Marie Kondo
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying
ISBN: 978-0-09-195510-6
I try to stay away from book that are as incredibly hyped by the media and on social platforms as The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying has been over the last few months. Unfortunately, the memes are what drew me back in, and convinced me to read Marie Kondo’s epic journey of self-realization. Also, over the last year or so, I’ve been gradually going through the accumulated debris in my house of over ten years of marriage and two children. I haven’t done a true clean-out of my storage spaces and my stuff since George W. Bush was president, when I moved into my own apartment after graduate school. It’s been many long years of accumulation since then.
The original idea behind giving this book a chance was to see if I could integrate any of Kondo’s techniques into what I’d already started doing. I found her system a bit extreme and too minimalist. There are a lot of things in my home that don’t exactly “spark joy,” but are necessary for the function of the home when you have two kids under the age of 8. Kondo’s book was written by a single person, for single people living in already cramped quarters.
Overall, the book was mostly filler, which makes for a very short book review. The system can be boiled down to a few pages of text. Most of the book felt like a confessional for Kondo’s mental illness. We’ve all seen those reality shows highlighting the mental health issues associated with hoarding. I’m guilty of watching an episode or two of those shows on occasion, to make myself feel a bit better about not obsessively cleaning my house. It’s junk food for the brain – occasionally, you just need to feed the craving for junk food. Kondo’s obsessive need to rid herself of material possessions is just as troublesome as hoarding. Fortunately for her, she was able to turn her mental illness into a profitable business.
Most of the hype around the book was from people who don’t fall into either extreme – hoarder or perpetual declutterer. Most people probably fit into the “cluttered but not dirty” category. The act of just putting things away when you’re done with them can prevent a clean home from becoming a cluttered home. I have noticed as I’ve been decluttering the house that we don’t use the closet, cabinet, and drawer real estate optimally in our house. It’s not that we have too much stuff, but that the stuff isn’t put away properly, if at all. The one positive item I took away from this book was how to store items properly, to take advantage of all of the space we actually have in our home. You won’t feel the need to get rid of as much if you take stock of how much you can just store properly.
Overall, 6/10, would marginally recommend to people who are struggling with decluttering the house, and need a bit of a boost to get the job done. For me, this book doesn’t spark joy. Go watch the Netflix version of Kondo’s work instead.