Did anyone read "The life-changing magic of tidying up"

skcomputer

Wed, Aug 05 2015, 2:11 pm

I just finished reading this book. A lot of interesting concepts and some a bit over the top. I tried folding clothes in one drawer the way she describes and it didn't free up any space (although it was indeed easier to see everything and I'm glad that my shirts are happier that way). Thoughts on the book?

amother

Wheat

Wed, Aug 05 2015, 2:15 pm

I've been watching people declutter using her method on You Tube. I really want to do it but don't seem to have the energy to do all the clothes or all the books, etc.

TeachersNotebook

Wed, Aug 05 2015, 9:56 pm

I read a lot of it, but have yet had the energy to implement it. We did do a good part of our clothes. It was really refreshing to get rid of a lot of clothing clutter! But at the same time, I don't understand how it's going to be maintained. If I don't already have the habit of putting away my clothes when I take them off, why will a one time event of decluttering and putting away all of a sudden make me change my habits?

Before my husband introduced me to KonMarie, I loved FlyLady. She is the opposite of KonMarie. (This kind of reflects in the difference between my cleaning patterns and my husband's, too.) Of course, she is also big into decluttering, but for her, there is no such thing as perfect. You do what you can, and you congratulate yourself on small successes. She is very into taking baby steps and doing things "15 minutes at a time" and establishing routines. Although I admit I haven't taken up her method either (do I just have a mental block to cleaning or something?), it really makes more sense to me than the KonMarie method does. You can find her on www.flylady.net, and sign up for her emails to get a good grasp of what her method is about.

TeachersNotebook

Wed, Aug 05 2015, 9:58 pm

PS I think her method of folding shirts was more about being able to see all your clothes than about saving space. The whole thing about feeling them and having them spark joy...

zaq

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 6:29 pm

Life-changing? That's a bit grandiose. Dresser-drawer-changing, yes. Space-releasing, yes. Life changing--not so much. I read it and plan to re-read it every five years or so despite the fact that she overstates quite a lot. What she calls 'tidying up" is what we call decluttering, and when she says "tidy up all at once and never again" she means "If you spend the next six months to a year decluttering and reorganizing, AND if you always, always, always put things back where they belong almost before you've finished using them, AND if you never allow yourself to acquire anything you don't need and love and if you continue on a daily basis to get rid of anything you don't need or want , then you will have a system in place and never need to do this major overhaul ever again." Big "ifs".

And not entirely true. As you segue from one major stage of life to another, you will definitely have to do this overhaul project at each transition. Student to gainfully employed, single to married, DINK to working mom, working mom to sahm, mom of kids to empty-nester, empty nest to assisted living--at every step you have major changes in your needs, resources, and priorities, and these will necessitate cleaning house and reorganizing.

I utterly love her "filing" system that lets you see the entire contents of a drawer at a glance. It's terrif for T-shirts, sweaters, undies, pjs, trousers, gloves, wooly hats and scarves. It's not so great for thin flimsy stuff like silk-like scarves, which would have to be folded so small that they would turn into a mass of wrinkles.

I don't so much love her idea of having only one storage place for each kind of item. In what I imagine to be a tiny Tokyo apartment, she may have to walk all of five feet round trip to retrieve her scissors every time she needs them. I am not willing to have to walk forty feet round trip every time I need a pair, and am very happy having a pair in each room where I am likely to use them often. I like having duplicate grooming implements in the bathroom and bedroom, so that if the bathroom is occupied when I need to take care of some grooming task, I don't have to wait for the bathroom to be vacated. (I could be waiting a long time.) However, I am trying to consolidate certain other classes of goods and store them together. You can be more successful at this if you custom-build your storage. Otherwise, you are forced to store some things where they fit, which is not necessarily together with other items in the same category..

Some things that work well for this single, mildly OCD Japanese woman living alone won't work quite the same for a working mom. What working mom can come in the door, change her shoes and put them away, empty her purse, file the receipts, store the other contents in their designated boxes, and then put the purse away? OTOH, it is possible to benefit from her ideas without following them slavishly. Working mom can have a dedicated rack in the entry where she hangs up her coat and purse and changes into house shoes, or better yet, a series of cubbies like the ones they have in preschool, one for each family member, so they can all stash their outerwear and bags as soon as they come in and not leave them scattered all over Creation.

As for having only possessions that "spark joy", I'm thinking something is lost in translation. Because I just can't get that excited about pantyhose or nail clippers, you know? Now if you hate your pantyhose because they are scratchy, uncomfortable and don't fit right, sure, get rid of them and buy hose that fit like a dream, feel like silk and wear like iron. But what if the pantyhose that will spark your joy cost $20 a pop and your budget allows for no more than $6 a pop? Well, you could skip lunch and walk six miles to and from work every day to be able to afford the luxury legwear, or you could get real and accept that not everything in your life needs to spark joy. Given a choice between "meh" legwear and an "eh" love life, say, or even "mnyeh" food, I'll take the joyless hosiery. KonMarie is loaded so she can afford to have only items she gets excited about.

This is A system of organizing, not THE ONLY system that works. If you like it, follow it, but feel free to pick and choose the parts that suit you.

tweety1

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 8:33 pm

TeachersNotebook wrote:

Are you sure the site address is correct? It got me to a blank page

5mom

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 9:07 pm

It's true that if you throw out all of your stuff, keeping your house tidy is easier.

The book is for families with 1 child and no guests, ever. Sorry, that's not my life.

I don't need a relationship with my things. I prefer to invest that energy in the people I love. My socks do not need to be thanked for cushioning my feet. Gratitude is nice, and she is correct to say that we should show appreciation, but this is way overboard.

zaq

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 10:04 pm

Don't forget, this book is by a Japanese woman--not a Japanese-American or an American of Japanese descent, but a Japanese woman all of whose clients are Japanese. You are reading the book in translation. Traditional Japanese culture is very different from American culture. In Japan, perfection is not an unattainable ideal--it's expected. Demanded, even. Life is much more ritualized and stylized. Apartments are small and people live in extremely close quarters. Everything has meaning, even or maybe especially empty space. Inanimate objects are invested with personalities and feelings. This all comes out in the book.

That being the case, the KonMarie method is going to rub some Americans the wrong way. For all we know it may rub some Japanese the wrong way, too, but it appeals to enough Japanese to make KonMarie very, very successful. Still, nobody's forcing you to follow it. Take what makes sense to you and leave the rest. If none of it makes sense to you, don't take any of it.

Not everybody is enamored of Flylady, either.

zaq

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 10:05 pm

tweety1 wrote:

Are you sure the site address is correct? It got me to a blank page

Try flylady.com--it will switch you to flylady.net and the page should open.

5mom

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 10:14 pm

zaq wrote:

Agreed, this method is not for my life. If it works for others, great. I wasn't advocating a ban of the book, only saying that it's culturally wrong for me and my sensibilities.

zaq

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 10:30 pm

Well, I'm not having any DMC with my socks, either, but I am storing as many things as I can file-drawer fashion.
BTW , Rivka Slatkin, a frum professional organizer, used to have a website jewish-life-organized.com for the household-uninitiated, along the lines of flylady but less strident. Check it out--she may still have the site. Disclaimer--I have no connection to Ms. Slatkin or her business, but I did visit her website some years ago.

gp2.0

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 10:33 pm

What I hate most about flylady is how she cluttered my inbox! I didn't want 6 junk emails a day from someone who claimed to be helping me get rid of junk!

etky

Fri, Aug 07 2015, 12:57 am

Disclaimer: I haven't read the book but I have seen some of Konmari's material on youtube.
By nature I an a declutterer. I have always felt encumbered by too many material posessions and have an intrinsic urge to simplify, categorize and to achieve coherence in my home. I suppose it's related to the fact that I am a control freak in general.
However, b"h I am not obsessive nor am I a perfectionist. Aside from the animism that I also found somewhat jarring and alien, her system strikes me as one that can easily lead to obsessiveness and slavishness in its adherents. How many of us here, most of us moms and all of us orthodox women, are available or have the emotional energy and space to embrace this system - somewhat a religion in itself -in its entirety?
Yes, it has its merits and its appeal so, as Zaq said, just be selective in what you choose to implement. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing prospect. You don't have to let her sell you a 'lifechange'.
BTW I found Flylady also appealing but equally overwhelming, perhaps because of her effusiveness.

PinkFridge

Fri, Aug 07 2015, 8:59 am

zaq wrote:

I'd never heard of it till this thread, and this post has now confirmed that if I do read the book it'll be purely for entertainment. Tongue Out

Rubber Ducky

Fri, Aug 07 2015, 10:10 am

Haven't read the book, but "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" is a terrific title! Almost (not quite) good enough to convince me to clean up just to get some Life-Changing Magic!

PinkFridge

Fri, Aug 07 2015, 10:21 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

Haven't read the book, but "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" is a terrific title! Almost (not quite) good enough to convince me to clean up just to get some Life-Changing Magic!

Catch the musical! And you'll love the soundtrack!

zaq

Sun, Aug 09 2015, 11:22 am

etky wrote:

BTW I found Flylady also appealing but equally overwhelming, perhaps because of her effusiveness.

What a pleasant way to put it! I just call her "bossy".

TeachersNotebook

Sun, Aug 09 2015, 12:19 pm

Pink Fridge and others: just because something is taken from a different culture, doesn't mean it has no applicability to our culture. I'd say it's smart to read the book while keeping in mind that this may come easier or seem more natural for KonMarie's culture, yet it might still have valuable concepts that can be applied in your own life. There's a reason it was translated into English, and not just for entertainment Smile

Chocomama

Sun, Aug 09 2015, 1:07 pm

I liked it overall. I thought it was an interesting read into someone else's culture and gave me a new perspective. I struggle sometimes with the guilt of "but I paid XX for it how can I just throw/give it away." And her point of appreciating an item for what it gave you at that time and now its usefulness to you has past was very very helpful to me.

PinkFridge

Sun, Aug 09 2015, 3:47 pm

TeachersNotebook wrote:

Sure, I read a very wide variety of things.
There was a line though, I think it was from William Helmreich, who was quoted in a Mishpacha article about child prodigies and their parents along the lines of, I'm not a Tiger mom, I'm a gefilte fish dad.
So too, the culture alluded to in that blurb is well beyond my frame of reference. There may well be a nugget or two I'll be able to apply, but I suspect it will be more entertainment value. No jingoism or chauvinism, etc. implied. If anything, it's my inadequacies showing through Very Happy

(Not to imply the same of William Helmreich.)
Anyway, I'm about to see if the library system has it and if so I'll put it on hold.
ETA: Just put it on hold. I'll keep y'all posted.