Marie Kondo changed the organizational movement with the English publication of her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2014. She went on to star in the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo in 2019 and Sparking Joy in 2021. Marie’s shipshape folding methods and advice to get rid of objects that don’t “spark joy,” including books, were both helpful and controversial. Many people found her decluttering extreme and that’s fine. Her methods are not for them. Marie had a recent press conference (as reported by the Washington Post), in which she admitted that her own home isn’t that tidy anymore. She welcomed her third child in April, 2021 and said that she’d rather spend time with her family than have an immaculate environment. Her new book, Kurashi at Home, focuses on life balance and creating joyful habits along with organization.
Kondo says that, for many, the perfectly organized space is not realistic. “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times,” she said at the event. “I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.”
Although her two Netflix series showed her helping people overwhelmed with emotion about their stuff, Kondo now drills down to a more tightly focused approach, helping people identify little activities to bring peace and joy on a deeper level.
Among Kondo’s personal joys: buying 100 percent silk or organic cotton pajamas, because they feel good and help her sleep; perusing her tea-leaf drawer and drinking tea three times a day to bring a sense of calm; and opening her childhood sewing box, which brings back warm memories…
Kondo says people have been asking her about her own lifestyle and personal rituals since her book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” published in the United States in 2014. “Tidying our homes, tidying our environment is also a way of tidying our minds,” she says. By organizing our hearts and minds, it becomes clear what we really want, Kondo says, adding that these are the things she is struggling with right now.
Kondo says she realizes that, as her children grow up, her way of life will change again. “I will keep looking inward to make sure I am leading my own kurashi,” she says.
Marie’s original methods were too hardcore for me, and as I’ve mentioned in past stories I follow Clutterbug/Cassandra Aarsen. She has a messier goal than Marie and her approach, of working with your natural organization tendencies, was more realistic for me. I like that Kondo has written a book that’s more about your lifestyle and making time and space for what matters. It’s healthy to adjust your outlook when your life changes and to prioritize other things. Let’s be real though, Marie Kondo’s untidy house is surely cleaner than mine will ever be, even if I worked my hardest. My place is decent but I could definitely improve. She’s talking about keeping everything absolutely perfect. I’ve never been able to fold tightly or pare down my possessions like that. I don’t feel like, threatened by her methods though, I just know they’re not for me.
Marie Kondo gotta be the most unlikely polarising figure of my lifetime, all that lady said was get rid of shit youre not happy with and I swear the media in this country has spent half a decade trying to find new gotchas to throw at her every week, it's beyond bizarre
— Shiv Ramdas Traing To Rite Buk (@nameshiv) January 27, 2023
people act like Marie Kondo held them at gunpoint and forced them to burn their books when her suggestions are all things like "maybe throwing out all those expired coupons in your drawer might make your life a little easier? if you love your expired coupons though enjoy them!!"
— Erika W. Smith (@erikawynn) January 27, 2023
the way all these people are like AHA VINDICATED!! like why did you take it so personally that she liked being tidy????
— bettina (@bettinamak) January 27, 2023
What a great headline. Laughed out loud.
3 kids will change the dynamics of your life.
Plus, I never bought into her rules anyhow.
Sarah Polley summed it up perfectly in a tweet over the weekend. It was something like “Marie Kondo owes an apology to everyone who had three kids already!”
Bullshit. She doesn’t owe anyone an apology. Marie Kondo never told anyone to get rid of things they cared about. She suggested that if something isn’t bringing you the joy it used to, maybe you don’t need it anymore. Or keep it because you can’t yet let it go, it’s perfectly fine.
The way she’s being misrepresented and mistreated is disgusting.
Agree with you, Ang.
On a bad day nothing sparks joy, on a good day everything sparks joy! I have gone back to the thrift store to buy a plate I donated, because it sparked joy after all and I missed it. I wish I had not donated a pair of sequined pumps even if they didn’t fit me anymore, just so I could look at them. Finger puppets? Gone.
There needs to be a halfway house for things so that you can go and get them back if you regret giving them away. I’m only half joking.
Sarah Polley usually has jokey type tweets where she said she didn’t get a BAFTA nom because she ate too many scones at the bafta tea party or that she was at the doctor’s office when the Oscar nom came in so I took her Marie Kondo tweet to be a joke as well. But she ended up deleting it because not everyone took it as a joke.
I would like to see her version of “less tidy.” I am confident her house still looks neater/tidier than most of the people who are calling her out for this. Being less tidy because you have 3 young kids doesn’t mean being a borderline hoarder is somehow more acceptable.
No I have to disagree – Marie has been misquoted so many times in the media it’s become a joke. She’s not interested if ppl don’t want to clean or organize using her method – for those that do – it’s about keep things that make u happy and giving ea object u keep or throw out a good thought of why u want to keep or leave it
it’s wild how antagonistic people have been toward Marie Kondo, given how much of her advice was common sense and had been circulating in some form or another on organization/decluttering blogs for yeaaarrrs with ZERO pushback
no one is forcing anyone to thank their socks or fold their undies a special way, yet people act like Marie Kondo spat in their faces and called them a bad mom! i can’t help but sense a whiff of white fragility about the whole thing
@MrsBanjo chill. It was funny.
You think she owes you an apology. Mrs Banjo is simply reminded you that she doesn’t owe you shit. NBD
why? you are an adult with your own thought and agency. nobody forced you to clean up if you didn’t want to. you check out her method because *you* thought it can help you. If it didn’t, just burn that book cause it didn’t spark joy in you.
She owes no one an apology. Noone was Forced to follow her advice. Good grief.
Is this MK’s way of saying she desperately needs a doula? Or some help around the house?
I winced when I read her new quotes. It sounded to me like she suddenly has a -lot- of work on her plate.
Hopefully the universe and thrift stores everywhere radiate good energy back to her.
This read like an Onion headline
Oh gosh thank you. I read a small article like this on the Guardian front page and was like « really?! ». Bless this world.
LOL yes!!!
I have nothing against MK. Her way is not for me. If she inspired some people to de-clutter and that made them feel better, that’s great. I could stand to be neater, but I’m never going get rid of all of my collections. And having kids just changes your priorities and possibilities.
She seems like a lovely person. Sure her methods aren’t for everyone but the consistent message is to do/keep what makes you happy.
Her message really helped me change my relationship with stuff. My space is still a mess and can look cluttered, but I’m not hoarding my families ‘heirlooms’ and gifts out of some sense of obligation. If you open my drawers, they’re not going to look neat, but everything in them belongs in them. If there is something in my house that I don’t like or can’t use, I have no problem letting it go. I really don’t get the hate. I also think the term ‘spark joy’ was completely misunderstood by everyone. My screwdrivers don’t bring me joy everyday, but they make my life easier when I need them.
It sparked the courage and determination that I needed to purge every single childhood and family photo that made me sad, even though they were in boxes in the shed. Lots of tears going through them but Wow, I felt so free afterwards.
Oh that must have been so hard! But so glad for you, Harla A B H. Live your best life xo
Same! Her idea to envision the life you want and to then create it has been so helpful to me in so many iterations of my life. With toddlers. With little ones. And now with an 8 and a 10 year old. It helps me focus on my priorities and how to achieve them. While also inviting me to question what in my life brings me joy and how I can make more room for joy. I love her.
Her method really worked well for me with clothes. It’s easy to think you don’t have that much, until you pile every single piece of clothing on your bed, and then want to cry when you see how big the mountain is! And that you have 5 t-shirts almost the same color, and same for pants. I was able to weed out so much stuff and donate to a really great clothing closet charity near me.
People got so worked up over her saying it was ok to get rid of books, like they were being told to strip their libraries bare. You keep the ones you want, you donate the ones you don’t. If people weren’t ok with that, there wouldn’t be library book donation sales, and little free libraries everywhere.
I could never hate on her because she taught me how to organise drawers and for that, I’ll forget be grateful.
Same! My t-shirt drawer is amazing now. It’s the only one that I use her method consistently but it means I can always find the right t-shirt right away.
Yeah, people were really OFFENDED. I found some of it really helpful and I always thought her message was “Do this your way.” and not “THROW OUT YOUR LIFE”. I can mess up my apartment in 2 hours but I hate it. There is nothing more relaxing than coming home to a reasonably tidy home. It’s not always doable and sometimes we stress ourselves too much but in general, yeah, people have too much crap lying around and you don’t know how much until you move. I moved last year. What a horrendous experience.
People got so offended it was ridiculous and they shouldn’t feel “vindicated” now. I’m sure her house is way tidier than mine and I don’t have 3 kids. Like several posters have pointed out it’s about taking the advice you can postively use and disregarding the rest. I tend to go by a 2 year rule. If I haven’t used or worn a thing in the last 2 years, out it goes. But if it ´sparks joy´ of course it stays.
I think it’s b/c cleanliness/messiness has a moral value attached to it for many people even if they don’t want to admit it. I have a messy house = I am bad. I cleaned my house today = I am good. So when someone publicly talks about tidiness some people with messier houses equate that with someone telling them they are “bad” and that obviously doesn’t feel good so they get angry to push the bad feeling away.
i think you’re spot on, Kate – there’s definitely some people blaming marie for “making them feel bad” when that shame is all their own
i also think there’s some east/west anxieties playing out around shifting cultural influence because nobody was fussed when Kondo’s white lady contemporaries like Gretchen Rubin were hawking similar ideas that should have provoked similar reactions … but didn’t
Gretchen, for example, made a point of projecting a “harried everyday mum” persona, so maybe that cushioned things, but Goop and Martha don’t so what gives?
I’ve moved a lot throughout my life, and one thing I noticed only more recently–because I moved into ever-smaller spaces–was that I was carting around a lot of paper. Not just books–and I had every book purchased throughout my undergrad & grad years–but notes for every single class from junior high through senior high, notes for every class as an undergrad & grad student, every single assignment or exam high school through grad school. Kondo’s book helped me re-think these things and I have recycled a LOT of paper these last couple of years.
for me, one of the most interesting things kondo brought to organization circles was how she categorized things for decluttering
people had long been decluttering by category or room, but her clothes/books/papers/misc/sentimental breakdown was so unusual it put a lot of my possessions in a different light and totally changed my paper hoarding tendencies (even if i ultimately declutter using different categories)
The constant misrepresentation of Marie Kondo has been pretty infuriating (this must be how Swifties feel) to me. I love her method because it’s about you and what you as a person want and need. And this new story is misrepresenting her words yet again. Marie Kondo has always been about recognizing what’s really important in your life and now she’s in a fase where that’s her children and her time with them.
It gets easier when they’re older and more independent, IMO. Very young children are just mess makers by nature. The difference in my friends’ house when they had three children under five versus now, when all of them are on the closer side to age ten, is unbelievable. Unless you’re wealthy enough to pay for nannies and housekeepers, you just have to accept a certain level of untidy for a bit until they learn some responsibility.
I think a lot of the problems around lifestyle advice like hers is people take it wholeheartedly instead of pulling pieces of what works for them out of it. Her “keep it if you love it, toss it if you don’t” advice is great, IMO. Made me learn to part with things more easily.
So true, I clean the house multiple times a day with young kids and when they “clean”, no matter how many times I’ve helped them and showed them where things go it all just ends up on one shelf or stuffed into one bin. I’ve given up on trying to keep a clean house always or for expecting my three year old to not dump everything out of every bin at the same time for absolutely no reason.
real talk
I do use her “does it spark joy” when I’m cleaning stuff out and it really helps. The take that I like best is the meme “ I’m only keeping what sparks joy for me so I threw out my scale , my bra and the electric bill”.
Exactly this. I’m an untidy person. My threshold for messes is sky high, and unfortunately, I married someone exactly the same.
We’ll never, ever do the advanced organizing bits, but “does this spark joy?” is an easy way to help keep things somewhat under control.
She’s human!!
Now seriously I came across a book by a Zen monk that was about cleaning. Buddhism has a lot of things like this idea of connecting the mind to the world around you and vice versa. It’s really interesting. What I didn’t appreciate much about her method was the « spark joy » thing. It was weirdly consumerist: like objects are there to keep you happy and satisfied. What does joy mean in relation to objects? Sounded very silly. But, in fairness, it helped a lot of people so who cares what I think? Good for her, she managed to shill Buddhism-lite to people and hire a lot of people to clean her house while she spends time with her kids (surely she doesn’t clean her whole house herself).
I am sure she is still way tidier than I’ll ever be.
Ps: also this comes across to me as catering to this whole wellness crap of people with perfect houses, perfect lawns, perfect lives – Instagram ready, as her photos assert.
Marie Kondo practices Shinto, not “Buddism-lite”.
To be honest learning that she was a Shinto maiden really explained a lot for me. Sounded in her book like her childhood was a bit lonely and short on love, and that inanimate objects did a lot to comfort her. Like some people use teddy bears 😁
I am so happy that she is experiencing love and fulfillment in her marriage and family, and had the clarity to shift her focus and not be rigid.
I am not a super perfect tidier but really need organized surroundings. While I thought some of her methods in the book sounded insane, I ended up throwing out garbage bags of stuff. I took what I liked and left the rest.
Wrong religion. She was a Shinto priestess not a Buddhist. Not sure I should even try to explain this since I’m not a Shintoist but the idea is basically that everything is alive. Rocks, trees, books, clothing, etc all have a “spirit” and that you should respect the “dignity/spirit” of the items as well as yourself. That’s why she says you should tap the books to “wake them up” before you decide whether they spark joy. If something is no longer “serving you/sparking joy” then you should release it so that it can go fulfill it’s raison d’etre somewhere else, or move on to the next stage by being recycled. It’s not about consumerism it’s about your relationship with your possessions.
the messy, disorganized people with lack of will and/or time with already too much to handle probably find her exhausting lol I could never keep up with her method, but the base of what she is teaching is good. I mean, why would you keep something for years and years and years if you hate it? just get rid of it, and dont feel like you need to replace it! I follow the clutterbug too and Cass is the cutest, but she does kinda condescend on Marie which always annoys me everytime. Her method is not yours, is not mine, just pick what fits for you to make your home better organized environment if that’s what you’re trying to do. as simple as that. Dont feel like you need to trifold your underwear! But if I did, my underwear drawer wouldnt look like ugly as it is now.
She seems so sweet and earnest, which I really like, but seems to rub some people the wrong way. I didn’t read her tidying book or watch her show because I had three kids at home at the time and a hoarder husband and knew her methods wouldn’t work for my life. But I’m interested in her new one. And maybe I’ll check out the show now that I’m seeing my second off to college — I’d like to see if I could fold things better or pick up any other tidying tips.
Her kids are adorable! She is also adorable! I love her, and I think it’s nice that she’s saying–out loud!–that family dynamics change your perspective on core things. It’s okay to be a little messy when you’ve got three kids revolving around you, needing all of your time and attention, and at the same time, they’re just throwing random crap around your clean house. It’s more than okay, it’s expected. I read her books and they really helped me to get rid of a lot of junk I was keeping. It also made me unapologetic in how I feel when people give me stuff. They do it thinking they’re kind, but secretly in my head, I’m thinking, This does not work for me, and I get rid of it the first chance I get. I used to tuck things into a drawer and keep it forever out of guilt. No more!
I liked that she got into the psychology of why people keep/hoard things or are chronically disorganized. That’s a VERY real thing. I knew a guy who inherited his parents house after they died but couldn’t bring himself to get rid of their things. Old clothes, old furniture, old papers, he kept it all as reminders of them. I knew another woman who was a hoarder. She hired a professional organizer to help her decluttering and asked me to come along for emotional support. This woman started sweating and shaking because she couldn’t decide whether or not to get rid of a dried up old tube of superglue. The organizer told her she was clearly not ready for this and left.
So, I like the idea of “does it spark joy” in theory if it helps people let go of things.
I liked her “spark joy” thing, too–it seemed like a way to let people be kind to themselves when letting go of items. It reminded me of the William Morris quote to “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
If this was a white socialite doing this instead of Marie, a Japanese woman, everyone would be lining up to praise
her. Let’s just see this for what it is.
Very true. If you google ´Marie Kondo, racism’ you will get a lot of thoughtful articles on the subject.
Honestly I’ve thought the same thing.
Thank you for raising this, Tiffany. If we consider underlying racism, it explains a lot of the vitriol and extreme negative reactions to Marie Kondo. Many people donate or toss books or other items they no longer want when they declutter, but the moment an Asian woman dare give them the suggestion to do it and provide some guidelines, it’s outrageous and egregious.
@Tiffany, I wish I could upvote this.
I was in shock by how much negativity has been thrown her way.
Agreed
Her books really helped me pare down. I like systems and she helped me decluttering in a systematic way. I still have way too much stuff but it helped make a huge dent. I live my spaces now and can breathe. On a side note, she just seems like a really sweet and humble person despite her success. I love that she’s showing how her priorities and approach have shifted. She doesn’t owe anyone an apology. Nobody putting a gun to anyone’s head to go the Kondo way or buy her book!
I think the biggest reason that people freak the hell out about her methods is because she actually encourages people to think about why they own things and why they buy things. For people living in a culture like America’s, where we’ve actually been told by our political leadership that the deepest possible expression of patriotism is to go shopping, being encouraged to stop mindlessly consuming is practically a capital offense.
I haven’t watched her Netflix show or read any of her books, but the simple edict of “does it spark joy” has been incredibly helpful to me. I moved across the country 4 years ago with only the belongings I could fit into a 4 door sedan, which meant giving up the great majority of my possessions and only keeping something if I loved it so much that I was willing to make space for it in the car. It was a serious challenge when I got to my new home to not just mindlessly shop to fill the space, and while I did end up with some things I now have to get rid of because they fill space but aren’t what I want in my home, in general asking myself “do I actually like this thing I’m considering buying, and will I use it, or am I in need of a dopamine hit and/or enjoying the idea of being a person who owns such a thing?” helps me stop spending needlessly on things I actually don’t want or need.
As others have said, it’s also a great method for letting go of guilt about not wanting to keep something that doesn’t suit your life or even drains the life out of you.
When I open my sock drawer, I am happy. I was that person that rolled a pair of socks into one ball. My socks fell down a lot. Now, with a tidier sock drawer, I find the pair I want more quickly and because I fold them together instead of roll them together my socks are lasting longer. I still struggle keeping my undergarment drawer tidy, but it’s still better than it was before I met her.
My biggest ‘itch’ is paperwork. I am still drowning in paperwork and because my desk is in my living room/dining room there’s still chaos in my mind. I make promises to myself “one hour of filing” and then…I don’t. Still, my sock drawer remains in good shape!!!
longtime declutterer with adhd here – i found it helpful to stop trying to file regularly (never going to happen) and instead have one spot for dumping anything i had to take action on, and one spot for things i should file later (in my case, two magazine file boxes i can easily drop stuff in or fish stuff out of)
if i need something, it’s all in one spot, and otherwise, I sort through both folders once a year when I’m doing taxes anyway and move the important stuff to longer-term storage (categorized plastic sheet protectors filed vertically in a few more magazine file boxes but you could clip them in a binder you can flip through, or dump them loose in boxes or whatever container poses the least effort/visual noise to you)
hasn’t failed me yet in 14 years and i LOVE only filing once a year
PRO TIP: locate the action/file spots wherever you’re most prone to dumping things already
I love her and her books! I really enjoyed the TV show too because she helped people find the appropriate amount of clutter for their lifestyles, which isn’t the same for everyone. I think a lot of people misinterpreted her message to mean everyone should have a spare, minimalist home.
I’ll admit, the headlines around this story have made me laugh every time I see them. Marie Kondo, she’s just like us!
I never understood why she was polarizing. Nobody MAKES you follow her principles. We are all grown ups with agency. I have not even read/watched her content because I wasn’t interested in being extreme, but good for her, it works for some people, more power to you. No need for people to get all mad!
Marie Kondo’s more practical tips made it easier for me to spend time with my kid because I no longer spend the entire weekend trying to shove too much stuff in not enough space in our small house. Her folding method + use of boxes to organize shelves and drawers was life changing in making very small spaces easy to use. She also gave me the freedom to just get rid of stuff that was not benefitting me in any way but was technically still usable.
This whole article makes me smile. First, because she seems nice and I like her message. I never felt the need to take it completely to heart, just thought it was helpful. But also because who can’t relate to the mess young kids create? The mere process of keeping a family fed (shop, prepare, feed, clean, repeat, on an endless loop) is so hard to do without having a perpetually messy kitchen. It’s exhausting.
I recently paid two teenage neighbors to come help organize my Etsy room, which is chock-full of vintage clothes. I also told them they were free to take a few items if they wanted. One girl took a single little shirt and the other took an armful of stuff. The first told me she was a minimalist and her room was “Marie Kondo Style.” The other was like “I’m a maximalist!” LOL. I guess I relate to the second one.
I like to purge too, which is why I started selling clothes, old books and a few other things on Etsy. I donate a lot of stuff but it’s also satisfying to sell a unique item to someone who appreciates it and will pay me a bit of $$ for it.
Have 3 kids and I spend too much of my life cleaning up and organizing for other people. I kind of needed to hear this message! I feel like it grants me permission to drop my standards.
I always really liked her, until she started selling pillows for all that empty space you gained through her methods.
My parents passed away a few years ago, and as their only child it has been up to me to sort, purge and organize their belongings in the house they lived in for 50+ years, Good God, the stuff I have come across. Pay stubs from ALL of my father’s jobs, and not just one or two, or the ones from the last few years he worked. I mean ALL OF THEM. BI-weekly statements going back to the early 50’s. So many return address labels I filled an entire garbage bag with them. Drawers full of deflated and neatly folded Mylar balloons from every past family occasion. A spelling test that mom took in 1946, where she got a perfect score (ok, that one I kept). And at the risk of TMI, a diaphragm that was older than I was, along with all its accessories and instructions. My mom was in her 80’s when she passed away, and far past the need for said item. I actually Googled ‘Birth Control Museum’ in case it was a museum piece.
tl;dr – do not wait to divest yourself of items you no longer need and to organize the important things you do keep. If you don’t do it, someone else will have to. And they won’t thank you for it.
Oh goodness. It’s sounds like a huge burden to deal with (I’m dealing with a fraction of it with my husband’s family stuff), but the surprise appearance of ancient birth control gave me a good chuckle.
@Katie, it was one of the funnier moments of the last few years. My mother would be mortified if she knew I was sharing it with strangers on the internet, but oh well.
It could have been worse. A friend in a similar situation stumbled across a somewhat related item in her mom’s nightstand, but that one was *ahem* battery powered.
this is why i love the concept of nordic death cleaning – basically starting to shed stuff in anticipation of dying so you’re not a burden on your loved ones and you get to enjoy gifting them things now
Dara, great post. I’m sorry you had to do all of that. You are so right about getting rid of stuff, and I try sporadically to do so. The paper alone IS a true nightmare, as you rightly state.
Thank you, @j. ferber. It was certainly a great motivator to get my own house in order, so to speak. That is a work in progress, but every box that gets donated to charity makes me feel just that much better.
I actually still fold my clothes Kondo style but never went full extreme. Still try to get rid of stuff constantly. I don’t get the strong reaction to this admission. Kids change everything and they like messy. Some people were sounding like this was a big gotcha or that she should be sued for making them feel bad about having stuff, as though she lied to them or something. She seems like a very nice, very tidy person and bet her space is still more organized than ours will ever be. I don’t understand the amount of hostility toward this woman. Yes some of it is racism. Still remember the Alison Roman thing too how she just came for her. Weird and unnecessarily hostile. Her kids will get older, they’ll hopefully learn to make their own space their happy place and Kondo will keep doing her thing because it’s her brand and what she does for a living. It’s not that deep.
I liked her method of folding stuff in drawers. I thought it would end my kids messing up their drawers all the time, but man, these kids.
Can we just retire the whole “sparks joy” thing now? Please. That phrase was the height of absurdity to me.
Marie Kondo has been massively slandered, and people KEEP DOING IT. She never said to get rid of things you care about or that are useful to you. Ever. Her folding methods have helped tons of people. She told Hasan Minaj that if having a ton of pens sparks joy for him, then obviously he needs to buy a ton of pens. She never told people to get rid of books if the books are something that *spark joy* for them, but there is a silly resistance to getting rid of books when you never even look into them any longer and they’re nothing but dead weight.
A whole lot of white women from the Anglosphere have been way more extreme and cruel about tidying methods and never gotten an ounce of backlash. As soon as this cheery Japanese woman comes along and advises not to keep shit around if it doesn’t make you happy, the horrors!
I’ve never felt threatened by her methods, and I never found them extreme. I actually took the time to read the first few chapters of her book, and in it, she clearly explained that while not every item will spark joy, that doesn’t mean you need to discard it. She used the example of a screwdriver set, and explained how while it might not spark joy when you see it, you’ll certainly feel really joyful when you need them and have them on hand, vs not having them bc you chucked them. So her methods have always had tons of space for any exceptions you might need in your life. If your books spark joy, don’t throw them out. It’s that simple.
I never understood why people got up in arms abt it. I think that people feel insecure about having piles of books they feel they don’t read, but also can’t bring themselves to get rid of. There is a lot of judgement around people buying stuff for that sort of purpose, and j get that. But that’s personal to the individual. It’s not Marie Kondo’s fault, and it was something else to see people put their insecurities onto her as if she’s the reason for them when she wasn’t.
So true Emily_C! Also, people have to remember her Shinto background as well as the size of typical rooms in Japan vs the US – homes in Japan are much smaller. The response to her suggestions has been ridiculously hostile. I personally cannot stand clutter and regularly go through my house purging and donating. I do not shop unless it is something we absolutely need. I enjoy watching a decluttering youtube video or a MK episode of her show while I’m working away. The ‘what sparks joy’ question was invaluable to me regarding sentimental items or keep-out-of-guilt items. With time, one’s declutter muscle becomes strong, and stuff is out the door or better yet, never enters. I hope she enjoys this special phase of life with young children : )
Anyone reluctant to purge their stuff especially when they get a little older obviously has not had the task of cleaning out someone’s home after they’ve passed or went to a nursing home etc.
I’ve done my own parents home and have helped many of my friends do their parents home and all I can say is get rid of your crap – people get rid of it.
It’s a financial burden on the person left with it to try to pay for a dumpster and pay people if they can’t physically do it themselves.
You just need to be honest and your kids need to be honest with you about what they really want vs what you think they want and get rid of the rest of it.
I’m actually saying that with no apologies because I have cleaned out enough houses to know dear God get rid of it
#sorrynotsorry
I have been doing my own form of Kondo decluttering since the 90’s when I first moved away from home. I have been donating things for years that don’t bring me joy. I do this every time I clean weekly. Why would I want a bunch of freeloaders in my home who don’t pay my mortgage? I am a maximalist. You can declutter and still have things.
I was moving last year cross country. It was going to be a stressful move. I asked advice and everyone told to lay out all my items and pick each one up to see if it spark joy, including my silverware drawer?
I am thinking this is way to extreme and unhealthy. The whole thought of doing something like that made me have a panic attack, seriously.
I needed advice if it would be cheaper for me to replace items or should I move them. I have to replace items during a time of shortages. I needed common sense advice and not go through my forks and see if it brings me joy! I think people take her to the extreme and they don’t understand what she is trying to teach.