So, I jumped on the bandwagon and purchased The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. I don’t normally grab the current hot bestseller book, mostly because I already have a long list of books I want to read, but this one resonated with my already existent desire to lighten the load and make better use of the limited space we have. I will say, this is an enjoyable read. It is easy to understand Kondo’s advice, even if some of it seems a little… well, shall we say, hippy dippy at times? That’s coming from a self-proclaimed hippy but sometimes this book veers into rather saccharine speech about our possessions and how they “feel”. Also, Kondo expects that people will continue to shop at the same frequency as they did before decluttering, whereas my goal is to alleviate some of my consumerism by becoming less attached to things and freeing up my life to enjoy experiences rather than stuff.
All that said, the method is pretty sound, even if I have no intention at this time of implementing it fully. Primarily because half our stuff is still in boxes. We are in limbo, waiting to buy our house, where we can unpack for good- or at least for the foreseeable future. So, I’ve been doing what I can with what I have available. The first thing I did was arrange my clothes in my dresser drawers so they stood vertical. I had been hearing about doing this to save space and make clothing items more visible for some time but it’s a bit daunting to suddenly change how you store clothing after 30 some odd years of doing it one way. So, all the clothes in my drawers now stand up and I was able to make an entire, albeit small, drawer available with the space saved. As I did this, I worked on her, “Keep only what gives you joy,” aspect of the method. It doesn’t work out perfectly, since I’m still a bit more pragmatic than she.
I don’t expect my work clothes to give me joy and I can’t dispose of all my business clothes for my comfortable yoga pants on the off-chance that at some time I get a director who disapproves of yoga pants as business casual. So, the work clothes stay where they are, even if they are a bit out of use. Also, not everything fits right yet. I’m much closer than where I was a few months ago but my Latina ass is still a bit too luscious for some of my pants. Trying to tone down the lusciousness with lunges and squats but it’s a process. I also am not disposing of the few items I use for really dirty jobs. Soon I’ll be back to doing yard work plus we have a big, sweaty move ahead of us- worse than last time, since we will be doing some of the heavy lifting this time and leaving the big items to the movers- so I’m not disposing of those grungy clothes suitable for those things as I do not intend to throw good money after bad to replace things that I fully expect to get dirty, stained, and possibly torn. That’s money I could spend on pretty clothes. Also, her advice to put most everything in drawers definitely doesn’t work for me. Partially because I already have 1.5 dressers full of clothes and buying another dresser would be an unnecessary expense when I have a closet that fits my clothes well. Also, my numerous chiffon and silk dresses would tell you, they do not want to live in a dark drawer. They are breezy and soft and like to hang so they can feel the cool breeze of the air conditioning.
Yet, I am working on getting rid of some of my extra t-shirts and I even pared down my running clothes a bit yesterday. I will see what actually gets used over the next year and will easily dispose of items that aren’t properly comfortable or that don’t fit right, even if the item is a reminder of a great race or a great time in my life. Things don’t replace memories; except in the case of my sister’s things, which I cannot bring myself to give to anyone else. The KonMari method advises dumping sentimental items as well… but I am not there yet. I’m not worried about what she calls “rebound,” where the house again becomes “untidy” because things accumulate and don’t have a place to live within the home. This isn’t my problem, really, except where paper is concerned. I need to do some serious shredding and getting rid of papers. However, within our home, even our small apartment, most things tend to have their place. My husband is more prone to clutter in his areas but he has said he will read the book too and partially, the issue is that we do not currently have the proper furniture/ storage for everything.
First I need to tackle my beasts though.
My plan of attack for now is to lessen our load for the upcoming move. It will be tricky as our second bedroom/ storage area is a mess and the books are packed in the back corner, because we didn’t think we’d be pulling them out at any time. Yet, those are what I’m feeling moved to tackle. I can already think of particular volumes that escaped the last thinning that I don’t think I will ever read again and bear no future possibility of being used for research or homeschooling. I’m even considering finally parting with my old lecture notes and some of my old papers. That’s hard to do for me, but I will see. At last count, I had about 3 or 4 5 inch bound collections from my times in undergrad and graduate school. If I could even pare that down to 1 binder, that would be astounding. Thankfully, I think the majority of my notes from grad school are on my computer, so I’d mostly be getting rid of undergrad stuff and if I haven’t touched it in 7 years, I doubt I will again.
These are not the parameters of the KonMari method. She has very clear guidelines of gathering all of a certain item: shirts, pants, books, etc., onto the floor and touching each one then deciding if it gives you joy. Toss what doesn’t. After you finish tossing everything, then you consider storage. You store things in a specific place; each item has its own little home. She even suggests unpacking your purse every night after getting home. Well, that would lead to a disaster for me because if I don’t have my work ID every day, all work halts. Also, it’s enough of a challenge every morning to remember everything I need for my 10 hours away from home and to have the time to gather it all. My purse, if suffering from being stuffed full every day and night, will just have to accept it is fulfilling its life purpose that way. Yes, the book pretty much speaks that way about inanimate objects having feelings.
Anyhow, I’m generally enjoying the book, even if I don’t think all of it will pertain to our lives. I definitely agree with getting rid of all the paper that seems to accumulate in our house. I’ve gotten better about shredding items as they come in (nothing with our names or address leave the house unshredded) but I still have other items that come in that need to be filed… or tossed… and I just haven’t touched those piles. Which means when I tackle the books, I can pull out our file boxes to deal with what’s in those.
One way I don’t agree with the KonMari is in the case of photos and sentimental items. History is made up of people’s memories in these forms. My children or great-great-grandchildren may want to see what I looked like as a child and read my old letters. If I happen to be a part of some later important society, what I have left of personal value to me may be all that speaks to my life, or even speak to the lives of people in this time overall. Think Pompeii. Pictures and mementos may give later historians an idea of life today, or it may just give my later generations ideas of how we lived now. As an historian, I find this an important aspect of the field and I don’t believe that all our digital files will necessarily survive any major catastrophes, even with our clouds and backups, etc.
Overall, it’s a great system to implement. I think Kondo fails to address the current state of rampant consumerism, as she constantly talks about shopping for new things in the book. I think we should all look at why we keep trying to buy things to fill some hole in us so that when we declutter our lives in the way she recommends, we don’t keep cycling things in and out until we actually needs to replace something. I’m working on that one too. I agree with Kondo that we are all surrounded by too many things and working to thin out what doesn’t actually suit us is an important endeavor.
Have any of you read the book? If so, have you implemented in full or in part and found it helpful?
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