The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

by Marie Kondō

There was a waiting list not only for cancellations, but also just to get on the waiting list. Yet my repeater rate is zero. From a business perspective, this would appear to be a fatal flaw. But what if no repeaters were actually the secret to the popularity of my approach?

When it comes to tidying, we are all self-taught.

Yet in most societies tidying, the job that keeps a home livable, is completely disregarded because of the misconception that the basic ability to tidy is acquired through experience and therefore doesn’t require training.

Many people may protest when I use the word ‘perfection’, insisting that it’s an impossible goal. But don’t worry. Tidying in the end is just a physical act. The work involved can be broadly divided into two kinds: deciding whether or not to throw something away and deciding where to put it.

discarding and deciding where to keep things. Just two, but discarding must come first. Be sure to completely finish the first task before starting the next. Do not even think of putting your things away until you have finished the process of discarding. Failure to follow this order is one reason many people never make permanent progress.

To summarise, the secret of success is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible, and to start by discarding.

Now that you can picture the lifestyle you dream of, is it time to move on to discarding? No, not yet.

Your next step is to identify why you want to live like that.

When I found something not in use, I would pounce on it vengefully and throw it in the rubbish. Not surprisingly, I became increasingly irritable and tense and found it impossible to relax even in my own home.

throwing things away can only bring unhappiness. Why? Because we should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.

‘Does this spark joy?’

Don’t just open up your wardrobe and decide after a cursory glance that everything in it gives you a thrill. You must take each outfit in your hand. When you touch a piece of clothing, your body reacts. Its response to each item is different. Trust me and try it.

Gathering every item in one place is essential to this process because it gives you an accurate grasp of how much you have.

Things stored out of sight are dormant. This makes it much harder to decide if they inspire joy or not. By exposing them to the light of day and jolting them alive, so to speak, you’ll find it’s surprisingly easy to judge if they touch your heart.

In addition to the physical value of things, there are three additional factors that add value to our belongings: function, information and emotional attachment. When the element of rarity is added, the difficulty in choosing what to get rid of multiplies.

People have trouble discarding things that they could still use (functional value), that contain helpful information (informational value) and that have sentimental ties (emotional value). When these things are hard to obtain or replace (rarity), they become even harder to throw away.

The best sequence is this: clothes first, then books, papers, miscellaneous items (komono) and, lastly, sentimental items and keepsakes.

If you live with your family, you could ask them, ‘Is there something you need that you were planning to buy?’ before you start tidying, and then if you happen to come across exactly what they need, give it to them as a gift.

Far from apologising for discarding their things without permission, I would retort, ‘I threw it out for you because you weren’t capable of doing it yourself.’ In retrospect, I must admit that I was pretty arrogant.

Throwing away other people’s things without permission demonstrates a sad lack of common sense.

Besides, it just isn’t right. If you really want your family to tidy up, there is a much easier way to go about it.

To quietly work away at disposing of your own excess is actually the best way of dealing with a family that doesn’t tidy.

It may sound incredible, but when someone starts tidying it sets off a chain reaction.

If you feel annoyed with your family for being untidy, I urge you to check your own space, especially your storage. You are bound to find things that need to be thrown away. The urge to point out someone else’s failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space.

‘Look at that. I was surrounded by all this stuff that I didn’t even like.’ Her sister’s hand-me-downs had comprised over a third of her wardrobe, but hardly any of these had given her that important thrill of pleasure.

Don’t misunderstand me. Giving things you can’t use to others who can is an excellent idea. Not only is it economical, it can also be a source of great joy to see these things being enjoyed and treasured by someone close to you. But that is not the same as forcing things on to your family members because you can’t bring yourself to discard them. Whether the victim is a sibling, a parent or a child, this particular custom should be banned.

Human judgement can be divided into two broad types: intuitive and rational. When it comes to selecting what to discard, it is actually our rational judgement that causes trouble.

it has fulfilled another important function – it has taught you what doesn’t suit you. In fact, that particular article of clothing has already completed its role in your life, and you are free to say, ‘Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you,’ or ‘Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me,’ and let it go.

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

Can you truthfully say that you treasure something buried so deeply in a cupboard or drawer that you have forgotten its existence?

Start with clothes then move on to books, papers, miscellaneous items (komono) and finally things with sentimental value. If you reduce what you own in this order, your work will proceed with surprising ease.

If you are a woman, wear something feminine or elegant as nightwear. The worst thing you can do is to wear a sloppy sweat suit. I occasionally meet people who dress like this all the time, whether waking or sleeping. If sweat pants are your everyday attire, you’ll end up looking like you belong in them, which is not very attractive. What you wear in the house does impact on your self-image.

my handwriting had to be neat. To copy 10 quotations from a single book would take at least half an hour, and that was a low estimate. The thought of doing this for 40 books made me dizzy. My next plan was to use a copy machine. I would copy the sections I wanted to keep and cut and paste them into the notebook. This, I thought, should be much quicker and easier. But when I tried it, it was even more work. I finally decided to rip the relevant page out of the book. Pasting pages into a notebook was also a pain, so I simplified the process by slipping them into a file instead. This only took five minutes per book and I managed to get rid of 40 books and keep the words that I liked. I was extremely pleased with the results. Two years after launching this ‘bulk reduction method’, I had a sudden flash of realisation. I had never once looked at the file I created. All that effort had just been to ease my own conscience.

Recently, I have noticed that having fewer books actually increases the impact of the information I read. I recognise necessary information much more easily. Many of my clients, particularly those who have thrown away a substantial number of books and papers, have also mentioned this. For books, timing is everything. The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it. To avoid missing that moment, I recommend that you keep your collection small.

My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away. My clients are stunned when I say this, but there is nothing more annoying than papers. After all, they will never inspire joy, no matter how carefully you keep them. For this reason, I recommend you throw out anything that does not fall into one of three categories: currently in use, needed for a limited period of time, and must be kept indefinitely.

As you put your house in order and decrease your possessions, you’ll see what your true values are, what is really important to you in your life. But don’t focus on reducing or on efficient storage methods, for that matter. Focus instead on choosing the things that inspire joy and on enjoying life according to your own standards. This is the true pleasure of tidying. If you have not yet felt a click, don’t worry. You can still reduce.

The amount of storage space you have in your room is actually just right. I can’t count how many times people have complained to me that they don’t have enough room but I have yet to see a house that lacked sufficient storage. The real problem is that we have far more than we need or want. Once you learn to choose your belongings properly, you will be left only with the amount that fits perfectly in the space you currently own. This is the true magic of tidying.

my storage method is extremely simple. I have only two rules: store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space.

Clutter has only two possible causes: too much effort is required to put things away or it is unclear where things belong.

Many people design their storage to match the flow of traffic within their house, but how do you think that flow plan developed in the first place? In almost every case, a flow plan is determined not by what a person does during the day but by where he or she stores things. We may think that we have stored things to suit our behaviour, but usually we have unconsciously adjusted our actions to match where things are stored. Laying out storage space to follow the current flow plan will only disperse storage throughout the house.

THERE ARE PEOPLE who stack everything in piles, be it books, papers or clothes. But this is a great waste. When it comes to storage, vertical is best. I am particularly obsessed with this point. I store everything vertically if possible, including clothes, which I fold and stand on edge in my drawers,

Basically, the only storage items you need are plain old drawers and boxes – you don’t need anything special or fancy. People often ask me what I recommend, no doubt expecting me to reveal some hitherto secret storage weapon. But I can tell you right now: there is no need to buy dividers or any other gadget. You can solve your storage problems with things you already have in the house. The most common item I use is an empty shoebox.

In fact, the boxes that contain many Apple products are the right size and design for storage so if you have any, I recommend using them as dividers in your drawers. They are perfect for storing pens, pencils and other writing tools. Another standard item is extra plastic food containers, which can be used to store small items in the kitchen.

I don’t recommend using round, heart-shaped or irregular-shaped containers as dividers because they usually waste space. However, if a particular box gives you a thrill when you hold it, that’s different.

After thinking for a moment, I typed the simple message ‘Thank you for everything’ and added a heart symbol. Then I pressed send. My old phone rang immediately and I checked my messages. Of course it was the text I had just sent. ‘Great. My message reached you. I really wanted to say thanks for all you have done,’ I said to my old phone. Then I closed it with a click. A few minutes later, I opened my old phone and was surprised to find that the screen was blank. No matter what button I pressed, the screen did not respond. My phone, which had never broken since the day I first got it, had gone dead after receiving my message.

Once my clients have learnt to treat their clothes with respect, they always tell me, ‘My clothes last longer. My sweaters don’t pill as easily, and I don’t spill things on them as much either.’ This suggests that caring for your possessions is the best way to motivate them to support you, their owner.

‘When I put my house in order, I discovered what I really wanted to do.’ These are words I hear frequently from my clients. For the majority, the experience of tidying causes them to become more passionately involved in their work.

Tidying means taking each item in your hand, asking yourself if it sparks joy, and deciding on this basis whether or not to keep it. By repeating this process hundreds and thousands of times, we naturally hone our decision-making skills.

During the selection process, if you come across something that does not spark joy but that you just can’t bring yourself to throw away, stop a moment and ask yourself, ‘Am I having trouble getting rid of this because of an attachment to the past or because of fear for the future?’ Ask this for every one of these items.

The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t. Quests to faraway places or shopping sprees are no longer necessary.