I gave The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo to my wife for Mother’s Day. It was meant to be a slight joke. My wife falls into the third category that Kondo points out in her book:
the “can’t-throw-it-away” type, the “can’t-put-it-back” type, and the “first-two-combined” type.
When I gave this to my wife on mother’s day my mother-in-law was also over at our home celebrating. When my wife opened the gift she rolled her eyes, but my mother-in-law shrieked. She said she had had this book on hold at the library for months, waiting to read it.
Since my mother-in-law has such a reaction we made sure she had a copy. As she read it (she reads faster than my wife) we discussed it and the book interested me. It’s a short read. While 224 pages long the text is large. So, I decided to read it as well. So, now we have three copies in the family.
As I read the book though, I found it read surprisingly fast and smooth. I also found lots of tid-bits to use. Kondo states, that you should clean house in a particular order:
The best sequence is this” clothes first, then books, papers, komono (miscellany), and lastly mementos
I agree with this list as the easiest things to drop are listed first. However, books would come after papers and komono for me.
As this all these self-help type books there are things you will take away from them and others that you will prefer to leave.