KonMari Method of Tidying Up

私は最近知ったんだけど、片付けコンサルタント近藤麻理恵さんはものすごく有名なのね？
こちらでも「コンマリメソッド」はものすごくはやってる。
彼女の本、「人生がときめく片付けの魔法」の英訳版を3ヶ月待ちでやっと図書館から借りられました。

収納方法を極めるのでなく、収納する前にいらないものをばっさり除外してしまうというのが素晴らしい。

所有物を一つ一つ手にとって、その物によって心ときめくかどうかでキープするか捨てるかを決めるっていうの、すごくいい。

コンマリメソッドで人生が変わるっていうの、わかるわ。なんていうか、ただの整理整頓じゃなくて、整理整頓を通じて、人生の無駄なものを省く方法を訓練する感じ。決断力を養うというか。

週末はちょっと頑張って所有物の点検しよう。
ちなみにこちらでは物を必要以上に溜め込む人が多いです。そんな人を紹介するテレビ番組がいくつもあるぐらい。

After 3 months of waiting, I finally got "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo from the library. (By the way, the correct pronunciation of her first name is "ma-ree-eh", not "ma-ree" as in Marie Antoinette)

I don't know if it was the original writing or the translation, but I had to overcome with the somewhat juvenile writing style at the beginning. Once she started more in detail of her method, then it became easier to read (still, the writing is not great unfortunately).

The main and the most important part of the KonMari method is to purge items that do not spark joy. She emphasizes that you should not even think about how to organize until you have completed purging. It totally makes sense. The culprit of clutter is simply too much stuff. In order to de-clutter, you need to purge.

What is revolutionary about this method is that it strengthen your decision making ability. You go through every single item of your belongings and ask yourself "does it spark joy" and decide whether to keep or purge. What's left is only the thing you either must keep (like some important documents) or things you truly cherish and love to possess. Nothing else. This approach is so transferable to life in general and by going through her method, I can totally see a person more focused on what's important to that person in life.

I love watching Hoarders and Buried Alive shows. Not that I "love" watching those people, but extreme hoarding is a very interesting phenomenon. The hoarding or extreme clutter is a phenotype of one's mind. The KonMari method really links the being psychologically balanced state and clutter.

I have to mention that it is extremely difficult to declutter house in Japan. One, the house is much smaller and many times multi-generation family lives in a small house so there are naturally too much stuff in a small house. But two, not like in the U.S. where you get a ginormous trash can that you can fit a cow in it, most municipalities in Japan require you to purchase garbage bags (which is only slightly bigger than a grocery bag most of the time unless you pay more for the bigger bag) and you have to sort trash into minute categories like flammable, cans, plastic bottles, etc. I tried to throw away a lot of my old stuff that my parents still kept in boxes last time I was there, but it was just too much to deal with the garbage. Yard sale is not common either.

Anyway, the book. The contents of the book can probably be reduced to a third if I were the editor, to be honest. But the KonMari method definitely has very revolutionary (yet simple and solid) way of de-cluttering. Now I have to go through my stuff and purge.