"The Life Changing magic of tidying up, the Japanese art of decluttering" Kondo

[1footouttadefog]

Marie Kondo
The Japanese Art of decluttering and Organizing.

This book came up in thread I posted about getting rid of old stuff and such.  Many here had a positive experience with reading it and using the methods it insists upon.  Yes I used the word insists.  This book is very black and white, that you have to do it a certain way or not at all. 

I cannot say I have such a positive recomendation as others on this forum.  I can see that having Marie Kondo as a perky young mentor might help people with a different life experience.   I can see that her confidence may spill out and empower people and other ways this book might perhaps be a positive for others.  But this review is mine and tainted by my own experiences.

Trigger warning for those who have had their stuff toss without permission.

Problem is that Marie Kondo in many ways IS my pdH.  I find her to be a narcissist.  She also comes across as being OCD.  When she described how she used to toss out her family menbers belongings I stopped reading. 

She described how she would clean the communal storage clost by partially hiding her family members stuff, then later hiding them deeper, then eventually making the decision to through them away because they had not used them in a period of time she had determined with out consulting.  She had already described similar tactics at school and in the rooms of siblings.

This was done to me by my pd.  I have nothing from my years of summer mission trips. No memory items from my choir tour days.  No list of addresses, no pictures, no tshirts, no post cards nothing.  No pictures of family events, or highschool events nothing.   They were safe in the closet where they belonged or so I thought. 

How many times was a garment or a food item simply tossed because it did not look neat in the pds mind as he arranged items into displays on shelves and such.

I dont want to revisit the betrayal I felt having these things removed without my consent.  A few small shoe boxes of stuff, not a hoarders cache.  It was not his life not his stiff etc.

Marie Kondo is in my estimation a pd with some serious issues.  Lying seems to be one.  In the first few pages she lost my confidence with very unbelievable statistics.  People tossing hundreds of garbage bags of items from their small Japanese homes.

She also comes across with a very materialistic world view.    Often discusing tossing things out only to replace them with more, and often discussing the rate at wich she accumulates new belongings. 

Her book recommends a few short and succinct steps to take in an overall approach to tidying up and decluttering.  I can see that her approach might be helpful to some who need to make a drastic change in their personal setting, and her "energy" which comes across as a narcs shaming to me, might be taken up and serve to embolden people for srarting. 

I bought the book at 50percent off and dont feel so cheated, apparently this woman is financially successful given her shopping habits. 

There are websites that describe her ideas well enough for those wishing to save money or who want to be spared "meeting"  Marie Kondo.

She is kind of like an ocd minimalist version of a hoarder.  You just constantly move stuff out as fast as in to maintain your pretty space.  The pretty space is created in a rigourous purge over up to six months of timespan. 

I never found any thing in her writing that was unique to her Japanese heritage.  Her system did not have any cultural or philosophical bents to it. 

Being ruthlessly self serving and willing to let your ocd urges cause you to invade others privacy or demean their since of security is not unique to Japan I am sure.

She is no mentor of mine and her book will not be cluttering my shelves.  It does NOT make me feel Joy when I hold it.  That it brings NO Joy started when she condescendingly explained explicitly that her KonMari method's name was derived from her own.   N.S. Sherlock...really?

[hhaw]

1foot:

I kept reading and was happy to see that, a young/teen I think, Kondo stopped throwing out other family member's stuff, and learned to focus ON HER STUFF only, which made sense.  It also lead to her family member's digging in and handling their stuff, which was my experience with both children. 

This was a positive I took from the book, along with the habit of - ahem - talking to belongings, at least the ones I feel badly about giving away. 

I don't talk to the items I'm going to keep, however, but finishing old business surrounding the give away items has been a revelation.

I'm sorry your husband touched and threw out your stuff.  That's not fair, and it's I wanted you to know that Kondo did move out of that phase.

hhaw

[Spring Butterfly]

I totally get your view and am so sorry you have that experience with PD H, that's a terrible violation.

[ETA: I too was triggered in the beginning of the book, wanting to scream foul 'boundary violation' when I read what she did with others belongings]

Later in the book she admits it was very arrogant of her to do that and she advises strongly against using this method for others belongings. She suggests ways to live in a household where others don't hold to a more minimalist view such as having separate places for others stuff and they are responsible for maintaining their separate space. This helped me because DH tends to be messier than me so I asked him if we could relocate some of his items to a separate closet. This works out great because I never have to see his stuff, just close the door.

Last night I listened to a podcast by Edit Your Life discussing KonMari methods and one viewer called her a 'cute little dictator' or something to that effect. That sums it up nicely, passionate and one minded regarding her method but her writing style made me smirk.

Here was my 'take away' from the book which can easily be found by googling KonMari for their who want to skip the book - rather than focus on eliminating stuff, clearing out what isn't used, focus instead on what items bring happiness and joy and keep those. With the focus more on keeping what makes me happy I'm more easily ridding myself of stuff that's actually been triggering me. To my surprise I've been FOGed by my own stuff - keeping things out of obligation or guilt. 'I should use this' or 'but so and so gave it to me and I'd feel guilty to throw it away even though I hate it' sort of thinking. Viewing a gift as having served its purpose in brining me momentary happiness I can bid the gift farewell and hope someone else might find joy having it instead of me.

What was a bit creepy is her way of thanking her inanimate objects for serving her that day, her socks, her purse. That's not for me. She also struck me as sort of OCDish from her youth on and I can't fold or store things the way she recommends for clothes since I don't have drawers.

There are some things that honestly don't bring joy - work uniform, cleaning items. There was something I read online that said if we reframe it to thinking these things serve a function that help us complete a job that will intimately make us happy like having a clean house or having money to buy food thanks to the job then in fact these things do bring joy. That helped me because I hadn't thought of things quite that way and am more thankful for the service some things provide.

Honestly I have a pretty tiny house, bedroom, living room, kitchen and bath. To my surprise I've thrown away items that weren't even suited for donation. Why I had them I don't know. Everything else is going to good homes and I better surrounded by things at that bring joy.

Again I'm so sorry you had such a terrible experience with PD H and that the book was triggering. It's not for everyone I'm sure.

[JollyJazz]

I've been working on a massive declutter. My T told me to get rid of (almost) EVERYTHING. I'm not getting rid of everything. Examples include things related to my paternal grandparents who were SOOO kind to me. I feel good whenever I see reminders of their conditional love and support

[Pepin]

I am picking up a copy of the book at the library today that I have on hold.  I am excited to read it.  Ndad was a notorious hoarder and I am doing everything I can to not be like him.  Being clean and organized is my way of keeping myself separate from him.

On the other hand, I am married to a GC that seems to have difficulty with this!  He has so much stuff and I am tired of it.  My motto: if you cannot use it, lose it.  I always ask before I toss/donate stuff and generally he is ok with that.  In fact, everyone in the family likes it that I keep things tidy and their clothes rolled up in drawers.  They like it! 

One thing that I make clear to my kids is this: if I unexpectedly die, I do not want to leave the burden of having them deal with sorting through stuff because I wasn't tidy enough.  They should be able to find anything they need.

A final note before I start reading....being organized is actually a way  for me of being transparent....something I have craved since I was a child and even as a wife.

[practical]

I read about the book in newspaper reviews and after seeing this thread I checked it out on Amazon with "Look Inside", where you can actually read a substantial amount. For me the book is triggering, I grew up with an OCPDf (a non-hoarder though) whose mantra to this day is "Everything has its place!" followed by "Are you done with this? Put it back!". Perfectionism is his first and last name and it extends to the smallest details like sealing packaging peanuts in bags so they are not "untidy" in a parcel. It really doesn't matter whether it is the cutlery or a desk or sheets or even flowers, if it is not perfect, he will manage to create order and perfectionism what he experiences as chaos in his world (single daffodil flower stems tied to little stakes for example) . I know many people here on this board who have hoarder parents/spouses will envy me, there is very little in the house left and whatever is left is perfectly labeled. The house feels cold and unlived in, I find it depressing and oppressive to be in it (uNPDm for all her faults imbued it with her life, now that she is dead, he is eliminating what life there was).

From what I have read of the book and about the book, unlike my F Marie Kondo is an excellent saleswoman of herself and her tidying up "cult" besides being a "cute little dictator", this doesn't mean what she does is healthy. The black and white thinking is so stark, it is so one sided, and the idea that being tidy could change your life to some kind of blissful happiness makes me laugh and nauseous at the same time. If that was true, I should have grown up with an extremely happy father, in a at least partially happy home, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Her level of order she demands of her clients, where there is even a special way to fold your underwear, your shirts, a special way to stash them, it all reminds me of my uOCPDf and his utter need for order, for absolute perfection, because otherwise he feels he is losing control, and that feeling is beyond terrifying for him. And he like Marie Kondo cannot imagine how anybody can live with any less perfection than he lives with and be okay. One of his favorite sentences towards me is "I don't understand how anybody can live/work this way!" (my shoes are not perfectly lined up on the shelf, I did not put the scissors away before moving on to the glue stage of a craft project, ...). He even thought more order would help with M's bipolar, which is really no less absurd then Marie Kondo claiming people are henceforth happier, more successful in all areas of their life because of her tidying-up technique.

Since M's death F has intensely practiced the KonMari technique without ever having heard of it. He is discarding what does not make him happy, in his case everything that reminds him of his 54 years of his marriage to M. Only I have not seen any sign that this brings him happiness, calmness or any positive change in his personality. As he does not do any inner work, the outer work of tidying up - by whatever technique - has no effect.

And then like 1footouttadefog describes in her case, my uNPDm would unilaterally make decisions about B and my things. She would not throw them out usually, she would donate them, it was hard to argue with that as a child. Or she would take a favorite pair of pants (and her least favorite) and pull really hard at them so they ripped, and that was that. Often these things happened in connection with her deciding my room was not tidy enough or I was not perfect enough in some other way.

Am I messy or a hoarder? Is our house cluttered? No - I'm sure it would be by Marie Kondo's standards though. I'm organized while not being tidy in a ridged way is the best I can describe it. I like the feeling of somebody living in the house. DHs shoes behind the door instead of in the shoe shelf, it brings a smile to my face. S's socks lying disorderly next to his shoes which are equally disorderly in the hall, again a smile, it means he is home to visit. After I had been away for over a week to see F at the beginning of this year, one of the nicest things DH said to me was, he hated how clean the kitchen was, how there never was any mess for him to clean up (I cook and bake, he cleans the dishes). For him it meant I was absent, he missed part of the life and love that usually fill the house. It was so wonderful, as it was so different from what I have heard all my life from F and sometimes M.

So maybe part of dealing with "tidying up" is how we look at the "clutter/mess". I think a certain degree of clutter is part of being human, it is healthy, it is part of living. I think it is finding the line of what is healthy and what isn't and I'm sure it is different for everybody, especially here, where many have lived with PD parents or spouses who are hoarders. And I think no tidying-up technique is going to make anybody happy if it is as used as a narcotic, a band-aid, and in lieu of inner work.

[JollyJazz]

Wow - such a good thread!

Yes I think there is definitely a healthy middle ground...

In my opinion at least - OTT organisation/tidyness like that, kind of reminds me of other 'feminine' cults - celebrities that promote really over the top strict diets, beauty practises etc.

I think that there IS something healthy in keeping things functional, not too cluttered, taking pride in appearance etc., being healthy etc.

BUT I think that there is something UNHEALTHY about people taking it too far, and using as a tool of power and control/bossing other people around. It kind of seems like this is a way for some people to justify majorly criticizing and controlling others.

I remember once reading about a writer whose mother (also a writer and poet) flew against the grain by doing the absolute minimum of housework and instead writing poetry. In those days women would be harshly judged on how well their front step was scrubbed... I also read (although its well before my time) that before commercial cleaning products/shiny house advertisements existed that houses used to be much more filthy!

I think there is a large, happy middle ground between hoarding and OTT super cleaness, I think each is anti-social in its way when living with other people...

[1footouttadefog]

I think cute little dictator fits quite well.

Glad I am not the only one who sees her as being very pd herself. 

I was surprised after reading as much of the book as I had that so many here had recommended it. 

I guess it goes to show how many different ways that pd folks negatively impact thkse around them.  That such black and white thinking would be acceptwble to people with pd folks in their life was probably the biggest surprise to me. 

Perhaps being in a place where one wants a clean slate makes the book appeal to so many. 

[1footouttadefog]

Tidying up a bit at a time going from room to room, And hiding stuff away so you can return to it later.  Doing a shelf at a time, a closet space here and a kitchen cabinet there ....can work even if a best selling author says it cannot. 

Lol.  I have recently been doing some tidying up and clearing out and rearranging the house.  It happened so haphazardly in a way but it got done. 

I thought of the cute little dictator once or twice along the way.  I think her plan is like putting yourself in the fire and walking through it.  I am more the type to take a shovel and toss dirt along the edges and making concentric circles until it is small enough to tamp out with the back of the shovel.  I don't get burnt this way. 

[Sesame]

I have heard of this book, but like OP, I think my experience would not make this a nice read. My uBPDNmum is a neat freak and has thrown out so many things of mine without even asking me and then laughed about it when I got upset. She has even thrown out my homework! Every time my brother and I would play with toys and walk away for one second, she would come storming into the room and scream for us to tidy up the mess. The moment we weren't touching a toy, it became a mess. Even while playing it was always stressful because she would constantly be watching and we could feel her getting angrier and angrier about our toys being out.

I actually live in Japan and, unless you are mega-rich, homes are indeed very small. It really forces you to spend a lot of time thinking about how to arrange and organise everything so that it fits and constantly reassessing if you really need something or if you can free up space for things you do need.

Here in Japan, many women are expected to become housewives. Lots take pride in it and, the way things are done here, housewives are busy every day. It's common for people to do small loads of laundry every day, haul out everyone's futon, hang it outside and beat it every day. Get fresh food every day to cook both breakfast and dinner for the whole family. Scrub floors by hand instead of mopping. Laundry is air-dried and no one has a dishwasher. Most washing machines do not heat the water and any stains/smells sticking around due to that are expected to be scrubbed out by hand. So I am not surprised to see one woman taking such pride in one aspect of housekeeping and trying to teach others her way.

[JollyJazz]

I think over the top work for women is a major form of control. It crops up in cultures all over the world that are dominated by men. Over the top demands for work come up in so many areas of life, house keeping, being a social secretary, beauty work etc.

[moglow]

Honestly, I bought it months ago and I like it.  Of course, I've lived with roommates the past few years and 90% of my belongings are in storage.  Each time I have moved, I've reduced further the stuff I store/keep, primarily because I have limited space and I hate going on a search every time I need something.  But then I've always been very much a "take it out, put it away," "a thing for every purpose and a purpose for every thing" kind of person. 

I don't by any means talk to my tshirts or shoes and thank them for what they've done for me, but I also have no hesitation to go through and dispose of clothing and other items I don't need, can't wear, are worn out and faded.  I hate opening cabinets and having things come tumbling out, or worse, injuring myself because I can't see that razor hiding under the toothpaste.

Useless clutter drives me up a tree.  THAT, I'm pretty sure, is based on mother's homes over the years:  Every horizontal surface is covered, shelves and bookcases and framed items up the walls as far as she can get them, "treasures" on window sills, etc.  There's about six inches of kitchen counter available, with stacks of canisters and jars and spice racks and small appliances as far as the eye can see.  Everything covered with a layer of dust, although when I lived at home one of my jobs was thorough house cleaning every Saturday, requiring that every item be dusted/wiped down.  It's not even that these things have sentimental value - too much is from mail order "one delivered each month until your set is complete!"

But at the same time, the thought of someone going through and disposing of my things would wreck me!  When I left mother's home at 17, it was a few months before I went back to her house for a visit.  I was stunned beyond belief to see what she'd done - she had erased every indication that she had children.  Anything I had left behind thinking I could get later or that she would keep for us was GONE.  No childhood keepsakes, no dolls, no pictures or artwork I may have made, nothing.  The only thing left were our most recent school portraits on the wall.

Triggers.

[LucyLocket]

I quite liked this book, although I have a tendency to skim read, so I wasn't reading it in order to follow the instructions to the letter (I can't even follow a recipe precisely - I always change something) so I took what I thought was useful and ignored the rest. I can totally see how it would be a triggering book for those who've grown up with control freak type parents or had people disregard and dispose of your stuff without permission.

I like to have a fairly decluttered home, I find it hard to concentrate and think if my space is cluttered or messy, and I'm also not really all that sentimental with things. I found some advice in this book useful, and other advice didn't make sense to me, so I did took what worked for me, and it actually did help me sort through my things, which was what I wanted to do.

I don't know about the whole "keep what sparks joy" thing, that didn't really work for me. I do have a saying that I like which goes something like "Have nothing in your home that you don't know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"

Another one that works for me is "If everything is precious, nothing is precious" which I think comes from a zen saying maybe? I interpret it as if I have too much stuff, I end up ignoring most of it, but when I have less things, I enjoy the things that I do have, more.

[sandpiper]

Diverting slightly off topic, so I apologise for that.
During the summer holidays I visited my favourite bookshop & saw that some clever author has run with this idea on the boundaries & emotional clutter level.
It's by Sarah Knight & it's called 'The life changing magic of not giving a **** - how to stop spending time you don't have with people you don't like doing things you don't want to do' (clause attached: without becoming a psychopath).
It looks like a really fun read so I've got it on order from the library.
I read an interview with the author where she realised that it wasn't the problem with her sock drawer that was sucking the joy out of her life, it was the people in her life that didn't respect her boundaries.
And once she'd gotten the boundary stuff straight, the contents of her sock drawer became a whole lot more manageable.
I really liked that analogy between having good boundaries for your emotional stuff & how that kind of made the physical clutter easier to part with.

[Spring Butterfly]

Sandpiper, great concept! I checked out some reviews and free online summary articles. Clearing out emotionally draining relationships and annoying life "obligations" makes so much sense. While some reviews said it went too far for some readers the articles I read said one take away is being honest without being too honest, to maintain expected social grace when declining invitations for example. It sounds very much like 'my stuff your stuff' and boundaries mentality. Please let us know how it is and maybe it deserves its own thread here in book reviews!