The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
It explores how putting your space in order causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective.
Marie Kondo, the author, recommends that you start by discarding and only then thoroughly organize your space in one go.
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Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved.
Organizing all your junk better does not equal getting rid of clutter. And unfortunately most people leap at storage methods that promise quick and convenient ways to remove visible clutter.
For example, set goals like âclothes today, books tomorrow.âÂ
We often store the same type of item in more than one place and when we tidy each place separately, we fail to see that weâre repeating the same work in many locations.Â
- Discarding - getting rid of everything you donât need, by asking âDoes this spark joy?â, while holding the items, one by one;
- Deciding where to store things;
RELATED IDEAS
- This process may not be realistic for larger spaces or families:Â This guide is written from the point of view of a single woman in her early 30's who lives in a small flat in Japan.
- Category sorting may not be as effective if you have a family.
- Untagging clothes and immediately hanging them in your closet doesn't always make sense.
- The book doesn't address how to deal with children's toys.
- Discarding by category comes first (clothes first, then books, papers etc.)
- Break a category into subcategories (e.g. Tops: shirts, sweaters etc.)
- Keep only those things that spark joy (pick them one by one and decide if they stay or not)
- After you've finished discarding, organize your space thoroughly and completely (store all items of the same type in the same place)
- Do it all in one go (tidy up in one shot, rather than little by little).
"To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose."