The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

While I was watching a Japanese news program a week ago, I knew that Marie Kondo, who is a Japanese organizing consultant and author, was selected as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. She has written a bestselling series about cleanup practices, and it has sold 3 million copies around the world.

人生がときめく片づけの魔法 by Marie Kondo

the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo

I watched some YouTube videos to know about her more. I was surprised that she started reading organizing magazines at age 5 and became interested in organizing. She volunteered an organizer at elementary school when she was a child. She was inspired by the book, 捨てる技術 (Suteru Gijyutsu by Nagisa Tatsumi), means the skill of throwing out in Japanese, and she started studying about organizing seriously when she was a junior high-schooler.

Marie Kondo, "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up"

Do you know that dan-sya-ri, 断捨離, has been pretty popular in Japan these days? The word of dan-sya-ri won the grand prize in the buzzwords contest in Japan in 2010. 断(dan) has the meaning "to refuse". 捨(sya) has the meaning "to throw out", and 離(ri) has the meaning "to distance." People re-evaluate things in their house and throw out what they don't really need. They clear the mind of stuff and get rid of clutter. As the result, they make their life more comfortable. Her method, which is called Konmari method, of deculttering is like dan-sya-ri, so it's not new to me. However, what Konmari method impacted me was about "spark joy." When you touch the thing, you can ask if it sparks joy. If it makes you happy, you can keep it. Heretofore, when people start organizing, we tend to think which one we should get rid of. However, her method is to find out which one we want to keep and live together. In addition, I like that she said that tidying is like festival. You don't have to tidy around you everyday. :) I would like to follow her book to make my life happy!