
The Art of Tidying Up - jimsojim
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/tidying-up
======
nlawalker
I read Ms. Kondo's book out of curiosity about a month ago. If you're just
looking for some new tidying ideas/tips, don't bother with the book - it's
written in more of a self-help style that regurgitates the same simple points
ad nauseum.

There are really only a few practical tips in the book:

\- Don't be afraid to do a big purge. Your stuff is just that, stuff.

\- Do the big purge all at once. "Ongoing" tidiness should simply be putting
your stuff away, not constantly revisiting different parts of your home
looking for stuff you can throw away.

\- Look up "konmari folding" on YouTube for a new idea about how to fold and
store your clothes. For those who are already fairly tidy, this is the only
real "new" idea in the book that may interest you.

\- Be affluent enough to have these problems in the first place. None of the
advice is for people who are simply slobs, it's for people who have
accumulated too much stuff and who feel it dragging down their life.

~~~
famousactress
I enjoyed the book but agree that it was pretty pedantic and for lots of
people that's overkill. That said, I think you missed the two points that I
found most useful:

1\. When deciding what to keep/discard, keep things that "spark joy in your
heart". That is, don't use rules like "If I haven't worn this in X".. The
book's explanations around this are pretty helpful. 2\. Do the big purge in
order of type-of-thing... not room by room. I think the specific order
prescribed is something like Clothes, Books, Papers, [I forget, I forget],
Keepsakes. Going by type makes it easier to make sound decisions, and the
sequence of types warms you up for hard purges (keepsakes, etc) that will
otherwise likely hang you up in room #1.

All of that said, I only really got through Clothes, books, and papers... but
even just that was massively helpful.

------
justusw
I am all for tidying up. One should not forget though, that there are many
reasons for why things end up the way they do (as in, cluttered and untidy). I
don't think that it 'just happens' that your house fills itself with things
that you never will use. Sure, we can blame consumer culture and capitalistic
indoctrination. But if we're honest, most of the stuff that we buy is because
we hope that it will change us as a person and that we can fill that emptiness
that lingers inside.

In the end, buying will not change lives as much as we think. Change has to
come from within and from connecting with others. I really doubt that "300,000
things" will achieve that change.

I think the authors of
[http://www.theminimalists.com](http://www.theminimalists.com) have some great
answers regarding the question "if not consumerism, what will add value to my
life?". While most of you already know the answer "friends, health, passion,
etc.", and are tired of the platitudes, I am sure that it is easy to forget
the values in a world surrounded by messages of consumption. If you are
interested, I would recommend starting with this article
[http://www.theminimalists.com/21days/](http://www.theminimalists.com/21days/)
about how the authors Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus got started on
their journey to minimalism.

~~~
koralatov
I don't think anyone is suggesting that a home filling up with things `just
happens' \--- most people will readily admit that they have bought or received
those things, and that those things are there because of their own action
(acquisition or receipt) or inaction (unwillingness/inability to dispose of
items).

I also take issue with the implicit suggestion in your comment that most
people genuinely think that consumerism will add value to their lives; I see
that attitude a lot in `minimalist' blogs and discussions, and I realise that
they're selling a narrative and a lifestyle, but it's very condescending.

People end up buying things to try and facilitate change or to bring happiness
often because they don't know of any other method, or because other avenues
have failed them, or they don't have access to them in the first place. When
asked, most people will admit that a new gadget or purse or pair of shoes or a
second helping of cake will bring them some kind of joy, perhaps fleeting, but
will also admit that family and health and following their passions are more
worthwhile goals. It's not either/or dichotomy that it's so often set out to
be by `minimalists'.

In my own experience, I know and work with people for whom many of these
things are impossible to follow for whatever reason. Some have abusive
families and still deal with the fallout of that. Many have passions but
simply don't have the money to follow them as much as they'd like, or at all.
Some people have chronic health issues which they cannot overcome. I'm
certainly not going to harangue them or judge them for buying another DVD, or
another book, or another pair of cheap trainers because they can't follow more
`worthwhile' paths.

Inversely, I've come across a lot of `minimalists' \--- mostly online, but
some in real life --- who fetishise their _lack_ of possessions the same way
many collectors fetishise their collections. Minimalism-as-less-stuff is just
as informed by consumerism as maximalism-as-happiness is; it's simply the
opposite side of the same coin.

~~~
the_af
In addition to what you say, there's nothing wrong with collecting things
you're passionate about. Sure, value your relationships with family and
friends, love the great outdoors if you must, but there's nothing wrong with
also valuing your hobbies even if they involve collecting stuff.

Disclaimer: I am extremely untidy and also collect scale models and
miniatures. My house is a mess, but that's a personality flaw (my kitchen is
also very untidy, and that has to do with being a slob, not with the number of
things I have in it). Of course, none of my stuff is "essential", but life is
made up of nonessential things too.

I understand the criticism of mindless consumerism (for example, I couldn't be
less interested in having the latest gadget, smartphone, etc, and I don't
understand the people who are), but I really don't get the fetishism about not
owning stuff.

------
kaitai
To give people an idea of what someone else found most interesting or novel in
the book:

\-- The "spark of joy" test (hold the object in your hand and ask yourself,
does this thing give me a spark of joy? if not, get rid of it)

\-- The consistent idea of respect for your things. This reminds me of older
generations that more consistently mended clothing and fixed small home
appliances. They understood that value of treating their possessions nicely
(folding them well, storing them correctly) because it saved them time and
money in later care. Many of us don't understand how to maintain our stuff --
we just get new socks when there's a little hole in the old one or wear the
sock until the little hole is too big to fix. Kondo's book doesn't address
fixing things, but it does address proper storage so that clothing lasts and
performs better.

\-- Honestly, I love her folding methods and my sock and underwear space went
from 2 drawers to 1. All my shirts now fit on one shelf as well. As someone
who needs to see everything in order to process that totality, I was always
accused of being messy before, because I'd rather keep all things things in
view instead of in some stupid "storage solution." Now I can keep it all
visible and look neat. Now how could I do this in my office?!

~~~
miguelrochefort
Most things are not worth taking care of due to planned obsolescence.

------
hatmatrix
> This is fine as reference material, but casual readers may find themselves
> wishing the author were as economical with words as she is with possessions.

------
copperx
I have been hoping someone writes the digital equivalent of a 'tidying up'
book. How to organize your files (or how to enable efficient searches), how to
keep track of your digital possesions, whether to discard them or just store
them on Amazon Glacier, proven strategies for storing logins & passwords, etc.
Preferably written for techies.

We all have some sort of either adhoc or (rarely) a well-planned system of
digital organization, but having a nicely written guide would be great for
some things we haven't thought about (e.g., useful scripts, clever tricks,
backup strategies, etc).

I've looked online for tips and tricks, but I haven't come up with much.

~~~
cableshaft
I'd be very interested in this type of book. I've been looking for some sort
of community or forum discussion or even just the right term to google for
ideas on better digital organization, and either I'm using the wrong term or
the information isn't really out there.

I've even been tempted to read some books on library science to come up with
ideas for organization, taxonomies, etc, but I haven't done it yet.

I have an idea for a small app that would help in sorting digital files easier
(kind of like symlinks to a bunch of disparate folders based on context, with
drag and drop support), just to make my own sorting process easier, but I
haven't really sat down to work on it yet.

------
tonyedgecombe
Rather than spending their time clearing out their rubbish I think most people
would be better off learning to be more discerning about what they allow into
their lives in the first place.

~~~
nlawalker
It's important to put her focus on getting rid of stuff into context: Ms.
Kondo is a "tidying consultant" whose clients are mostly affluent people that
can't even get started on tidying up in any meaningful way because they simply
have more stuff than storage. She tells stories of people throwing out 20, 30,
50 bulging full-size garbage bags of excess stuff - these are people with a
lot of money and a lot of accumulated clothes and possessions, and who live in
homes large enough to contain it but not organize it. They are also affluent
enough to be able to err on the side of getting rid of _too_ much stuff during
an enthusiastic round of cleaning. Ms. Kondo exhorts her readers not to buy in
bulk in order to avoid clutter - it's not like you need to be super-wealthy to
pass up the cost benefits of buying in bulk, but her advice is not meant for
people who are just scraping by or for whom the tradeoff of space-for-money
makes sense.

~~~
magic_beans
I'm not sure why you've been greyed out. This is a fantastic point. This is by
no means a book for every person. This is hardly even a book for every culture
(though it's a huge best-seller in Japan).

------
justdream
I think this book is about cultivating a home with exactly what you need, or
essentialism; to view it as purely a self-help text on the aesthetic of
minimalism is a loss to the reader, and overlooks the relationship between Zen
and Japanese culture.

I was offered some advice last year by a monk who had been living at a
monastery that resonated when I read this book:

"Our surroundings have a profound impact on our psyche. If you want to do good
deeds, consider surrounding yourself with good people. If you want to work
hard, consider surrounding yourself with hard workers.

And if you’re feeling sad, down, and kind of messy? Clean your room."

~~~
senthil_rajasek
"Our surroundings have a profound impact on our psyche."

Is this a proven fact?

Statements like these make sense intuitively but I would rather see scientific
evidence for this statement than just accept it.

~~~
ellyagg
[http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459](http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459)

~~~
metasean
>Ethical approval Not required

------
m0nty
> The average American home contains around 300,000 “things”

If I broke everything down into its components, that figure wouldn't even be
close. In fact, I know of so few people who would come close, I'd question
where this figure came from. I'm not in the US, btw.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> I'd struggle to get to 3,000.

I have that many books plus 500 CDs and 200 vinyl albums. My wife has a couple
of hundred handbags and a similar number of coats and jackets.

But books are by far the largest class of thing in my house. I can't imagine
having 300k items, even 30k seems rather unlikely in a house where you can see
the floor!

Edit: I'm not in the US either so my house is probably smaller than the
average US on though possibly larger than the other Brits commenting here; I'm
in Norway.

~~~
distances
A couple of hundred handbags, and a couple of hundred coats? How can you even
store that many, let alone use them?

I know the classical exaggerations of these items, but I had no idea someone
would actually gather such a collection.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Alright, I exaggerated about the coats, it just seems like hundreds, but the
handbag count is literally true. Some of them are too decorative and fragile
to use.

------
cm2012
This book is very good for people who try to fill the hole in their hearts
with shopping or having things. I don't think there's a huge match there to
HN's audience.

