Book #50: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Marie Kondo is a Japanese tidying and decluttering expert, and this book is the new trendy craze in the home/lifestyle world right now. She basically is explaining an entirely different way to go about cleaning and organizing your house until you get to a state of nirvana (my words, not hers)--the KonMari method (which she named after herself, which seems a bit weird to me). A self-proclaimed tidying expert who has spent "over 80% of her life focusing on this," she has lots of wacky ideas about thanking your objects for fulfilling the purpose they had in coming into your life, greeting your things when you return home for the day, and making sure you run your hands over your things you haven't worn or used in a while to infuse life into them. But despite all the wackiness, she's also got a bunch of really practical, interesting advice that I think makes a lot of sense. Such as:

-When you decide you want to organize your house, you first declutter and discard everything you don't want, THEN organize the remainder.
-You only should keep the things that spark joy to you--that truly make you happy. Everything else can/should be tossed out (or donated).
-You should view decluttering as a one-time Big Event--something you do once and then you should never have to do it again because you will never again clutter your house with unnecessary stuff. Go through your things by category (clothes first, then books, then papers, etc.), getting rid of everything that doesn't spark joy.
-Once you've decluttered, you should make sure that every. single. thing. has a place and that you know where it goes. Once this happens, you will never have too much stuff and things hidden away that you've forgotten. (She claims to have a 0% rebound rate among her clients, because this system is so effective.)

All of these tips make sense to me and seem like they should work, in theory. I know several people who have completely adopted this entire method and literally changed their lives because of it. I am not necessarily planning on doing this, but I really like the idea of getting rid of things that don't make you happy and the idea of living a somewhat minimalist lifestyle. It's very easy to get overwhelmed with stuff, especially with kids and their accompanying STUFF, but I think it's lucky for us that we are relatively young in life and have been relatively poor so far, so we don't have too much already. Plenty of extra closet space everywhere in our house still. We also are classic underbuyers, where we refuse to buy things until we are way past the point of needing to.

So even though I am not planning on instigating this into my life plan exactly, I folded all my shirts the way she suggested and I am absolutely LOVING IT! It's so awesome to be able to see all of the shirts that I have at one go--instead of only wearing the same 4 or 5 that always end up on the top of the stacks--and it's so much cleaner and fits perfectly in the drawer. I am totally happy with this and now this definitely sparks more joy. (I also found that I have five BYU football t-shirts--which I could probably discard at least four of without feeling too guilty or worrying about it either.)

Also, our previously overflowing and totally unorganized kitchen towels drawer--with the aprons added in as well because there is so much extra space now! If I don't do anything else with this, these two drawers are worth it completely.