You know the old phrase, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes?” That phrase really should include “clutter” because it seems to just materialize out of thin air! I’m a bit weird because I’ve always enjoyed decluttering; it feels like a reset when my life seems out of control. As nice as that is, the book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo claims that it can get rid of the root cause of clutter once and for all. Obvs, I was super curious!

The Gist

For everyone else that missed the train back in 2011,  this book was written by Marie Kondo, a Japanese cleaning consultant that believes tidying your possessions in one big go can literally change your life in a magical way.  

As someone that loveeeeees having a tidy space and is a big believer in “a place for everything and everything in its place”, I was already inclined to put this on my reading list.  But the thing that really stands out to me is that she suggests doing all your decluttering at once. Everyone else I’ve ever read has suggested something like 5 items a day or 15 minutes on Fridays. Color me intrigued!

The other thing that made this book stand out to me is the concept of items “sparking joy”. In a nutshell, you pick up each item one at a time and ask yourself if it sparks joy. It should be a literal feeling inside of your body.  If the answer is yes, you keep it. Everything else goes. Let me reiterate that: anything that does not spark joy needs ta go.  None of this “wait 3 months”, “ask your Mom”, or “save it for later” stuff for Ms. Kondo.  With her, you either love it or leave it.

What I Liked And What I Didn’t

I loved like, 95% of this book.  It’s a pretty easy read and the sections are short, sweet, and to the point.  I feel like she explains her reasoning behind things pretty well. For me, I need to know why something is the way that it is before I’ll start trying it.  Some of her suggestions are a little weird so I really, really needed her to tell me what the deal was!

Now for what I wasn’t a fan of.  I personally don’t like when people talk about their personal experiences in self help books. It’s one thing to talk about how everything applied to your own life but I’m not crazy about when people seem to talk about unrelated things in their lives.  I’m more here to learn the method, ya know?

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. Different strokes for different folks; I just don’t personally like a ton of that in my books.  I did wish the book went more in depth on household things but she ended up releasing a second book all about that. She also has a show on Netflix now that I would love to watch. She’s an adorable wealth of information!

How I Used This Book

After I skimmed all of the titles and important sections, I read the book cover to cover.  Now, she highly recommends decluttering all at once in one huge marathon. The reasoning is that this will create a shock to your system that will make it borderline impossible to ever go back to the way you were before.  I started out with the intention of doing it this way but I was really surprised to find that time wasn’t a restriction for me, my emotions were.

I’ll talk about that more in a second but no, I did not do the entire tidying process at once.  I do plan to eventually do it though because wow does it work for me. She was completely correct about seeing all of your possessions at once being a jolting experience that helps you to let go. I was surprised to find that most of her suggestions worked for me regardless of how unorthodox they sounded at first. There are some interesting ones about welcoming your house and thanking an item before you discard it.  I tried most of the things in the book and it was totally worth a try for me.

“Aha!” Moments Galore

I learned a LOT about myself in a very, very short amount of time by using her methods.  Seriously. So much that I needed to stop and take an emotional break. There were a bunch of items that didn’t spark joy for me but I couldn’t let go of them.  The author says that, when this happens, you’re either holding on to the past or that you’re afraid of the future. I used her steps to help myself figure out why I wasn’t able to let go of things and wow.  Just wow.

I had no idea that non-heirloom items could have such an intense emotional weight attached to them.  As an example, I had one of those cool activity books from Hobby Lobby that has calligraphy pens and the workbook all together in a set.  Do I wish my handwriting was that gorgeous? Yes. Did I have good intentions of learning when I bought the book? Yes. Did it spark joy?  No, not even a little. I’ve sold and donated a ton of my books over the years and for some reason, this book has never been given up. And yet, it didn’t spark joy so why couldn’t I let it go?

After some soul searching a la journaling, I found my answer.  I had bought the book with my friend Dina years ago because we both wanted to try it. We each bought a copy of the same book and said we’d get together and make an event out of it.  Well Dina lost her battle with cancer and we were never able to open the books. I realized that I wasn’t emotionally ready to let go of the book because I felt like letting go of the book was letting go of Dina.

My family had moved across the country before she passed so I was never really forced to deal with it.  I was able to happily bury my head in the sand and just kind of imagine that she was busy or that we’d call “later”. Keeping that calligraphy book on the shelf was my way of keeping reality away and that just wasn’t healthy or fair to her memory. I was eventually able to donate the book and to grieve properly. It blows my mind that something like tidying was able to help me to address that chapter in my life and to move on.

I know that was an extreme example but I had tons of “Aha!” moments that made reading this book totally worth it for me. In the past, when I donated things, it was simply “do I use it?” but with this book, I got a chance to discover more about myself and come out of the tidying process feeling both free and more like myself.

Sortin’ Through My Stash

I’ve tackled a lot of things in my house but I haven’t gotten around to decluttering my yarn collection.  The book has you start with clothes then move on to your books so that you can learn how to fine tune your joy sparking radar.  Kondo has you save the blatantly emotional stuff for last. That way, you’re a total champ when it comes to deciding with things that have a strong emotional response for you.  I’m a total yarn lover so I knew that I should save my collection for towards the end.

Let’s work through our yarn stashes together, shall we?  As you can see, I don’t have a huge yarn stash. I’m on a bit of a fiber diet right now, if ya know what I’m sayin’.  I started off by picking up a skein that I *know* that I love…

….To really know what I should be feeling with every ball of yarn.  This yarn makes me feel proud, industrious, excited, adventurous, and artistic all at once.  I made and dyed this skein myself from a sweater that I found at a thrift shop. I know almost nothing about it’s fiber content but I do know that it’s (in my opinion) one of the prettiest things that I’ve ever made. Even though I doubt that I’ll ever knit with it, just looking at it makes me happy. After holding this one, I know what my base line for that joy feeling should be.

I went yarn by yarn and a decent number of them made the cut! I love, love, LOVE that every time I grab a yarn out of my stash, it will be something that I deeply love and want to work with. How’s that for magic?

Here are some of the ones that didn’t spark joy. As you can see, they’re all nice yarns. They just don’t give me the warm and fuzzies.

When I was done, I put all my joy sparkers back in their bin and listed the others for sale.  I still value the yarns that I’m not keeping; I just want them to make someone else as happy as my all stars make me.  When it’s time for me to ship a yarn to it’s new owner, I’ll make sure to thank it for what it gave me. Things like inspiration, a dream, the excitement of buying it, a pretty thing to look at, etc.  (Sounds odd, but seriously, give thanking things a try!)

Who Should Read This?

I’d recommend this book to anyone.  Yes, anyone. And I have! The amazing thing about this concept is that it can be applied to more than just socks and old newspapers.  In addition to how I’ve used these methods on objects, I’ve applied it to the way that I spend my time and my money. Am I perfect at using this system?  No, not at all. But I am getting much quicker and more accurate at pinpointing the things that I actually want in my life vs the things that just happen to float into my life.  

At the very least, I think everyone should just give it a try.  It really teaches you how to question the way that things are and to dream for a better (and realistic!) way that things could and should be.  I think that Marie Kondo is very correct when she says that “The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life”. I mean, what’s not to love about living a joy-filled life surrounded by things that make you smile?   

How About You?

Have you tried this? What sparks joy for you?  Let us know in the comment section down below!