Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Volume review : The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Ane-sentence summary of "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up — The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" : The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is an introduction to the KonMari Method, a storage and tidying method that will transform your messy living areas into spaces of beauty, peace and inspiration.

By Marie Kondo, 2011, 270 pages

Original title : Jinsei Ga Tokimeku Katazuke No Maho

This is a invitee chronicle written by Amanda Saurin from the weblog Flirtation, Style & Beauté

Volume chronicle and summary of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:

The KonMari Method in 2 points:

Get rid of useless things
Organise your living space one time and for all

Marie Kondo explains that living in an orderly space positively affects all the other aspects of our lives. An untidy room is the reflection of a heed that is in the same condition. A spectacular reorganisation of your interior can atomic number 82 to dramatic changes in your lifestyle and your vision of life.

Feedback from some of Marie Kondo'due south onetime clients:

"Later on taking your course, I quit my job and launched my own business doing something I had dreamed of doing ever since I was a kid".

"I'thousand delighted to written report that since cleaning up my apartment, I've been able to really increase my sales".

"My husband I are getting forth much better."

"I'm amazed to find that just throwing things away has changed me so much. I finally managed to lose three kilos"

Chapter ane: Why can't I go on my house in order?

According to Marie Kondo, the art of tidying is non acquired naturally, and we need to be taught about storage methods. That is why it is perfectly normal that we practise not chief the art of tidying. With the right approach, the rebound effect (the kind of yoyo issue you run into in dieting) will never return and your living infinite will be permanently tidy.

How to keep when it comes to tidying your living space (home, part, etc.):

Tidy properly and in one case and for all
Tidying everything in one get should lead to a dramatic modify in your country of mind. Yous have to definitively forget whatever notion of throwing things abroad little by little, considering information technology is the all-time style to get a slave to tidying and to lose all motivation. Marie Kondo says that to tidy to perfection, you lot simply demand to know what you have to discard and where to tidy what y'all keep.
Sort by category, not by location
Instead of deciding to tidy this or that room today, the best thing is to set yourself the objective of tidying by category of items. For example: tidy every single item of habiliment today, so every single book tomorrow, etc.

We have to confront two kinds of tidying in life:

Everyday tidying (putting something that you use over the course of a day back in its identify)
Special tidying (tidying that y'all only perform once, in one go)

Once the day of special tidying is over (and it happens very rarely), all you have left to do is the daily tidying. This makes "perseverance" in matters of tidying unnecessary, given that the existent tidying only happens one time.

Chapter 2: Stop discarding first

Pace i: Before discarding, you lot need to visualise your desired lifestyle. You have to imagine your dream interior down to the smallest detail. For example, having a house that is equally uncluttered as a hotel room, a clear view of your favourite painting, etc.

Step ii: Enquire yourself why you want this kind of infinite.

To do this, ask yourself the post-obit question about each detail you want in your interior:

Why do I want information technology? (e.g.: why do I want a minimalist sleeping room?)

Through the answers to these questions, y'all should get in at the determination that in the terminate in that location is only one purpose when information technology comes to deciding what to throw away and what to keep: "to make us happy"

Pace 3: Take stock of your possessions

Pace four: Cull what to discard and what to go along. The best way to practise this is to hold the object (or detail of clothing) in your hands for a moment and ask yourself whether information technology sparks joy (makes you happy). This is the path to finding yourself in an interior that makes you happy.

Affiliate 3: How to tidy by category

To make discarding and tidying easier, you should go on category past category, in the post-obit order:

1. Clothing

Gather every item of habiliment you own in one place and rank them past sub-categories:

Tops
Bottoms
Clothes you hang upward
Socks
Underwear
Handbags, etc.
Accessories
Clothes for specific occasions (swimwear, hats, etc.)
Shoes

What not to practice:

Never downgrade clothes you wear outdoors to clothes you merely wear at home (except for cotton wool t-shirts). It is the perfect strategy to put off that moment when you get rid of wearing apparel that no longer spark joy. We spend a lot of fourth dimension at home, and it is not because nobody sees united states that we should plow a loungewear item of wear into a second-class item of clothing. In fact, it is precisely when nobody is looking that you should strengthen your self-epitome by wearing indoor wearing apparel that are comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Loungewear clothes should exist purchased in specialist shops or departments and please you visually.

To ameliorate determine whether the particular of clothing that you are holding in your hands brings you joy or not, ask yourself the following questions:

What place does it have in my life?
When did I get it?
What importance did it accept at the time?

2. Books

The KonMari Method recommends laying out every single volume you own on the flooring with the embrace facing up.

If you have too many books, they should be separated into 4 groups:

General reading: books you read to relax
Practical reading: reference books, cookbooks, etc.
Visual books: collections of photos, etc.
Magazines

The idea is to only proceed the books that make united states happy on our shelves.

You lot demand to get rid of:

Books you have never read
Books you barely started or stopped halfway through

Owning fewer books amplifies the impact of the information you read. When you come up across a book, it is time to read it.

3. Papers

Marie Kondo advises the states to throw abroad every single paper that does not fall into one of these categories:

In electric current use
Of limited usefulness in time
To go on indefinitely
Warranties

Gather all the papers to be sorted in one identify, and the same applies to papers that need to exist kept indefinitely. The papers to keep tin can then be separated into iii different storage piles. I file for papers that do non need to be consulted very often (charter, contract of insurance, etc.), 1 file for the papers that we utilise more oftentimes and one file for warranties.

What non to do:

Concur onto documents distributed at seminars. Marie Kondo is convinced that if we don't put everything that we acquire over the course of such seminars into practice, information technology is precisely because we hang onto this documentation.
Keep account statements and empty chequebooks.
Keep user manuals (except for computer or camera guides).

4. Miscellaneous objects (coins, minor objects, gadgets, etc.)

Marie Kondo calls these various objects Komono. They are scary to sort, but if we do it in the right order, it becomes very easy.

How to sort miscellaneous objects:

CDs, DVDs
Skincare products
Make-upward
Accessories
Valuable items (passport, bank menu, etc.)
Household appliances (digital photographic camera, electrical cords, annihilation that seems vaguely electric)
Household equipment (writing implements, knitting needles, etc.)
Other household supplies (medicines, detergents, tissues, etc.)
Cooking utensils, food.
Others

The next pace is to get rid of each of the useless objects on this list, and to keep and shop those that bring us joy (respecting the order of the Komono sorting listing).

Coins

It is not a skillful thought for coins to accrue in various places around the dwelling house. They should all be kept in your pocketbook (not in a piggy depository financial institution) or deposited at the bank.

Throwing away things that we keep "just in instance"

Yous know what these objects are — they can be identified instantly as intended for the bin without even asking yourself "Does this bring me joy?"

Listing of these objects:

Gifts
Storage boxes for mobile phones
Unidentified electrical cables
Spare buttons
Boxes for household appliances
Televisions and radios that do not work
Sleeping space for friends who never come to stay
Samples of cosmetic products that you lot continue for travel
The latest wellness products
Free publicity gadgets

v. Objects with deep sentimental value

Souvenirs

These are objects we find it hard to split ourselves from, because nosotros are afraid that we might forget the precious moments associated with these souvenirs. In reality, we must tell ourselves that precious memories practice not fly away merely considering we discard these tokens. We accept to live in the present moment, and there is no use in hanging onto memories of the by that we would have forgotten without these objects. The pleasure and enthusiasm we feel in the nowadays moment are more than of import.

What non to do:

Give these objects that have strong sentimental value to your family as they will in plough become disorderly

Photos

Marie Kondo recommends gathering every single one of your photos in one place and merely keeping the ones that stir upwards emotions within you.

What non to practise:

Keep photos that belonged to people who accept died (for instance, photos that belonged to your grandfather).

We should not be cherishing the memories, simply the person that we have become thank you to these past experiences. Our interior is intended for the individual we are in the process of becoming and not for the person we were in the past.

In one case you lot accept added lodge to your interior and the volume of your possessions has decreased, y'all should be able to perceive the nature of your true values. You will know what is really important in your life. The possessions that we have too many of, just which we cannot bring ourselves to separate from are non the ones that we have the about intendance of — in fact it is quite the opposite. Past returning to a volume of possessions that we can reasonably manage, we re-energise our relationship with our things. Separating yourself from things that are of no use is non wasteful.

Follow your intuition and all will be well

Marie Kondo explains that the procedure for selecting objects is very personal. To avert the rebound effect, yous must create your ain storage method using your own standards. That is why it is so important to understand your feelings well-nigh each one of your possessions.

The process of selecting objects that bring you joy allows you lot to identify what yous love and what y'all need. The possession that you are holding in your easily triggers a number of emotions. These feelings are authentic. By basing yourself on this intuition, you can lead a more harmonious life and observe some dramatic changes over time. Marie Kondo goes so far equally to say that it volition be as if your life will be touched by grace. Tidying your interior volition be the magic behind a happier and livelier life.

Chapter 4: Storing your things to brand your life smooth

Designate a place for each thing

Without predefined storage compartments for each object, it is very difficult to know where to store things after using them. The solution is therefore to have a specific place to store each category of possessions. Equally soon as you utilize an particular or innovate a new item into your living infinite, it must be stored in its rightful identify. In this way your interior volition remain orderly.

Discard kickoff, store afterward

Tidying, even if you adopt the most efficient method, is of no use unless you lot first get rid of everything that is superfluous (everything that does not spark joy). The rebound upshot will exist inevitable.

Storage: pursue ultimate simplicity

To proceed a room tidy, the secret is to search for the ultimate simplicity. It is preferable to opt for the simplest storage method possible in order to call up what possessions you lot accept.

Don't scatter storage spaces

The dominion is to put all the items from the aforementioned category in the same identify and non to scatter storage spaces. If several people live in the aforementioned place, it is essential to define, insofar as possible, one location per person. Having your personal space is a source of happiness, and gives yous the feeling that information technology belongs to you just, making you want to keep it tidy.

Forget about 'flow planning' and 'frequency of employ'

Storing according to a catamenia program means storing according to the manner in which the inhabitants move around a home. All that this achieves is to scatter storage spaces around the unabridged business firm. The aforementioned applies to the frequency of use of a given object. There is no point in storing objects according to their frequency of use. It is much easier to store everything as just as possible in relation to the living infinite, and that is that.

Never pile things, vertical storage is the cardinal

The KonMari method recommends never stacking things. Stacking your possessions gives an impression of having endless storage space. Marie Kondo explains that vertical storage is essential, even for apparel. In fact, she has developed a vertical folding method that she says is extremely efficient. Vertical storage is also a form of respect for our possessions, considering no object has to comport the weight of another on top of it.

No need for commercial storage items

The merely storage compartments we demand are unproblematic drawers and boxes, naught special or sophisticated.

The best way to store bags is in another bag

The about efficient way to store your bags is to identify them 1 inside the other. Nevertheless, ideally you shouldn't store besides many bags inside one other purse, two is a skillful compromise. Call back to allow the straps of the "host" to hang out and then as not to forget the beingness of the bag existence hosted.

Empty your bag every twenty-four hours

Emptying your bag allows you lot to throw away useless things that you accumulate over the class of the day (receipts, handkerchiefs, etc.) and to give it a "balance". An empty bag will keep its shape for longer and bring us greater satisfaction on a daily footing. The best style to empty your bag is to store its contents vertically (apart from what you are throwing abroad) in a drawer or a box (like a shoe box) placed in a nearby location to the bag in question.

Items that usurp floor space belong in the closet

According to the KonMari method, it is much more efficient to put all our storage elements in our closet or wardrobe (even suitcases).

Go along things out of the bath and the kitchen sink

It is preferable not to exit anything on the side of the bath to avert whatsoever slimy deposits under the products and to facilitate cleaning the bathtub. The same applies to the kitchen sink, the ideal existence non to leave annihilation on it and to dry dishes as soon as they are washed.

Decorate your closet with your secret delights

Certain elements that you similar and that you do non want to display (posters, photos etc.) can be used to decorate the inside of your storage areas. Your storage spaces are your own personal paradise.

Unpack and de-tag new wearing apparel immediately

Unwrapping and taking the tags off clothes helps the clothes to move from the status of "shop products" to that of personal belongings.

Don't underestimate the "racket" of written data

By removing the superfluous visual data (storage compartment labels, tags on new habiliment, plastic ad covering on some detergents or deodorants, etc.) which is of no joy, we tin manage to make our interior much more peaceful and comfortable.

Appreciate your possessions and proceeds strong allies

Saying thank you to your personal belongings on a daily basis for the adept services they return over the class of one day and assigning them a very specific place within the home is beneficial to them. Handling your belongings with respect allows them to display greater vitality and therefore to terminal longer.

Chapter v: The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life

Put your business firm in guild and discover what you lot really want to do

Marie Kondo states that her clients frequently tell her that since they tidied their living infinite, they have discovered what they really desire to practice in life. Some start their own business, others change jobs and however others accept a greater interest in their profession. Her clients too feel more enthusiasm for their hobbies, their dwelling and their family life. Tidying makes us more aware of what nosotros love and makes our daily life more than heady.

The magic effect of tidying dramatically transforms your life

Tidying changes life dramatically and this is truthful for everyone, 100%. That is what the KonMari Method calls "The magic of tidying up". The bear upon of the "magic of tidying up" is phenomenal and one of the magical effects of tidying is increased conviction in our ability to take decisions.

In fact, tidying your living space means that you have held several hundred or even several thou objects in your hands and wondered whether they bring you joy and whether you want to continue or discard them. This procedure naturally enables us to increase our capacity to take decisions and our self-confidence.

Gaining confidence in life through the magic of tidying

Marie Kondo here refers to her issues of the past and explains that a reassuring interior increases self-confidence. If we have confidence in our belongings, in the clothes we wear, in the people around us and in our environment, and so there is a strong chance that we volition feel more self-confident. These things and these people are all special, valuable and incredibly love to our eye, they bring united states of america joy, support united states of america and assistance united states of america to believe in our capabilities.

An zipper to the by or anxiety about the future

The two real reasons that brand it difficult to split yourself from an object are the following: delivery to the by or fear of the future.

If you lot can recognise your commitment to the past and your fears nearly the hereafter past observing your property in complete objectivity, you volition be able to perceive what is truly important for you. By trusting in your decisions and taking action with enthusiasm and without being hampered by any dubiety, and then you will be able to find more success.

Learning that you can do without

Discarding objects that provide no joy has no harmful side effects. That is why once you have finished tidying up using the KonMari Method you will not suffer because of it. This proves that before tidying you spent all your fourth dimension surrounded past things that you did not need.

Practice you lot greet your house?

Greeting your home every time that you enter it is an infallible manner of honing the capacity to know what objects are useful to yous and in their rightful place. Call up to systematically greet your house when yous make it with a elementary "Hi, I'yard back" or "Thank you for giving me a roof" out loud or in your head and you volition feel that it responds to you. That way, you lot will gradually be able to know what function of your house wants to be tidied and where it would like us to put things. The process of tidying is the opportunity to express our gratitude to our habitation for everything that it does for usa.

Your possessions desire to help yous

Everything nosotros ain, without exception, has one desire — to exist of use to us. That is why, in one case it has gone, an object will leave the free energy of its usefulness behind it. Freed from its physical course, it will evolve in our world in the grade of energy, revealing to other objects that we are a special person.

Your living space affects your trunk

Once we ain fewer things and nosotros "cleanse" our dwelling house, the same process of detoxification also takes identify inside the body. The main reason that tidying up has a positive effect on the trunk is the satisfaction you feel through the process. By observing her clients, Marie Kondo noticed that when they got rid of books and documents, their ideas became clearer and when they reduced their quantity of dazzler products and tidied the space located effectually the sink and the bathtub, their complexion was clearer and their skin softer.

Is it true that tidying increases proficient fortune?

Organising your interior to be comfy, dynamic and happy each day is skilful fortune. By tidying your domicile, you tin can live naturally. Choose things that requite you pleasure and cherish what is really and truly precious to you. Nothing can bring you greater happiness than to deed in a unproblematic and natural manner. If you want to call that adept fortune, then putting guild into your home would be a adept way to benefit from information technology.

How to identify what is truly precious

Marie Kondo explains in this role that at that place is no uncertainty whatsoever that her clients have a different reaction depending on whether or not they dearest the object that they are holding in their hands or whether they are unsure about their option. When they hold an object that is a source of pleasure, the decision is usually made instantly and their eyes shine. On the other hand, if the object does not spark joy, their hands become still, their heads await up and their forehead furrows. This is why the author can succeed in identifying at a glance which objects bring joy to her clients or non.

Existence surrounded by things that spark joy makes y'all happy

If the object you lot desire to proceed is nonsensical and makes you almost aback of it, but information technology brings y'all real joy, and then you must continue it. If you are able to say with certainty "I really love it!" no matter what others may say and if you are proud to own it, then you shouldn't worry about what other people think.

Your real life begins after putting your business firm in social club

Tidying should not exist a daily task: we are not supposed to spend our entire lives on information technology. Tidying should be done thoroughly and quickly, in one go. The merely chore that you lot will accept to perform at the end of each solar day is to cull what to keep and what to discard and to love the things that yous decide to continue. Let'southward spend our time on the things that give united states pleasance, on our mission in life. Marie Kondo is convinced that tidying your abode will help you lot to find the mission that speaks to your heart. That is why life will only really begin one time your house is in lodge.

Conclusions about The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Upward presents storage methods in a new way. Tidying up becomes an fine art that can transform our lives dramatically. Tidy and discard in i go to only keep objects that bring us joy and make us happy, considering afterward we will exist surrounded only by the things that brand u.s. happy. The magic of tidying up besides allows united states of america to increase our conclusion-making ability and cocky-confidence and offers a clearer vision of what we really want from life once all the superfluous things have been removed from our living space. A new life is available to u.s. in one case our house is in club.

I myself have applied the KonMari Method, although peradventure not as radically as the book recommends, but I tin assure y'all that this tidying has already transformed my life. I feel I am in a better land of mind, the time I spend at home is even more enjoyable, I no longer take allergies and curiously, I feel even more than productive and passionate near my work. And, I have even made savings, because I no longer buy things without a valid reason and I am very conscientious about what comes into my abode. The selection procedure is ruthless, but the things that will be lucky enough to take their identify aslope the things that are already present in my interior volition have earned their place.

The American entrepreneur Tim Ferriss, author of Tools of Giants explores the theme of decluttering in his bestseller The iv-Hour Workweek and in fact, he has even made it 1 of the pillars of his life balancing method.

Book critique of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Yous tin can sense that Marie Kondo's doctrine is business firm, but non unkind. Readers of her volume on The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Upwards volition feel that they take been taken firmly past the hand, but never judged on their weaknesses. I am convinced that if the precepts of the book are properly applied past the reader, life volition better in a much more meaning way than you could always take imagined at the outset.

Stiff Points :

A fast and enjoyable read
The benefits of each activity that you lot can put into place are explained
Short, interesting and sometimes agreeable stories illustrate some passages

Weak Signal :

The exercises to apply (peculiarly for the "dress" role) lack illustrations

The 5 principles of the KonMari Method:

Simply go on the things that bring joy to your life.
Merely declutter one kind of object at a time instead of tidying the various spaces inside your home.
Understand that "someday" means "never".
As you de-clutter, pick up each item individually.
Treat the items that remain with respect.

My rating :

Have you lot read "The Life-Irresolute Magic of Tidying Up"? How do you lot charge per unit information technology?

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