The Konmari Method Pt. 1: Set-up

This is a follow-up post to my last post. As I mentioned in that one I have reached a point where I am feeling overwhelmed by my things and the sense of disconnect that was leading too. I mentioned this sort of feeling of "eh" about it all and I had several recommend Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-Up". It is literally a self-help book about tidying-up, so I was hesitant to even give it a try because "what could this lady possibly have to say about being tidy that I don't know, or isn't self-evident?" Well, after several months of resistance I decided to listen to it one day. As it turns out there were some things that I had never really considered before:

• Only keep those things that "spark joy or happiness".
• I have personally come to interpret this as any item that leads to joy or happiness, such as my mop. It does not in and of itself spark joy, but I am calmer and more at peace when my home is clean, so owning things that facilitate that end (and that are good at that) spark joy.
• Clean by item category not location.
• This was something I had never thought to do before. The idea here is that you get all like items (for example clothes, all of them, even the ones that are stored away because they are out of season), dump them all out on the floor, go through each item individually and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. This is awesome because I can't tell you how many times in the past I have covered the same ground twice (or more).
• De-clutter, then home all items in a short period of time.
• Her definition of "short" is roughly 6 months or less. So fast enough to see the difference, but not so fast that you burn out trying to clean out the entire house in one week or something like that.

This process is called "Konmari". I'm not going to lie, there are parts of the book that are a little cheesy and silly, just like in any self-help book, but it was also one of the single most motivating self-help books I've ever read. 

One of her rules is to got through items in a particular order, 1) clothes, 2) books/papers, 3) Miscellaneous items (think CDs/DVDs, bathroom items, electronics, etc.), and 4) Sentimental items. The idea is that as you move from clothes towards sentimental items you have become better at determining what "sparks joy" so that when you get to sentimental items you are totally primed and ready to go.