I have heard many a comment about this supposedly ground-breaking method for reducing one’s life of clutter, and getting back to the simplicity of what is truly important. The concept is a good one. I fear however, that this book will not help many people achieve that goal.
In order to be a success story of the Marie Kondō method, one must fully embrace minimalist living at its extreme. Not to mention have a wildly overblown case of OCD, and be more than a little bit insane…
Step 1: Collect all of your belongings in a certain category in one spot on the floor. To purge books, you must dump every single book out of every single bookcase into the center of the floor, all at one time, in order to then pick up every single book and decide whether it “sparks joy.” If not, get rid of it. It must spark so much joy that one should only keep a limit of 30 books. I ask, how can I know if it sparks joy if I haven’t read it yet!? That might have been the book’s death sentence for me.
Step 2: Repeat for every single category in your home. Does that fork “spark joy”? Off with its head! I say this in jest, but I’ll use the kitchen as an example. Beyond some of the actual food, nothing in my kitchen sparks joy. I don’t love cooking, but I do need to eat… My cup doesn’t floweth over every time I look at the microwave. That colander doesn’t fill me with overwhelming gratitude that it helps me live my best life every time I drain the water from my spaghetti. It’s a tool… But apparently, per the Marie Kondō method, I am just not properly thanking my belongings for being so wonderful each day and as a result, my sad, tired belongings aren’t able to bring it in a meaningful way. I’m not exaggerating here – if you don’t believe me, read the book.
Step 3: Throw everything that doesn’t spark joy away.
Marie Kondō grew up feeling joy from decluttering, organizing and purging. This is in fact the only thing she talks about getting joy from as a child. Apparently running around with her friends, having animals, coloring, swimming, going to camp – none of it brought more joy than cleaning. I don’t want to judge, but there is something deeply and profoundly wrong here…
If you follow her method, you will spend approximately 1.53 years of your life doing nothing but rummaging around in your house touching, and then throwing away most of what you own. Your house may be empty for a while. Until you have to go back out and buy the scissors, Band-aids, soup ladle and filing cabinet all over again… If you do read it, accept that the concept in its simple form is a good one. Don’t keep hanging on to that shirt you got as a gift but don’t really like. Don’t keep the glasses you never use. Purge more, and keep what you need.
Thankfully the book was relatively short, but this was still about 6 hours of my life I can’t get back. At least I was multi-tasking… Good thing I checked out the audiobook version from the library, so I don’t have to throw it away…
1 star.
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