The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

It’s my last ten pounds. That one thing that appears on my New Year’s Resolution list again and again. It shouldn’t be hard. But, try as I may, I have yet to find a way to keep our house in guest-ready condition from stem to stern all the time while working, raising a child and being a, you know. member of society. I remember reading one time that people should either lose the last ten pounds or wipe it off their list, learn to be content with the extra weight.

So maybe I should learn to be content with a less-than-pristine house.

But I can’t. Maybe it’s all the beautiful design pictures I spend my days looking at. Whatever the reason, when Blogging for Books so graciously sent me The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was pretty pumped. Here, I thought, was going to be the secret to how to stay perfectly tidy without spending eight hours a day cleaning.

Over the past few years, I’ve become pretty professional at the first step of the KonMari method: getting rid of stuff! Three times this year I have filled up bag after bag of perfectly good stuff to donate. I’m not saying we’re at bare minimum around here, but we’re definitely substantially pared down from where we were this time last year. Marie Kondo recommends actually taking all of your clothes, for example, putting them on the floor and handling them one by one, keeping only those things that spark joy. I just love that.

Being surrounded only by things that spark joy.

That is my favorite tip in this book. My second favorite tip is to fold your clothes into little rectangles and lay them on the edge, so that all the smooth edges are facing up. Then, instead of having piles of clothes you have to sort through, you can see everything in your drawers all at the same time. Brilliant. I have already done this in my drawers and little Will’s. We are both quite happy with the results. And, trust me, he spends more time laboring over the tidiness of his drawers than most adults.

Overall, I’m thrilled I read this book and will definitely keep it as a resource, mainly because its beautiful little cover sparks joy! My only hesitation with it was that the book was originally written for a Japanese audience that tends to live in a four-room home. Some of the recommendations, like keeping all of one type of thing in the same place, don’t translate quite as well to a very large American home. If I, for example, had to walk to the kitchen or my office every time I needed to get a pen, all I’d do is walk around the house all day. But, with a little bit of common sense and taking Marie Kondo’s advice to really feel where things in your home want to be kept, I feel certain that this method will be applicable.

I plan to undertake a giant tidy right after Christmas using the advice in this book. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Thanks, Blogging for Books, for this awesome read! And thanks to all of you for stopping by today!