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

by Marie Kondō

I started reading home and lifestyle magazines when I was five, and it was this that inspired me, from the age of fifteen, to undertake a serious study of tidying that led to my development of the KonMari Method (based on a combination of my first and last names). I am now a consultant and spend most of my days visiting homes and offices, giving hands-on advice to people who find it difficult to tidy, who tidy but suffer rebounds, or who want to tidy but don’t know where to start.

This is what really makes her advice credible. She isn't someone who came up with a method of organizing to get rich or sell books, this is who she is.

Many people get the urge to clean up when under pressure, such as just before an exam. But this urge doesn’t occur because they want to clean their room. It occurs because they need to put “something else” in order.

This doesn’t mean that tidying your room will actually calm your troubled mind. While it may help you feel refreshed temporarily, the relief won’t last because you haven’t addressed the true cause of your anxiety. If you let the temporary relief achieved by tidying up your physical space deceive you, you will never recognize the need to clean up your psychological space. This was true for me. Distracted by the “need” to tidy my room, it took me so long to get down to studying that my grades were always terrible.

Although not large, the space I live in is graced only with those things that speak to my heart. My lifestyle brings me joy.

Now imagine yourself living in a space that contains only things that spark joy. Isn’t this the lifestyle you dream of?

What things will bring you joy if you keep them as part of your life?

The true purpose of a present is to be received. Presents are not “things” but a means for conveying someone’s feelings.

It is not our memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure. This is the lesson these keepsakes teach us when we sort them. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.