Those are my personal notes on Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” (insert Amazon affiliate link here)

life advice

  • practicing the technique can gradually infuse you with the mindset. practice first, mindset second; “fake it ‘till you make it.”
  • start somewhere small, let the feeling pervade you and let it spread to all other areas.
    • tidy up your home, and before you know it you’re tidying up your mental space
  • you might be falling short for reasons different from the ones you tell yourself. the wrong reasons we tell ourselves for our dysfunctions. bad results from bad beliefs.
  • never-ending processes occur when taking things slow tidy a little at a time and you’ll be cleaning forever
    • work carried through to completion prevents future relapse
    • radicality of action and experience is needed for new lasting impressions to be made and for deeply ingrained habits or beliefs to be uprooted. seeing the results of radical action provokes strong emotions, which bring about profound change. not seeing the result or feeling clear effects, motivation peters out. favour quick results.
      • life-changing experiences come from sudden change and completely new experiences.
  • certain skills are a given for some but need to be deliberately trained for others.
  • desired skills become less daunting to acquire when broken down into simple parts.
    • you can then aim for perfection, since you know how to reach it
  • what is commonly being told or taught might not be true.
  • connect to your reasons before starting a process. do things with vision in mind; the purpose served by what you are about to do. envision the lifestyle you’re going for with great detail, write it down.
    • go “vision-shopping”, get exposed to people’s lifestyle, see the spectrum of life experiences, choose which ones to experience
    • connect to the deeper reasons why you decide on these experiences. (when asking this question multiple times in a row, you will realize the root reason is wanting to be happy)
  • we are sometimes blind to what we actually like to do, or what we have always liked to do. reconnect to your childhood fantasies.
  • by having clarity on the life we want, what we stand for and how we want to show up in the world, we automatically acquire confidence in our actions and decisions. this happens through tidying up and seeing clearly. by tidying up, we identify what we stand for, what we want out of life, and from this we derive self-confidence in our actions. People who lack confidence in their judgment lack confidence in themselves.
  • your home and material possessions give you unconditional love.
  • identify fear as an indicator for growth. when you know something is the right thing to do but it’s difficult to do it, it’s usually a sign of attachment to the past or fear for the future.

on tidying up

  • a tidy space lets you see clearly and encourages you to look inwards. tidy to make space (for what is truly essential). by putting things in order, you recognize what your priorities are.
  • a room is not messy by itself. a room is just a room. a room is what you make of it.
    • as with rooms, so with:
      • brains
      • your body. what you feed it, do with it and of it.
      • your life; “life’s what you make it.”

discarding

  • only possess what you love. are you happy wearing clothes that don’t give you pleasure?
    • take each item in your hands and ask yourself if it sparks joy
      • identifying what sparks joy and what doesn’t is a skill to hone, a habit to acquire. knowing what you like. develop the instinct for what really inspires joy (in terms of experiences as well!)
    • choose what to keep and discard the rest. rather than choosing what to discard and keeping the rest. there are often no compelling reasons for discarding things, leading them to accumulate even though they don’t bring value to your life.
      • (hence, choose to live in a city that you will truly inhabit, not one that is too big for you and whose offers are lost on you; leave it to someone else instead who will appreciate it more; and cherish the city where you decide to live. the connection between choosing what one truly wants and being able to cherish it.)
  • going through one’s possessions is a way of taking stock of one’s past and achieving closure. introspection through belongings. every belonging has a unique story personal to you.
    • ask yourself whether an item (or relationship) has fulfilled its role. acknowledge the meaning items had in your past, thank them and let them go. “free the souls” and make peace with your past. bring closure.
  • process items by similarity (category), not by place of storage. group things first before reorganizing. similar items can be found in different places prior to tidying up. bring all similar items together, then start discarding and ordering.
  • keep the books that you are happy to have around, not the ones you will need “some day”. have a “book hall of fame”
  • sort your photos (& notes) now for looking back on later. you will enjoy the photos far more when you are old if they are already in an album than if you have to move and sort through a heavy box full of them
    • in going through pictures and deciding which ones to keep, you’re making visible what’s really important to you. tidying is a way of taking stock that shows us what we really like

storing items

  • finish discarding completely before starting to order
    • don’t organize mess. organize what you cherish. an organized mess only gives the illusion of order. (bureaucracy – introducing order around non-essential things)
  • store similar items in the same place to prevent redundancy. by not knowing what you already have, you expend energy to acquire them again. by knowing what you have, you prevent redundancy.
  • have a designated spot for everything. the moment you begin to have a spot for miscellanea, you lose, and things are going to get cluttered.
    • designate a home for your possessions so that they have a place to rest, like humans. storage is the sacred act of choosing a home for our belongings
  • reduce the effort needed to put things away (not the effort needed to take them out — clutter comes from not putting things away back to where they belong.)
  • make rarely used items difficult to access but still in sight.
  • fill cupboards with bookcases; fill drawers with small boxes.
  • arrange clothes from heavy to light (left to right), such that it forms a line going up
  • arrange items from dark to light (front to back).
  • store clothes, socks and papers standing up (fridge items as well)
  • group bags by type, put them inside each other, let the straps dangle out. fold totes.
  • empty your bag and pockets every day.

cherishing items

  • cherish what you have, what you have deliberately decided to keep and have in your custody. decide to keep based on whether you can cherish. use what you have decided to keep. use what you have. own less, cherish more. regularly thank your belongings and express appreciation and gratitude, treat them as being alive.
    • contentment and joy can be achieved by cherishing more.
    • regularly go through your belongings, even off-season ones.
    • make your possessions visible, give them a spot that honors them, makes them shine. things stored out of sight are dormant. dormant items slowly die. you probably do not treasure the things that you forget you own because they are hidden away.
    • cherish what you have access to, your intangible possessions and privilege; relationships.
  • love your storage items
  • the life of our belongings, like humans, is the relationship we have to them. caring for your possessions is the best way to motivate them to support you, their owner. when you treat your belongings well, they will always respond in kind.
  • wear only clothes you love (even at home). you can wear clothes inside that you don’t dare to wear outside, but that you still love. ask yourself “do I love this?” for each part of your appearance.
    • use your new clothes more often to convert them from product to possession.

semantics

  • “order” can be seen as arrangement or as sequence. there is an interplay between spatial ordering and sequential ordering. by creating order, one can establish priorities. (same with “rank”: either to rank first, second; or to rank something among …, i.e. categorize)