BOOKS
THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC
Of Tidying Up
BOOKS
ing Magic of Tidying Up”.
Kondo sets some traditional ideas about tidying
up on their ear. Foremost
among these set-aside
ideas is the notion that
tidying happens a little
bit daily. Instead of an
ongoing, losing battle
against clutter, Kondo
recommends a single intensive occasion of tidying that trims down your
belongings to those that
spark joy, each kept in its
proper place. She makes
the case that when this
is done and we naturally take up the habit of
returning things to their
proper place when we
finish using them, there is
no ongoing tidying to do.
Cleaning, of course, but
not tidying. This is about
becoming far more mindful of the possessions we
own and our connection
to them. It’s a major shift
against the mainstream
current of endless purchasing without connecting.
Perhaps influenced by
her Shinto background,
Kondo’s approach is intuitive and animistic, sens-
M
ost of us have likely never contemplated the idea of thanking our socks or handbag
when we get home from a long day’s work, but Japanese tidying consultant Marie
Kondo suggests we do just that. If you think that’s a challenge, how about achieving a
state with your belongings where you no longer have to do daily tidying? For someone with
lifelong tendencies to accumulate clutter, the second statement seems even more magical than the first.
But it is magic we’re talking about here. Marie Kondo’s strong and enthusiastic client following and year-long waiting list testify to what she describes in her book “The Life-chang-
ing and respecting the
intelligence present in our
surroundings and encouraging us to do the same.
How many of us have
stopped to consider how
hard our shoes work to
carry us and protect our
feet? She has. How many
of us have thought about
how our clothes might
prefer to be folded? She
has. She recommends
we make decisions about
our possessions by physically picking them up
and sensing how we feel
about them. Then we can
decide to keep or release
them based on something deeper than the
mind’s chatter of “Well,
I need to hang onto this
CD because I might listen
to it again sometime”. It
gives us an opportunity to
process our past and release it, instead of hanging on. Then, when we
see that it is time to release something, we do
so with gratitude. Kondo
even suggests that the
items in our possession
wish us well and enjoy
serving us, and when we
release them, they come
back to bless us in differ-
ent forms. In other words,
even though it doesn’t attempt to wade into deep
philosophy, this little book
on cleaning up actually
encourages trust in a loving universe!
That said, don’t imagine this book is all magic
and no practicality. It
includes a step by step
guide for assessing the
items we own. Kondo
points out what we can
easily release and helps
to defuse any fearful tendency to stockpile items,
or to mindlessly acquire
more of what we already
have. Her tone is enthusiastic and encouraging,
yet brooks no nonsense
about trying to hang on
to things tha Ё