Some life-changing magic

When I shared the quote "The first step to getting what you want is getting rid of what you don't" I didn't realise it came from this book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever.

Marie Kondo's mission is to help people experience more joy simply by having fewer things and things that bring you joy.

Ms Kondo's clients really do find this to be life-changing. It seems to be as much about mindset as it is about actual tidying techniques. The physical clutter, and often the mental clutter and other factors that go with it, holds us back from achieving what we want.

The approach

A handy tip for downsizing is the order in which we approach our clutter. She suggests leaving the more sentimental items to last. They take the most time and if we start there we'll lose momentum before we even get going. Her suggested order is clothes, then books, then papers, then miscellany, and mementos last.

I struggle with discarding things when it means they go to landfill. Marie Kondo says it is not wasteful to discard things that have outlived their purpose - that it actually helps us cherish the important things. She describes things "buried so deeply in a closet or a drawer that you have forgotten its existence", which sounds not-too-different from being in landfill. I take her point but my preference is still for re-use or recycling.

Downsizing

So many things we keep because we "might need them". Is that really likely? Books are a great example. How many books to we keep to "read again"?
How many do we actually read a second time? I put down the book and went through my shelves. I struggled to find any books I had read twice.

She says keep the ones you really love. Having fewer ordinary books means the great ones are even more likely to be read. It probably applies to other items too. Less really can be more.

For books, I reckon price is part of the reason we hoard books. We pay so much for them it seems a waste to throw them away after just one read. Probably the same goes for DVDs. Perhaps instead we should borrow from the library or buy books second hand. Then we won't be so clingy when it's time to pass them on.

Storing things

Marie Kondo has three main tips - and one odd one - for storing items.

1. Arrange things so putting away is convenient. Clutter exists because storing is inconvenient and we put it off.

2. Where possible storing items vertically is better than piling. Even in a drawer, clothes at the bottom of the pile are lost and forgotten. There's also no limit to a pile - the mountain of desk papers just keeps growing. Vertical storage means all items are accessible and the accumulation is limited by the width of the shelf or drawer.

3. Apart from the cupboards, shelves and drawers, she says the shoebox is the best storage device you can get. Simple and with a variety of uses, it's better than any of the plastic storage items you see in shops.

The most interesting tip was about the 'noise' of words. Labels that are constantly visibly get picked up by our brain and add extra clutter to our mind.

Overall I found The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to be quite motivating. I can imagine how having fewer, better, more organised items can be more enjoyable. I can also see how this could lead to feeling less cluttered and being able to be a better version of ourselves.

Stay tuned as I put some of this into practice.

Also, if you want to make money by selling your unwanted items, get my free ebook guide Less Clutter More Cash.