A Tidy-Up Book Cleans Up on the Best-Seller List

This is a book that you probably don’t want to see.  Yet, plenty have, as it has become a New York Times best-seller since its initial distribution in October, 2014.  Even today, it remains at #39 on the Amazon.com best-seller list.

Marie Kondo wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:  The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Ten Speed Press).  This is actually her third book on organizing.

 

Who is Marie Kondo?  The London Times described her as “Japan’s preeminent guru of tidiness, a warrior princess in the war on clutter.”  Her actual business is as a consultant in Tokyo, assisting clients to change the look and feel of their homes and offices.

How many books on clutter have you seen become a television drama?  It happened for this one on Japanese television.   Articles have appeared about her in the Wall Street Journal,  Red, You, New York Times, USA Today, NPR’s Here & Now, Slate, and Family Circle.  Her method of organizing is known as the KonMari method, and consists of gathering together everything you own and then keeping only those things which “spark joy”, and choosing a place for everything from then on.

 

 

 

These are the key five tips from her book that appear in today’s Wall Street Journal.  You can read the entire article by clicking here.  These tips are called “How to Kondo.”

• Tidy by category: Clothes first, then books, papers, miscellany and sentimental items.
• Don’t foist your unwanted stuff on family members who might take it out of guilt. Give it to charity.
• There is nothing more annoying than papers.’ Throw them all away, unless they are absolutely necessary.
• Forget fancy storage containers. Drawers and shoeboxes often suffice.
• Avoid piles. Tip items up on their sides and store them next to each other, rather than stacking them. (p. D2)

You can rest assured we won’t present this one at the First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas.   The guilt might be overwhelming.  I read this response from Mrs. Paul Iverson online:  “It’s sad to think that we need a book to tell us it’s okay to be neat, clean and tidy.  To discard stuff that we don’t need, never should have bought in the first place,  or is broken!  I guess this is good for anyone that didn’t learn it at a young age!”