Book review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Knowing that I am a tidying freak, my SO suggested this book to me recently. When I read more about the book and the author, at first I could not believe that there was someone like me who was so much into tidying and organizing. At once I knew that I had to read this book. So I got the ebook and finished it in a couple of days.

About the book

Firstly, the complete title of the book is The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Although this book is 224 pages, the book is a relatively quick read. This book claims to help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home-and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

About the author

Marie Kondo is Japan’s expert declutterer and cleaning/organizing consultant. She is the founder of the KonMari method of organizing, which is the the focal point of this book. She was listed as one of Time’s “100 most influential people” in 2015.

My take on the book

Firstly I don’t think that I was the intended audience for the book, since I am a tidying freak myself. That said, I still read this book since it was so highly recommended by so many netizens and also because I wanted to know about the KonMari method. I must say this book turned out to be a mixed bag for me.

The book is short and there is a large amount of repetition by the author in the first half of the book which was kind of a turn off for me. Most of the contents of the 224 pages book could have been summed up in 2 pages. Basically the author only talks about one thing and that is ‘discarding things that don’t spark joy’. The KonMari method rests on the principle of quality over quantity, which would not come as a surprise to many people. That pretty much sums up more than half of the book and the ‘KonMari’ method.

Then for some part of the book she talks about dealing with each and every category of items which is the only practical advice in the book other than the above mentioned KonMari method. Though I found her idea of cleaning and replacing the items in your handbag everyday a little impractical, at least I would not be able to follow her on that. Here the author also talks a bit about organizing the items (whatever you are left with after the decluttering) in each category.

The last part of the book deals with the changes especially the psychological ones that (are expected to) occur after you have successfully decluttered your home using the KonMari method.

Although I am not entirely impressed by the book, I must say that I have obtained a few valuable tips from the book like:

• Keep only items that spark joy
• Tidying by category instead of room e.g. tidy all books in the house at one time.
• More storage is not always the answer
• Some organizing tips are sensible e.g. vertical storage
• Have a dedicated place for everything.

The major issue with the book would be the style of presentation of the information and the hoopla that has been created around this method. Also, there are a lot of suggestions that are impractical, like discarding the items that you do not need regularly and buying them again if you require them one fine day. This is certainly not economical for most people. Also, the idea of talking to your belongings might not strike well with everyone. In fact, for the most part, the book might actually come out funny (perhaps annoying) to a few people, since there is a considerable amount of woo-woo in it. Also, the author does not seem to take into account a house that has kid(s) whose primary activity is cluttering.

Conclusion

Although this book has some tips on decluttering and organizing, I would suggest you to skip the book and read those tips on a few blogs, where people have beautifully summed up what the author wants to say in a single page article. Here are a couple of links:

http://modernmrsdarcy.com/the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up-six-months-later/