Book Review- Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

My curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check out Marie Kondo’s much hyped book: The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Kondo has been in the news a lot this year. She has a new reality show on Netflix and some of her ideas have been quite controversial. For example, she advises to keep only about thirty books in your personal library. Book lovers lost their minds!

Kondo preaches the idea of only keeping items that spark joy. If you do not feel joy towards an object, you should not have it in your home. Rather than just dumping joyless objects, she gives these objects a little consideration. For example, if you bought a sweater on impulse and realize that it doesn’t suit you, you should take a moment to thank this sweater for teaching you a lesson or for perhaps fulfilling that moment of needing to shop, before sending the sweater to its next owner. It’s okay to let things go, but you should acknowledge their presence in your life, even if you feel that it made a minor impact. You should treat objects with respect and gratitude.

Along with this, she has a lovely ritual of greeting her home after a day out. I’m sure this could feel silly for a lot of people, but I like the idea of gratitude and taking pride in your home. The more I considered Kondo’s method, the more it hit me that it isn’t so much about organization, but about deep gratitude and careful consideration for the material objects that you allow into your life.

I’ve embraced a few of her suggestions. For example, the Kondo or “KonMari” method recommends folding clothing into drawers, rather than stacking them. I could use more practicing folding, but the concept is solid. If you open a drawer, it allows you to see all of your items at once and eliminates messy piles that tend to topple over. I redid our drawers with the KonMari method while my husband was on a business trip and he loved the change. We are moving soon, but when we get settled in our new place, the first thing we are splurging on is a new dresser! This method is not limited to clothes. The idea is to stop stacking items and to have them all clearly visible when you open a drawer or box. Having items visible and displayed in a pleasing manner will make you appreciate what you own and cut down on unnecessary items.

I know that I’m guilty of over shopping and shoving the evidence into drawers or closets.

Back to the books…I am one of those book lovers who freaked out at Kondo’s thirty book statement. That said, Kondo never forces people to give anything away. It is not about a specific number of items, but about only keeping the items that you truly love. In her TV series, she made a comment that really changed how I viewed my bookshelf. She mentioned only keeping items that you could see in your life moving forward.

I really listened to this advice and it rocked my world.

Last week, I took a hard look at my bookshelf. Admittedly, this process was made easier, since we are moving soon and having to physically haul masses of heavy books is not appealing. As a book lover, I am often gifted with books or pick up books along the way. As a writer, I love supporting fellow authors, even if they have written books that are not my taste. I had cookbooks that I never used. I mean, a cook book filled with recipes based on The Hunger Games, seemed like a good idea at the time. Right? I don’t even cook. With Kondo’s words in my heart, I ruthlessly culled my bookshelf and ended up donating over a hundred books to our local coffee shop that has a “take one, leave one” pile. I took none and I felt a million times lighter. My bookshelf is still full, but it is no longer bursting. Most vital, it only has books that I am excited to read.

I’m pretty darn excited at this new perspective. I even let go of some sentimental items, like pictures that my grandmother painted in the 1930’s. I had been holding on to those bulky paintings for purely sentimental reasons, but I no longer needed them in my life. Hopefully, someone else will find joy in them and if not, I will never know and that’s okay too. I was ready to let go.

If you’re in need of a new perspective or a good declutter, I highly recommend Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The Netflix series is inspirational too, especially being about to see Kondo in action. She has a very warm and happy energy.

Movie Review- The Tomorrow Man

A divorced doomsday prepper named Ed (John Lithgow), falls in love with a beautiful widow named Ronnie (Blythe Danner). Ed meets Ronnie at a local grocery store and is impressed by her shopping skills, mistaking her for a fellow prepper. However, not only is Ronnie not a prepper, but in complete contrast to Ed’s meticulously ordered life, Ronnie is a secret hoarder, hiding an out-of-control habit that she developed in response to the pain of losing both her husband and daughter.

The Tomorrow Man has two compelling lead characters in Ed and Ronnie. They are both seniors in pain, using material objects as a way to secure their own versions of safety. In the United States, many of us have more material possessions than we need and this story deals with different types of mental disorders that can outwardly manifest through our relationship with our objects. The themes of The Tomorrow Man are well-timed with the currently tidiness crazy sparked by Japanese organization guru, Marie Kondo.

Ed and Ronnie each feel an extreme lack of control. Ed takes control via an orderly stockpile of necessities, such as toilet paper and canned goods.. He creates lists and makes what he considers smart shopping choices. He does not want to be caught unaware if the world comes to an end, which he thinks is imminent. He spends lots of time interacting with other preppers on doomsday message boards and making efforts to convert his adult son, which creates a strained relationship. While Ed may believe that there is a need to be prepared for doomsday, it is clear that he is also reacting to a nasty divorce and the break-up of his family. He is not close to his son. The prepping is Ed’s way of feeling like he has control over his life.

Ronnie’s control comes from the comfort of buying and surrounding herself with objects. When her daughter and husband died, she simply kept their things and kept adding to her collections, until the problem grew out of control. Ed loves to share that he is a prepper, where as Ronnie is ashamed to be a hoarder. She dates Ed for a long time, before sharing this aspect of her life with him. It is too painful.

The Tomorrow Man is an interesting story idea.. I’m fascinated by the way we relate to our possessions and I am drawn towards stories that involve grief. The lead actors are fabulous. However, The Tomorrow Man is not a great film. It was snail pace slow. Ed and Ronnie are socially awkward characters and rather than it be endearing, it was uncomfortable.

Ed develops a crush on Ronnie, while seeing her at a grocery store and to get her attention, he stalks her in a creepy way. She is clearly uncomfortable with his behavior, yet, she inexplicably agrees to his offer of a date. I really thought that we were going to discover that Ed or even both Ed and Ronnie, are autistic, which would explain the lack towards understanding social cues, but this was not revealed in the story. For example, in Graeme Simsion’s novel, The Rosie Project, the main character is autistic and in love, making many blunders, yet he is likeable and charming. Ed remained uncomfortable throughout The Tomorrow Man.

The ending was quirky. I did not anticipate it. The scene that precedes the final minute, is quite lovely, with Ed and Ronnie both making big strides towards overcoming their issues with control.

I would not recommend The Tomorrow Man. The story is clunky and slow. However, it does present thought-provoking content, specifically, it will make you consider you own relationship with your stuff. It made me feel like having a good spring clean!

Book Review- Eve O. Schaub's Year of No Clutter

Thank You to Sourcebooks for providing me with an advanced copy of Eve O. Schaub's memoir, Year of No Clutter, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Having previously written a book where her family eliminated added sugar for a year, Schaub is back, with a challenge to give herself a year to master the clutter in her home. It's more than just clutter, Schaub has one room in particular, that has been dubbed the "Hell Room", which has turned into something out of an episode of Hoarders. Can Schaub and her family fix the "Hell Room" and get to the root of their clutter problem? In modern society, is it possible to live clutter-free?

LIKE - My mom was a highly organized person, who did not keep more than was necessary, however, after she died, I found some unusual examples of hoarding. She was a single woman, who didn't cook, yet she had about thirty boxes of Saran wrap in a pantry. In the pantry, I found stock-piles of tin foil, AA batteries, and unopened boxes of playing cards. No clue why she amassed such quantities of these specific items. I wish I could have asked her! None of this of course was a huge deal, but it was weird. Schaub mentions dealing with death, and wondering what your possessions will say about you, when you're gone. Thinking about this topic fascinates and worries me. 

Year of No Clutter does not contain photographic evidence, however, Schaub's home in no-way sounds like a hoarding situation. She does visit the house of a deceased hoarder, who was a friend of a friend. Schaub wore a mask, as she carefully waded through the mounds of trash, accumulated over many years. This made me think of an experience I had a decade ago, cleaning out the apartment of the daughter of my mom's friend, who had died. This apartment was just on the edge of hoarder status, certainly a situation where the clutter was out of control. The job was so massive, that we ended up searching for anything of value, and then calling a company to do the clearing out. I was stunned by the enormity of it all.

Schaub writes about the accumulation of clutter, and how things as innocent as a birthday present, contribute to a growing mess. Schaub has a friend who sent out an email asking her friends and family to stop giving her gifts. She had everything she need. Schaub's friend quickly learned that this was easier said than done; our culture shows love and appreciation through gifts. Her loved ones could not comply. I connected with this sentiment and I imagine most readers would agree that the own stuff that they simply don't need or even want. The stuff is a burden and because it was a gift, they are even more torn over removing it from their home. Schaub makes many references to organization guru, Marie Kondo, who has a rule about only keeping objects that bring you joy. Unfortunately in Schaub's case, she manages to "find joy" in what most people would consider to be junk. Junk, or maybe just gross, like when she decides to keep a dead mouse in a box.

DISLIKE- Although I found Year of No Clutter to be relatable and even inspirational, it lacked a sense of intensity or urgency. A year is a long time to spread out this type of project and there were no consequences for failure, other than a home with clutter. To this end, I found myself losing interest and wondering if the concept warranted a full book treatment. I think a more appropriate venue for her story would have been a lengthy magazine feature, hitting the highlights of her experiment. In book form, it lost steam.

RECOMMEND- Maybe. Schaub is funny and likable, as is her family, and Year of No Clutter is going to be relatable for many readers. Although I found myself skimming her memoir I think it would provide inspiration to many readers. Clutter is certainly a problem that plagues many people.