You, guys! I almost never blog about books, but I loved this so much that I just had to share The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
Like most books I read, I heard about this one through my friend Elise. (Haha—seriously, Elise, I am trying to think of a book I’ve read in the last few years that wasn’t on your recommendation!) I picked it up before a weeklong family vacation in hopes that it would inspire me to declutter my home before moving.
It’s so annoying to me when I spend time (and money!) moving things to our next space only to donate them because they don’t have a place.
This time, since our move is more substantial (bigger home and moving to a new state), I felt it was more important than ever to detox our belongings before we start boxing everything up.
I plowed through this book on family vacation (I think it only took me three-ish days to read), and it definitely inspired me to go home and start cleaning out our belongings, with a new perspective.
Here’s my basic review—
-I love how this author has a fresh perspective! We’ve all heard the cleaning rules such as, “If you haven’t worn it for a year, it’s time to let go.” I have tried for years to minimize my belongings based on rules like that and I have made some progress, but for some reason, this book inspired me to come home and clean out my (already recently cleaned out) closet, and I was finally able to cut my clothing in half.
There were so many things that I was holding onto for various reasons that Marie Kondo’s “does it spark joy?” motto inspired me to let go of.
For me, her method works. No doubt about it.
-OK, so if you pick this book up after reading my recommendation (you totally should!), there are a couple things I want to warn you about. One is that the book starts slow. I wasn’t into it until around page 30 and then it really picked up for me. The other thing is that there are parts of it that are too extreme for me (and I’m assuming would be too extreme for a lot of people).
For example, Kondo strongly recommends that you empty out your purse and put everything away in its designated place at the end of each day (…”& for that reason I’m out”). Also, there are some parts that encourage talking to your belongings and your home…eek! A bit too much for me.
With that said, I still got SO much out of the book and her methods. If you struggle to detox your home, I highly recommend this book. It was an easy, fast read and inspired me to clean RIGHT AWAY. 🙂
Grab the book here—The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
I’m off to tidy up…haha! Happy weekend -Elsie
Hello! I am an admin of The Konmari Method group on facebook and have been looking for a photo of this book in a pretty setup to add to a post in the group. Yours is beautiful. Is it OK to borrow it for the purpose? I will be linking the photo source of course 🙂
Sure! 🙂
I’ve been hearing a lot about this book and I will have to add it on my summer reading list 🙂
Elsie, have you read Do Less by Rachel Jonat? It’s very similar! All about de-cluttering your house and life. My boyfriend and I are doing some remodeling and taking the book to heart, clearing out all the stuff we don’t need/use in every room of the house. You’ll love it 🙂
I read the book. I think the best thing that I got from it was the idea of not keeping things that weren’t adding to my life at all. I took about a Uhaul full of stuff to the Goodwill. I giggled at your Shark Tank reference. When I was irritated with the concept of talking to objects, my husband had a different perspective. He told me thank thanking objects, is not for the object, but for yourself. I’ve loved your pictures of the Habitat for Humanity House. It looks awesome, you really did a great job. I’ve been really curious about the progress on Emma and Treys bar. I’d love an update. ??
Thank you so much! I ordered the book right away 😀
Ahhh, see? I was super excited about this until the “emptying your purse at night and put everything in its designated place”. I live in a place where earthquakes happen, and usually at night, so I need to have everything in one place (my purse) if running out of the house in a hurry is necessary. I learned it the hard way, believe me! haha.
Still, pretty cool book and glad you were able to put it to practice with so much success 😀
I’ve read and loved this book, too, but there were definitely parts (the same parts) that I would consider too extreme for me. I appreciated the majority of it, though.
I feel like this book has been everywhere lately!!! I tried to borrow it from the library in May but I’m still on the waitlist O.O
This is awesome! thanks for sharing. I have to pick this up, (I’m kind of a hoarder, lol)..
I loved this book and I just wanted to make the case for the unpacking your purse every day thing! I actually found that one of the least intimidating parts of the book because it was something I could do before I did the whoooooole big thing. I made it my goal for a single month and it actually was really simple and easy to do at night! I often had the problem of transferring stuff to other purses/work bags and then misplacing things or losing important receipts or keeping stupid receipts for way too long. So taking care of it each night worked really well for me. Totally worth committing to for a few weeks and seeing how it makes you feel! 🙂
Also we did our closets/dressers about a month ago and OMG, they look amazing and are miraculously staying that way! It’s awesome.
I need to gift this to my mother and sister! They have serious issues cleaning out their stuff. Thanks for the review!
xoxomake
I actually really like the emptying my handbag when I get home…It means I feel free to change handbag almost every day and I never forget keys etc. I don’t talk to my belongings either but really love the ones which have survived the purge 🙂
Hej Elsie,
thank you for your great blog post. You wrote so interesting about the book …
that… I bought it on amazon in the german version after I read your post. 🙂
Now Iam so excited to start reading and get rid of old stuff.
Thanks a lot!!!
The only problem I thought about is, what if my husband do not want to get rid of old stuff? He likes it to have soooo much things, but I can not breath…
xo Karolin from Germany
I like the idea of throwing things out if they don’t provoke joy! But yeah, that part about putting stuff away from the purse? Never gonna happen. Sounds like a book worth reading, though. Thanks for the review!
www.adventurousappetite.com
I’ve been hearing a lot about this book and I will have to add it on my summer reading list 🙂
I agree that there are somethings in the book that were too extreme. Umm, I’m never going to stop balling my socks and I tried rolling all my clothes, but I hated it so much that I didn’t put them away for two weeks! But overall, I did enjoy the premise. Less stuff is always better.
OMG, this is so weird. My friend just mentioned this book the other day to me and now you’re posting about it. That means I have to read it now haha.
This book resonated with me, even though a few things did seem far-out. The basic premise of keeping what “sparks joy” really works for me. I’m trying to work out how to apply it to my digital world as well as how to make it work in a family space.
I read this book in 90 minutes. It’s slim, for sure. There are a few good ideas here, but many of them are more suitable for someone living in Japan. That said, if you get only one good idea from this book, it’s worth it.
As for the handbag reference in this post, she says to put your handbag stuff in one spot, not put it all away.
I agree though that constantly refilling your handbag is not a good idea as inevitably something import gets missed.
Readers should note that the author is a young, single, woman who does not have a family to mix into the equation. A great deal of her advice is about clothing.
I have heard about this book so much and I think now you’ve inspired me to actually read it. We just recently downsized and so we decluttered quite a bit–but still have two full storage units! EEK! So I need to make more progress with letting go of things. Thanks for the inspiration!