The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Look inside
Hardcover
$16.99 US
On sale Oct 14, 2014 | 224 Pages | 9781607747307
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The book that sparked a revolution and inspired the hit Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: the original guide to decluttering your home once and for all.

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE—CNN
 
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list). 

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.
Introduction  

Why can’t I keep my house in order?  
You can’t tidy if you’ve never learned how 
A tidying marathon doesn’t cause rebound 
Tidy a little a day and you’ll be tidying forever 
Why you should aim for perfection 
The moment you start you reset your life 
Storage experts are hoarders 
Sort by category, not by location 
Don’t change the method to suit your personality 
Make tidying a special event, not a daily chore 
Finish discarding first  
Start by discarding, all at once, intensely
and completely 
Before you start, visualize your destination 
Selection criterion: does it spark joy? 
One category at a time 
Starting with mementos spells certain failure 
Don’t let your family see 
If you’re mad at your family, your room may be the cause 
What you don’t need, your family doesn’t either 
Tidying is a dialogue with one’s self 
What to do when you can’t throw something away 
Tidying by category works like magic  
Tidying order: follow the correct order of categories 
Clothing: place every item of clothing in the house on the floor 
Loungewear: downgrading to “loungewear” is taboo 
Clothing storage: fold it right and solve your storage problems 
How to fold: the best way to fold for
perfect appearance 
Arranging clothes: the secret to energizing your closet 
Storing socks: treat your socks and stockings
with respect 
Seasonal clothes: eliminate the need to store off-season clothes 
Storing books: put all your books on the floor 
Unread books: “sometime” means “never” 
Books to keep: those that belong in the hall of fame 
Sorting papers: rule of thumb—discard everything 
All about papers: how to organize troublesome papers 
Komono (miscellaneous items): keep things because you love them—not “just because” 
Common types of komono: disposables 
Small change: make “into my wallet” your motto 
Sentimental items: your parents’ home is not a haven for mementos   
Photos: cherish who you are now 
Astounding stockpiles I have seen 
Reduce until you reach the point where
something clicks 
Follow your intuition and all will be well 
Storing your things to make your life shine  
Designate a place for each thing 
Discard first, store later 
Storage: pursue ultimate simplicity 
Don’t scatter storage spaces 
Forget about “flow planning” and “frequency of use” 
Never pile things: vertical storage is the key 
No need for commercial storage items 
The best way to store bags is in another bag 
Empty your bag every day 
Items that usurp floor space belong in the closet 
Keep things out of the bath and the kitchen sink 
Make the top shelf of the bookcase your personal shrine 
Decorate your closet with your secret delights 
Unpack and de-tag new clothes immediately 
Don’t underestimate the “noise” of written information 
Appreciate your possessions and gain strong allies 
The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life 
Put your house in order and discover what you really want to do 
The magic effect of tidying 
Gaining confidence in life through the magic of tidying 
An attachment to the past or anxiety about the future 
Learning that you can do without 
Do you greet your house? 
Your possessions want to help you 
Your living space affects your body 
Is it true that tidying increases good fortune? 
How to identify what is truly precious 
Being surrounded by things that spark joy makes
you happy 
Your real life begins after putting your house in order 


Afterword     
About the author  
Index
Introduction

In this book, I have summed up how to put your space in order in a way that will change your life forever.

Impossible? A common response and not surprising, considering that almost everyone has experienced a rebound effect at least once, if not multiple times, after tidying. 

Have you ever tidied madly, only to find that all too soon your home or workspace is cluttered again? If so, let me share with you the secret of success. Start by discarding. Then organize your space, thoroughly, completely, in one go. If you adopt this approach—the KonMari Method—you’ll never revert to clutter again.

Although this approach contradicts conventional wisdom, everyone who completes my private course has successfully kept their house in order—with unexpected results. Putting their house in order positively affects all other aspects of their lives, including work and family. Having devoted more than 80 percent of my life to this subject, I know that tidying can transform your life.

Does it still sound too good to be true? If your idea of tidying is getting rid of one unnecessary item a day or cleaning up your room a little at a time, then you are right. It won’t have much effect on your life. If you change your approach, however, tidying can have an immeasurable impact. In fact, that is what it means to put your house in order. 

I started reading home and lifestyle magazines when I was five, and it was this that inspired me, from the age of fifteen, to undertake a serious study of tidying that led to my development of the KonMari Method (based on a combination of my first and last names). I am now a consultant and spend most of my days visiting homes and offices, giving hands-on advice to people who find it difficult to tidy, who tidy but suffer rebounds, or who want to tidy but don’t know where to start.

The number of things my clients have discarded, from clothes and undergarments to photos, pens, magazine clippings, and makeup samples, easily exceeds a million items. This is no exaggeration. I have assisted individual clients who have thrown out two hundred 45-liter
garbage bags in one go.

From my exploration of the art of organizing and my experience helping messy people become tidy, there is one thing I can say with confidence: A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is life transforming. I mean it. Here are just a few of the testimonies I receive on a daily basis from former clients.


After your course, I quit my job and launched my own business doing something I had dreamed of doing ever since I was a child.Your course taught me to see what I really need and what I don’t. So I got a divorce. Now I feel much happier.Someone I have been wanting to get in touch with recently contacted me.I’m delighted to report that since cleaning up my apartment, I’ve been able to really increase my sales.My husband and I are getting along much better. I’m amazed to find that just throwing things away has changed me so much. I finally succeeded in losing ten pounds.

My clients always sound so happy, and the results show that tidying has changed their way of thinking and their approach to life. In fact, it has changed their future. Why? This question is addressed in more detail throughout the book, but basically, when you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t, and what you should and shouldn’t do. 

I currently offer a course for clients in their homes and for company owners in their offices. These are all private, one-on-one consultations, but I have yet to run out of clients. There is currently a three-month waiting list, and I receive inquiries daily from people who have been introduced by a former client or who have heard about the course from someone else. I travel from one end of Japan to the other and sometimes even overseas. Tickets for one of my public talks for stay-at-home parents sold out overnight. There was a waiting list not only for cancellations but also for the waiting list. Yet my repeater rate is zero. From a business perspective, this would appear to be a fatal flaw. But what if my lack of repeaters was actually the secret to the popularity of my approach? 

As I said at the beginning, people who use the KonMari Method never revert to clutter again. Because they can keep their space in order, they don’t need to come back for more lessons. I occasionally check in with graduates of my courses to see how they are doing. In almost every case, not only is their home or office still in order but they are continuing to improve their space. It is evident from the photographs they send that they have even fewer belongings than when they finished the course, and have acquired new curtains and furnishings. They are surrounded only by the things they love. 

Why does my course transform people? Because my approach is not simply a technique. The act of tidying is a series of simple actions in which objects are moved from one place to another. It involves putting things away where they belong. This seems so simple that even a six-year-old should be able to do it. Yet most people can’t. A short time after tidying, their space is a disorganized mess. The cause is not lack of skills but rather lack of awareness and the inability to make tidying a regular habit. In other words, the root of the problem lies in the mind. Success is 90 percent dependent on our mind-set. Excluding the fortunate few to whom organizing comes naturally, if we do not address this aspect, rebound is inevitable no matter how much is discarded or how cleverly things are organized.

So how can you acquire the right kind of mind-set? There is just one way, and, paradoxically, it is by acquiring the right technique. Remember: the KonMari Method I describe in this book is not a mere set of rules on how to sort, organize, and put things away. It is a guide to acquiring the right mind-set for creating order and becoming a tidy person. 

Of course, I can’t claim that all my students have perfected the art of tidying. Unfortunately, some had to stop for one reason or another before completing the course. And some quit because they expected me to do the work for them. As an organizing fanatic and professional, I can tell you right now that no matter how hard I try to organize another’s space, no matter how perfect a storage system I devise, I can never put someone else’s house in order in the true sense of the term. Why? Because a person’s awareness and perspective on his or her own lifestyle are far more important than any skill at sorting, storing, or whatever. Order is dependent on the extremely personal values of what a person wants to live with. 

Most people would prefer to live in a clean and tidy space. Anyone who has managed to tidy even once will have wished to keep it that way. But many don’t believe it’s possible. They try out various approaches to tidying only to find that things soon return to “normal.” I am absolutely convinced, however, that everyone can keep his or her space in order. 

To do that, it is essential to thoroughly reassess your habits and assumptions about tidying. That may sound like far too much work, but don’t worry. By the time you finish reading this book, you will be ready and willing. People often tell me, “I’m disorganized by nature,”
“I can’t do it,” or “I don’t have time”; but being messy is not hereditary nor is it related to lack of time. It has far more to do with the accumulation of mistaken notions about tidying, such as “it’s best to tackle one room at a time” or “it’s better to do a little each day” or “storage should follow the flow plan of the house.” 

In Japan, people believe that things like cleaning your room and keeping your bathroom spick-and-span bring good luck, but if your house is cluttered, the effect of polishing the toilet bowl is going to be limited. The same is true for the practice of feng shui. It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

When you’ve finished putting your house in order, your life will change dramatically. Once you have experienced what it’s like to have a truly ordered house, you’ll feel your whole world brighten. Never again will you revert to clutter. This is what I call the magic of tidying. And the effects are stupendous. Not only will you never be messy again, but you’ll also get a new start on life. This is the magic I want to share with as many people as possible.
© M.K. Sadler
Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, star of the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, #1 New York Times bestselling author, and founder of KonMari Media, Inc.
 
Enchanted with organizing since her childhood, Marie began her tidying consultant business as a 19-year-old university student in Tokyo. Today, Marie is a renowned tidying expert helping people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration.
 
Marie has been featured on more than fifty major Japanese television and radio programs as well as in The New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalThe Times of London, VogueEllen, the Rachael Ray show, and many more. She has also been listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. View titles by Marie Kondo

Marie Kondo: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

About

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The book that sparked a revolution and inspired the hit Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: the original guide to decluttering your home once and for all.

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE—CNN
 
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list). 

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

Table of Contents

Introduction  

Why can’t I keep my house in order?  
You can’t tidy if you’ve never learned how 
A tidying marathon doesn’t cause rebound 
Tidy a little a day and you’ll be tidying forever 
Why you should aim for perfection 
The moment you start you reset your life 
Storage experts are hoarders 
Sort by category, not by location 
Don’t change the method to suit your personality 
Make tidying a special event, not a daily chore 
Finish discarding first  
Start by discarding, all at once, intensely
and completely 
Before you start, visualize your destination 
Selection criterion: does it spark joy? 
One category at a time 
Starting with mementos spells certain failure 
Don’t let your family see 
If you’re mad at your family, your room may be the cause 
What you don’t need, your family doesn’t either 
Tidying is a dialogue with one’s self 
What to do when you can’t throw something away 
Tidying by category works like magic  
Tidying order: follow the correct order of categories 
Clothing: place every item of clothing in the house on the floor 
Loungewear: downgrading to “loungewear” is taboo 
Clothing storage: fold it right and solve your storage problems 
How to fold: the best way to fold for
perfect appearance 
Arranging clothes: the secret to energizing your closet 
Storing socks: treat your socks and stockings
with respect 
Seasonal clothes: eliminate the need to store off-season clothes 
Storing books: put all your books on the floor 
Unread books: “sometime” means “never” 
Books to keep: those that belong in the hall of fame 
Sorting papers: rule of thumb—discard everything 
All about papers: how to organize troublesome papers 
Komono (miscellaneous items): keep things because you love them—not “just because” 
Common types of komono: disposables 
Small change: make “into my wallet” your motto 
Sentimental items: your parents’ home is not a haven for mementos   
Photos: cherish who you are now 
Astounding stockpiles I have seen 
Reduce until you reach the point where
something clicks 
Follow your intuition and all will be well 
Storing your things to make your life shine  
Designate a place for each thing 
Discard first, store later 
Storage: pursue ultimate simplicity 
Don’t scatter storage spaces 
Forget about “flow planning” and “frequency of use” 
Never pile things: vertical storage is the key 
No need for commercial storage items 
The best way to store bags is in another bag 
Empty your bag every day 
Items that usurp floor space belong in the closet 
Keep things out of the bath and the kitchen sink 
Make the top shelf of the bookcase your personal shrine 
Decorate your closet with your secret delights 
Unpack and de-tag new clothes immediately 
Don’t underestimate the “noise” of written information 
Appreciate your possessions and gain strong allies 
The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life 
Put your house in order and discover what you really want to do 
The magic effect of tidying 
Gaining confidence in life through the magic of tidying 
An attachment to the past or anxiety about the future 
Learning that you can do without 
Do you greet your house? 
Your possessions want to help you 
Your living space affects your body 
Is it true that tidying increases good fortune? 
How to identify what is truly precious 
Being surrounded by things that spark joy makes
you happy 
Your real life begins after putting your house in order 


Afterword     
About the author  
Index

Excerpt

Introduction

In this book, I have summed up how to put your space in order in a way that will change your life forever.

Impossible? A common response and not surprising, considering that almost everyone has experienced a rebound effect at least once, if not multiple times, after tidying. 

Have you ever tidied madly, only to find that all too soon your home or workspace is cluttered again? If so, let me share with you the secret of success. Start by discarding. Then organize your space, thoroughly, completely, in one go. If you adopt this approach—the KonMari Method—you’ll never revert to clutter again.

Although this approach contradicts conventional wisdom, everyone who completes my private course has successfully kept their house in order—with unexpected results. Putting their house in order positively affects all other aspects of their lives, including work and family. Having devoted more than 80 percent of my life to this subject, I know that tidying can transform your life.

Does it still sound too good to be true? If your idea of tidying is getting rid of one unnecessary item a day or cleaning up your room a little at a time, then you are right. It won’t have much effect on your life. If you change your approach, however, tidying can have an immeasurable impact. In fact, that is what it means to put your house in order. 

I started reading home and lifestyle magazines when I was five, and it was this that inspired me, from the age of fifteen, to undertake a serious study of tidying that led to my development of the KonMari Method (based on a combination of my first and last names). I am now a consultant and spend most of my days visiting homes and offices, giving hands-on advice to people who find it difficult to tidy, who tidy but suffer rebounds, or who want to tidy but don’t know where to start.

The number of things my clients have discarded, from clothes and undergarments to photos, pens, magazine clippings, and makeup samples, easily exceeds a million items. This is no exaggeration. I have assisted individual clients who have thrown out two hundred 45-liter
garbage bags in one go.

From my exploration of the art of organizing and my experience helping messy people become tidy, there is one thing I can say with confidence: A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is life transforming. I mean it. Here are just a few of the testimonies I receive on a daily basis from former clients.


After your course, I quit my job and launched my own business doing something I had dreamed of doing ever since I was a child.Your course taught me to see what I really need and what I don’t. So I got a divorce. Now I feel much happier.Someone I have been wanting to get in touch with recently contacted me.I’m delighted to report that since cleaning up my apartment, I’ve been able to really increase my sales.My husband and I are getting along much better. I’m amazed to find that just throwing things away has changed me so much. I finally succeeded in losing ten pounds.

My clients always sound so happy, and the results show that tidying has changed their way of thinking and their approach to life. In fact, it has changed their future. Why? This question is addressed in more detail throughout the book, but basically, when you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t, and what you should and shouldn’t do. 

I currently offer a course for clients in their homes and for company owners in their offices. These are all private, one-on-one consultations, but I have yet to run out of clients. There is currently a three-month waiting list, and I receive inquiries daily from people who have been introduced by a former client or who have heard about the course from someone else. I travel from one end of Japan to the other and sometimes even overseas. Tickets for one of my public talks for stay-at-home parents sold out overnight. There was a waiting list not only for cancellations but also for the waiting list. Yet my repeater rate is zero. From a business perspective, this would appear to be a fatal flaw. But what if my lack of repeaters was actually the secret to the popularity of my approach? 

As I said at the beginning, people who use the KonMari Method never revert to clutter again. Because they can keep their space in order, they don’t need to come back for more lessons. I occasionally check in with graduates of my courses to see how they are doing. In almost every case, not only is their home or office still in order but they are continuing to improve their space. It is evident from the photographs they send that they have even fewer belongings than when they finished the course, and have acquired new curtains and furnishings. They are surrounded only by the things they love. 

Why does my course transform people? Because my approach is not simply a technique. The act of tidying is a series of simple actions in which objects are moved from one place to another. It involves putting things away where they belong. This seems so simple that even a six-year-old should be able to do it. Yet most people can’t. A short time after tidying, their space is a disorganized mess. The cause is not lack of skills but rather lack of awareness and the inability to make tidying a regular habit. In other words, the root of the problem lies in the mind. Success is 90 percent dependent on our mind-set. Excluding the fortunate few to whom organizing comes naturally, if we do not address this aspect, rebound is inevitable no matter how much is discarded or how cleverly things are organized.

So how can you acquire the right kind of mind-set? There is just one way, and, paradoxically, it is by acquiring the right technique. Remember: the KonMari Method I describe in this book is not a mere set of rules on how to sort, organize, and put things away. It is a guide to acquiring the right mind-set for creating order and becoming a tidy person. 

Of course, I can’t claim that all my students have perfected the art of tidying. Unfortunately, some had to stop for one reason or another before completing the course. And some quit because they expected me to do the work for them. As an organizing fanatic and professional, I can tell you right now that no matter how hard I try to organize another’s space, no matter how perfect a storage system I devise, I can never put someone else’s house in order in the true sense of the term. Why? Because a person’s awareness and perspective on his or her own lifestyle are far more important than any skill at sorting, storing, or whatever. Order is dependent on the extremely personal values of what a person wants to live with. 

Most people would prefer to live in a clean and tidy space. Anyone who has managed to tidy even once will have wished to keep it that way. But many don’t believe it’s possible. They try out various approaches to tidying only to find that things soon return to “normal.” I am absolutely convinced, however, that everyone can keep his or her space in order. 

To do that, it is essential to thoroughly reassess your habits and assumptions about tidying. That may sound like far too much work, but don’t worry. By the time you finish reading this book, you will be ready and willing. People often tell me, “I’m disorganized by nature,”
“I can’t do it,” or “I don’t have time”; but being messy is not hereditary nor is it related to lack of time. It has far more to do with the accumulation of mistaken notions about tidying, such as “it’s best to tackle one room at a time” or “it’s better to do a little each day” or “storage should follow the flow plan of the house.” 

In Japan, people believe that things like cleaning your room and keeping your bathroom spick-and-span bring good luck, but if your house is cluttered, the effect of polishing the toilet bowl is going to be limited. The same is true for the practice of feng shui. It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

When you’ve finished putting your house in order, your life will change dramatically. Once you have experienced what it’s like to have a truly ordered house, you’ll feel your whole world brighten. Never again will you revert to clutter. This is what I call the magic of tidying. And the effects are stupendous. Not only will you never be messy again, but you’ll also get a new start on life. This is the magic I want to share with as many people as possible.

Author

© M.K. Sadler
Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, star of the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, #1 New York Times bestselling author, and founder of KonMari Media, Inc.
 
Enchanted with organizing since her childhood, Marie began her tidying consultant business as a 19-year-old university student in Tokyo. Today, Marie is a renowned tidying expert helping people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration.
 
Marie has been featured on more than fifty major Japanese television and radio programs as well as in The New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalThe Times of London, VogueEllen, the Rachael Ray show, and many more. She has also been listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. View titles by Marie Kondo

Media

Marie Kondo: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

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