Main point: This is a summary of Marie Kondo’s bestselling book, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, for those who want compelling reasons and guidance to declutter.
You’re here because you’ve probably just read about the connection between physical clutter and emotional clutter. I’m summarizing her book for its revolutionary insights that can transform your life.
Let’s start with why it’s important to tidy, then if those reasons compel you to declutter, you can find the how-to in the second half of this article.
Tidy so you can start living
The purpose of life is to live fully. It’s not to declutter in and of itself. The goal here is to clear your physical space so that your spiritual, mental, emotional space can also be cleared. This allows you to see what you really want in life. Tidying is about living out your values.
The act of cluttering is an instinctive reflex that draws your attention away from the heart of an issue. It’s a way to avoid, or cope with, something unsettling within you. Like over-eating, we clutter in response to internal turmoil.
The process of selecting what to keep and what to discard highlights your core values. You learn a great deal about what you valued by looking at the items you chose to bring into your life. As you go through the tidying process, you gain clarity about what makes you happy, what you want in life. You strengthen your ability to make decisions for yourself rather than letting outside influences sway you. After going through the process, her clients no longer abdicate the responsibility of decision making to someone else, they decide for themselves. They no longer blame someone or something external for problems in their life. Instead, they make a decision according to their values and take action.
If you have a hard time letting go of your possessions, it’s because of anxiety about the future or attachment to the past or both. You accumulate things because you can’t see clearly what you need now, at this moment. You don’t know what you’re looking for or exactly what you want. This automatically transfers to how you live your life. It drives your decisions about what relationships to keep or discard, what work to pursue or not, what to go after and what to hang on to.
Facing your possessions and deciding what to do with them forces you to confront your anxiety about the future or attachment to the past or both. Sitting down and confronting each item you own is taking stock of the decisions you’ve made in life. Deciding what to do with each item evokes many feelings within you. Confronting your things, and therefore your past, gives closure you need to move on. It clarifies your values and reduce doubt and confusion in decision-making for the rest of your life. This frees you to make future decisions with conviction and confidence, and to act decisively. That’s why it’s better to confront your stuff now rather than putting it off for later.
If you just store them away, your past becomes baggage that hold you back and keep you from living in the present. It’s not our memories but the person we’ve become because of past experiences that we should treasure. The space you live now should be for the person you are now, not who you were in the past.
At their core, your passions and life mission don’t change. Tidying is a great way to remind yourself of what those things are. When you get rid of extra stuff and noise, and leave only what you love, you’ll see clearly what you’re meant to do. Her clients discovered what they really wanted in life after tidying. Many changed careers.
Clean out your house in “one go” and get it over with. In practice “one go” can mean throwing out 40 garbage bags’ worth of stuff in one day. Cleaning out your entire house, everything you’ve collected, can take up to 6 months. The point is do it with intention and focus. Don’t do it here and there whenever you feel like it. Have a clear start and finish. Treat it as an event.
After tidying, her clients found that their worldly desires decreased. Before, no matter how much they shopped, they always felt like it wasn’t enough. After selecting to keep only what they love, they feel like they have everything they need.
Every thing has a soul
Marie Kondo’s approach is spiritual. Your things want to be useful to you. They love you and want to be loved back. That’s why it’s important that you hold every item in your hand when deciding whether to keep it or to discard it.
You have a relationship with each thing you own. When you use it and take care of it, it radiates joy. When you throw it in a pile in the corner and forget that you have it, it wilts in neglect. You can’t take good care of too many things, that’s why it’s better to choose to keep only things that bring you joy. Let go of the rest.
Fate brought each item, relationship, experience into your life. Even if an item was mass manufactured and you got it from a warehouse, fate meant for you and that item to meet. It wants to be useful to you. If it’s sitting around unused and neglected, it would rather leave. Say thanks to it for bringing you joy when you got it, and let it go. Its energy will come back to you in another form, as a new connection, a career opportunity, new information, or whatever will be helpful for your life journey.
When you throw things out, think of it as a graduation, a celebration for your things. It’s a farewell party for your possessions after they’ve served you. Send them off with appreciation for having fulfilled their purpose with you. Don’t send them off with regret that you’re rejecting perfectly good items, or guilt for not using them, or hate/anger/disgust for the memory that they evoke, or fear and nervousness about not having them when you need them in the future. Focus on joy and positive emotions in this entire process.
Your house supports you. It shelters you and provides you comfort. Greet it every day when you come home. Thank it for supporting you. Over time, as your relationship deepens, your house will tell you what needs to be cleaned and where to store things. You’ll receive its messages in your gut. You’ll know.
This lens flipped my view of how I treat objects in my possession. I used to think letting things sit around unused was okay as long as they’re stored properly. But things want to be useful. Setting them aside and forgetting about them is a bad relationship. I used to think throwing things out when they’re in good condition was wasteful. But things want to be set free if they’re not used. They want to have a good relationship with someone else, to be useful to somebody. When you see things as having souls, you approach decluttering with more ease. Show respect to the things you don’t use by letting them go. Show love to the things you keep by taking good care of them and designate a spot, a “home”, for them.
Let joy guide you
The main criterion when deciding whether to keep or discard each item is to ask yourself while holding the item, “Does this spark joy?” The point is to live only with things that make you happy. Don’t make your decision to keep or discard something based on guilt, fear, nostalgia, greed, anything that isn’t joy.
Trust your gut. No one can know what brings you joy except you. It’s not about the retail value of an item, or its aesthetic, its condition, its age. It’s about how you feel. No one else can decide that for you.
The joy of a piece of clothing was when you bought it. If you haven’t used it for a while, its purpose is done. The value of a letter, card, or gift was receiving it. Once the sentiment is exchanged, there’s no point in keeping it. The meaning of a photo lies in the joy and excitement you felt when taking it. The printed photo itself may no longer serve you. A book’s value is the information it gave you. After you’ve read it, there’s no need to keep it for reference. For books you haven’t read, you’ll never read it. Let it go.
The point here is to create an environment for your ideal lifestyle, a space that fosters your joy. Be careful not to do things like keep clothes you don’t like to wear as loungwear at home. What you wear in the house affects your self-image.
The KonMari method guarantees no relapse. If you tidy in one go, the change will be so drastic that it will affect how you live your life, how you make major life decisions, how you feel about your priorities. You will never go back to murkiness after having clarity. You will know in your gut when you hit the “just-right click point” of owning enough, a point where you’re satisfied and don’t need anything more. Once you know that point, you’ll never go back to owning more.
How to tidy
If you now feel compelled to tidy your space, here’s how to go about it efficiently and effectively.
Discard first, store later
The goal is to get rid of noise in your space and your life. Don’t think about where and how to store things until after you’re done getting rid of everything except items that bring you joy. Follow a specific order to hone your decision-making skill, minimize doubt, and prevent being stuck in the process.
- Deal with clothes first.
- Then books.
- Next is papers: user manuals, bills, warranties, identity documents, etc.
- Then household items and miscellaneous items
- Lastly, photos and mementos, things with sentimental value.
The reason she recommends a specific order is because it’s easiest to decide whether a piece of clothing gives you joy. You need this practice before dealing with more difficult items like your books and your old photos.
Discard by category, not by location
For example, if your clothes are stored in multiple places throughout the house, gather them all in one place. Put all your clothes in the middle of the room. This ensures that you don’t miss any clothing item and helps you see how much you have. Most people don’t realize how much excess they have until everything is one place.
Does this spark joy?
Go through your pile thoroughly and quickly by holding each item in your hand and intuitively sense if it brings you joy. With practice, you’ll get better at making this decision. Only keep the items that bring you joy right now. Discard the rest. Most of Marie’s clients keep a third or a quarter of what they started out with. Tip: don’t start reading a book when you’re deciding. Instead, hold it in your hand and sense if it gives you joy.
After you’ve discarded everything except the things you love, then find a home for each item
Every item needs to belong somewhere so that you know where to put it away after using it. Designate a storage spot for every item. This also makes your possessions feel loved and valued. After using an item, return it “home” and thank it for supporting you.
Keep storage simple
Store every item of each category in one place. Clutter is caused by too much effort to put things away or things don’t have a home. Don’t scatter things over multiple storage spaces. Designate one storage space per person. You don’t need to buy any storage gadgets, just use what you have.
It’s important to have your own storage space
Your own space is something over which you feel ownership. People who are messy tend to grow up with parents who cleaned their room for them or they never had a space that they felt was theirs. These people store their clothes in their children’s dresser or their books in their partner’s bookcase. You need your own space so you can take pride of ownership and store things in one place.
Arrange your things so that you can see where everything is
This means folding clothing so that it stands up, like books standing on a shelf. Store everything like how you put books on a shelf so that you can see what you have at a glance.
Within your storage space, eliminate excess visual information
Even if it’s behind closet doors, in the basement, or in drawers, it’s noise. It takes away peace and serenity from your space. Remove labels, logos, stickers, any writing or images that you don’t need.
Sort your stuff first, keep your family out of it
Don’t clean out your family members’ baggage. Just worry about yours. Once you work quietly on your own stuff, it will set a chain reaction and your family members will do the same without your urging. Also don’t let them see what you throw out. They’ll feel compelled to retrieve or save it, and that’s just shifting baggage from you to them.
Once your home is tidied, you are surrounded only by things that bring you joy. Your home becomes a peaceful, comfortable place where you can relax.
P.S. If you decide to read the book, I recommend reading the chapters out of order, like this:
- Read chapter 5 first. This chapter gives you life-changing, compelling reasons to purge unnecessary noise from your life.
- Then read chapter 1 second. Chapter 2 third. These chapters give an overview of her approach and why it works.
- Chapters 3 and 4 are how-to instructions. Read this last when you’re ready to take action.