Book review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō

Given that much of the KonMari method has already entered the public consciousness, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading this book. Although I had expected it to serve as a how-to or even self-help book, I found a lot of value in taking it as a philosophical text. Kondō makes insightful points on materialism and presents a novel (to me) perspective on the purpose of tidying/maintaining tidiness. It can be tempting to view some of the practices she advocates, like asking whether or not things spark joy or thanking your belongings, as silly—hence the memes—but taking them in the overall context of the book reveals a fresh philosophy on how we can relate to our environment.

What is the purpose of tidiness? And of the objects that we surround ourselves with? In 1927, Le Corbusier answered, "A house is a machine for living in." Even before I first heard this quote, I had already subscribed to a similar philosophy: the environment should be designed/organized to serve you, implying a service relationship between a person and their objects.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up not only re-imagines the potential of that relationship (“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.”) but also establishes a convincing strategy for actually changing your life through revisiting the nature of this relationship. First of all, by going through the process of determining which of your objects spark joy, you train the muscle of actually discerning how you feel about things in general. The former allows you to create an environment filled with joy, while the latter gives you a new lens through which to view your career/relationships/etc. And secondly, by going through this process, our objects regain a sense of preciousness, which I think is really important in our Amazon Prime, fast fashion society. (Side note: this kind of reflection was one of the reasons I also found Princeton's spring 2019 musical, We Were Everywhere, so thought-provoking and moving.)

Although I didn't actually do a full KonMari Method declutter, the ideas underlying the method have stuck with me and are very much informing how I'm approaching e.g., decorating my new apartment. Overall, I really appreciated how this book caused me to reflect on the way my internal state affects and is affected by my external environment, and I highly recommend this book to folks interested in organization (and thinking about organization), as well as anyone looking to make a change in their life.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

No man steps in the same river twice

Systems thinking and economic indicators

What I mean by modulo