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

by Marie Kondō

Effective tidying involves only two essential actions: discarding and deciding where to store things. Of the two, discarding must come first.

take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?” If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.

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.

Every object has a different role to play. Not all clothes have come to you to be worn threadbare. It is the same with people. Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those special people even more.

The key is to store things standing up rather than laid flat.

The most basic rule is to hang clothes in the same category side by side, dividing your closet into a jacket section, a suit section, and so on.

By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses.

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.

above, 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.

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 a fear for the future?”