way, to take care of and value and appreciate your things. The more care you give to your belongings, the longer they'll last.
What did I get out of this book? It helped me to reevaluate the things that I surround myself with. It helped me to think about …
This is a really inspiring book. I would say the hardest thing about the book was trying to hold off on implementing the recommendations until I finished the whole book. It's repetitive in some sections, but not in an irritating way. She reinforces the concepts she's trying to convey by referencing them multiple times throughout the text.
Some of the Shinto practices that KonMari mentions threw me off at first until I realized what they were. When she talks about things having energy or life or greeting your objects, that's part of her religious belief, but it makes sense in a way, to take care of and value and appreciate your things. The more care you give to your belongings, the longer they'll last.
What did I get out of this book? It helped me to reevaluate the things that I surround myself with. It helped me to think about my apartment as a place for living rather than for storing. Do I really need these old knick knacks from 5 years ago? Do I even look at them? When did I see this pair of pants last? Should I hang onto this shirt because I spent money on it and haven't used it much, or get rid of it because it isn't something I enjoy wearing? Why should I wear something that doesn't make me happy to wear it?
KonMari made me think of what's really important to me and inspired me to turn my living space into a place that I really enjoy being in. I don't expect my screwdriver or every undershirt to spark joy, but as much as possible I want to have things that I really enjoy and use regularly.
Review of 'The life-changing magic of tidying up' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Ich habe es lange ignoriert, aber der Millionenbestsellerstatus ist verdient. Ein hilfreiches, freundliches Buch ohne den ansonsten üblichen JETZTREISSTEUCHMALZUSAMMEN-Terror. Darüber, dass die Autorin Gegenstände offenbar nicht nur metaphorisch als Haustiere betrachtet, die artgerecht gehalten werden müssen, kann man leicht hinweglesen, wenn einen so was stört. Es ist etwas redundant, aber es ist ja eh kein dickes Buch, man verschwendet also insgesamt wenig Zeit mit dem Wiederlesen der gleichen Sachverhalte in neuen Formulierungen.
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I'm a bit messy. Don't judge me. I want to change, and this book seems really popular so I decided to check it out. It is definitely not enthralling reading material. But it does what it intends to do pretty clearly and in an effective manner: It explains a method to clean up your room/house and get rid of all the crap you have accumulated and don't really need. I have finished the book but can't say I've finished the full experience until I do the actual cleaning up. That will be happening very soon. Then maybe I will update my score for this book. I recommend reading it if you are wondering about how to go about organizing your space, and particularly if you feel you have too many things and want to simplify, de-clutter and minimize your lifestyle. I know I need doing that. I thank this book …
I'm a bit messy. Don't judge me. I want to change, and this book seems really popular so I decided to check it out. It is definitely not enthralling reading material. But it does what it intends to do pretty clearly and in an effective manner: It explains a method to clean up your room/house and get rid of all the crap you have accumulated and don't really need. I have finished the book but can't say I've finished the full experience until I do the actual cleaning up. That will be happening very soon. Then maybe I will update my score for this book. I recommend reading it if you are wondering about how to go about organizing your space, and particularly if you feel you have too many things and want to simplify, de-clutter and minimize your lifestyle. I know I need doing that. I thank this book for providing some actionable steps to reach that goal.
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'
No rating
Kā jau self-help grāmatās, kaitinoši daudz "šis tiešām strādā" un tāda semi-misticisma, bet citādi, visādas noderīgas idejas, vēl redzēs, vai nostrādās praksē :D
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This woman clearly has OCD. She manically cleaned every wire in a metal shower rack, and worked herself into tears over a slimy shampoo bottle. She's "sworn off" her addiction to storage solutions, insisting you should organize everything into shoeboxes instead. I think a lot of this book is her journey reconciling her tidying obsession with her yearning for tranquility.
Her subjective guidelines of what to trash and how much of something to keep are useful: there is no magic number of socks that's best for every person. Her insistence that you should get rid of momentous because if it was really that great, you wouldn't need something to remember it by is stupid, and I wish she'd spent more time thinking that part through: I've found that photos and trinkets I didn't care for in childhood spark joy in me now.
My takeaways from this book are: 1) get …
This woman clearly has OCD. She manically cleaned every wire in a metal shower rack, and worked herself into tears over a slimy shampoo bottle. She's "sworn off" her addiction to storage solutions, insisting you should organize everything into shoeboxes instead. I think a lot of this book is her journey reconciling her tidying obsession with her yearning for tranquility.
Her subjective guidelines of what to trash and how much of something to keep are useful: there is no magic number of socks that's best for every person. Her insistence that you should get rid of momentous because if it was really that great, you wouldn't need something to remember it by is stupid, and I wish she'd spent more time thinking that part through: I've found that photos and trinkets I didn't care for in childhood spark joy in me now.
My takeaways from this book are: 1) get rid of things you don't use and don't make you happy, 2) give every item its own place in your home and make it easy to return it to it there.
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Not normally the kind of book I would read, but I confess I have enjoyed reading this. I have also found it motivational; I am not sure I will follow her methods and advice completely, but she makes a strong case for eliminating clutter that creates stress and distracts from things that make one happy. I definitely skimmed some of the more new agey "this will fix all of your life problems" sections, but I commented to my wife at one point that I was a third of the way through the book and could not argue with a single point Kondo had made.
Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Marie Kondo has a unique approach to decluttering one's home, and having begun the Konami process, I'm finding it going pretty well so far.
The idea of only having things in your household that give you joy, though, is a tricky one for a lot of us. Kondo works in Japan with people who can afford to hire someone to come over and help them get organized. So if they have blender they never liked that well, they can throw it away and buy a new blender. A lot of us have to hold onto things because they work and we need them, not because they give us joy.
You kind of have to translate Kondo's advice to your own way of life. Her system for going through books is insane, in that you're supposed to just hold a book and decide if it gives you joy, but you're not …
Marie Kondo has a unique approach to decluttering one's home, and having begun the Konami process, I'm finding it going pretty well so far.
The idea of only having things in your household that give you joy, though, is a tricky one for a lot of us. Kondo works in Japan with people who can afford to hire someone to come over and help them get organized. So if they have blender they never liked that well, they can throw it away and buy a new blender. A lot of us have to hold onto things because they work and we need them, not because they give us joy.
You kind of have to translate Kondo's advice to your own way of life. Her system for going through books is insane, in that you're supposed to just hold a book and decide if it gives you joy, but you're not supposed to peek inside. This is fine for books you've read, but useless for those you haven't. But then, I think Kondo feels that you should only have one unread book; she doesn't see the point in a library.
Kondo's advice also reveals how she has incorporated personal quirks into the book. For example, her attitude is, if a button falls off you should toss the item because you'll never get around to sewing it back on (and because, in her odd estimation, if a button falls off it's a sign the item is wearing out; never mind I've had buttons fall off of new shirts). This both shows that she's a procrastinator and that she has enough money that she can toss out perfectly good things at the first sign of wear.
Kondo is a little nutty. Her stories of being obsessed with cleaning since she was a young child are perplexing to me, and as for saying thank you to her shoes, I don't see myself doing that. It makes me a bit skeptical of her, but then, it also makes the book more interesting than something less personal.
I've only Konami'd my clothes so far (books are next) and I did cheat a little on the "spark joy" concept because sometimes something that individually sparks no joy is the only good accessory for something that does, but overall I think her ideas - declutter by category rather than area, toss stuff you don't really like that much - are solid ones. I'd recommend taking a look.
