The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Magic Cleaning #1)

by Marie Kondō

tidying, the job that keeps a home livable,

we should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.

When you touch a piece of clothing, your body reacts. Its response to each item is different. Trust me and try it.

Therefore, the best criterion for choosing what to keep and what to discard is whether keeping it will make you happy, whether it will bring you joy.

In an overwhelming percentage of cases, it is the mother who retrieves things from her daughter, yet mothers rarely wear the clothes they take.

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

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.

Can you truthfully say that you treasure something buried so deeply in a closet or drawer that you have forgotten its existence? If things had feelings, they would certainly not be happy. Free them from the prison to which you have relegated them.

If you see a cord and wonder what on earth it’s for, chances are you’ll never use it again. Mysterious cords will always remain just that—a mystery.

Your parents’ home is not a haven for mementos

No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past. The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important. So, once again, the way to decide what to keep is to pick up each item and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?”

effective storage is this: designate a spot for every last thing you own.

But when we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.

Life becomes far easier once you know that things will still work out even if you are lacking something.

Human beings can only truly cherish a limited number of things at one time. As I am both lazy and forgetful, I can’t take proper care of too many things. That is why I want to cherish properly the things I love, and that is why I have insisted on tidying for so much of my life.