The Marie Kondo Megathread - "I just love mess"

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I've absolutely cleaned out my house with her style of cleaning. I've purged so much with the "This item doesn't bring me joy" and left with a clean kitchen, tidy book shelves, and a workshop that's far better organized than I ever imagined.
 
Resurrecting because I have thoughts. Not least of which is that this thread would probably get more attention in the Beauty Parlour. The KonMari method is obviously for anyone including guys, but I doubt they like to sperg about it online.

I have been interested in Marie Kondo for ages, loved the book, liked the show, really love everything about her philosophy, but, having hoarding tendencies from trauma and memories of scarcity when I was young, I still couldn't take the plunge.

Four years later, after a lot of therapy, I decided I deserved to live in a nice space surrounded only by things I love.

It is a very interesting process. You can't make any excuses to yourself, if it doesn't spark some kind of joy (even just the contentment you feel that it is useful to you) but you still feel the need to keep it, you have to deal with the emotions and issues around it right then and there. You can't put it off because those clothes are in a pile on your bed and you need to sleep somewhere tonight lol

I also very quickly learnt it is not worth cheating and moving clothing you are really attached to but feel you might need to let go of, to the sentimental items category unless it is a one-off. If you move more than say 3-5 items of clothing to the sentimental category, you're actually just avoiding things. You're only putting off decisions that will have to be made sometime, and clothing decisions are, I strongly suspect, the easiest thing to make a decision about because most clothing items can be replaced well enough.

She talks about honing your intuition for what sparks joy by starting off with the easiest items anyway. It seems to work, I found myself getting rid of quite a lot even though I only went through my clothes a month ago. I don't really have a lot, most women I have seen on YouTube have gigantic piles. Mine was decent, but not ceiling-high. Somewhere in between the average man and the average woman lol.

There were many things I thought I would definitely keep, and discovered that while I *used* to care about them a whole lot, I don't anymore and I can let them go. It's a weird feeling, like you're nostalgic for some absent nostalgia...

There were a couple I decided to pass on and then decided to keep the next day for various reasons. 6 out of 30-ish items, and 3 of those were because I realised they weren't in good enough condition for others to use. 2 were ones I had been on the fence about anyway, and one I had definitely decided to get rid of, but when folding

The one thing I hate about the show is that there is no thought to the fact that most of the clothes that get donated will be burned, sent to landfill, or sent overseas where they will inevitably end up burned or landfill anyway. I recently discovered recycling is a sketchy business in general, especially with China deciding it's not worth the external costs to take on the world's trash, so it's better to try and reuse what I can myself. The thing to do is remember to only plan craft projects that will spark joy!

I plan to donate the super nice things to Dress For Success (they have a very high transparency rating), donate the nice things that aren't business wear to Save the Children, and repurpose the clothing that nobody else will want as things like face washing cloths, reusable non-medical masks, home-made reusable sanitary pads, sewing practice, quilt filler, and so on. Still not sure what to do about cheap broken shoes yet :/

And I am using this opportunity to repair or alter clothes that need work. I realised I was taking better care of clothes that I'm going to donate, eg cleaning and fixing holes, than I was of the clothes I plan to keep.

My SO is encouraging me from the background and is cautiously optimistic I will see this through; I am absolutely the messy one in our relationship. I want to be on top of my shit before we move in together (date of that is unknown because of boring logistics).

If anyone is interested I will post more thoughts as I go. I hope to be done by July 2021.

Has anyone else Kondo'ed their lives?
 
Enoby Way dijo:
Has anyone else Kondo'ed their lives?
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I did, and I agree that this thread should probably belong in Beauty Parlor.

I found out the Netflix series by accident when looking for something to watch while on the elliptical in early 2020 (pre-corona). It’s short, sweet, and while I don’t really get people who fawn over the Konmari method, I also don’t get why anyone would hate her.

The method’s simple and effective, although perhaps a tad minimalistic. It finally got me to sort all the stuff I had in my flat from my family and several movings across countries. The documents and papers alone took me a week to get through.

As for the clothes, yes, the donation system is a bit fucked up. From what I know, at least for France, most clothes you donate to random charities or put in the donation bins (we have those in the street in Paris at least), don’t even end up in a landfill. They get sold in thrift stores or else in third world countries. Hell, most of the stuff in no-name thrift stores in Paris comes from “donation bins”. Literally free money for the resellers.

What I did with my clothes was to give some to less fortunate friends & acquaintances. For instance, I had a perfectly fine Eastpak bag with little to no wear, and it would’ve been a shame to just throw it away, but at the same time, I didn’t need it at all since I had better options, so I just offered it to my friends’ kids.

I suppose Vinted or other second-hand reselling apps would work too if your clothes & accessories are in good condition.
Otherwise, I just gave everything to the church donations, and cut up the clothes that were too worn into makeshift mops.

As for books, I sold what I could, and gave the rest to my old high school and local library.

Either way, the only downside to the Konmari method I could see is that - some things don’t necessarily “spark joy”, but might nonetheless be useful. While you can, and probably should sort out clothes, getting rid of stuff you’re indifferent to like a sleeping bag, or a flashlight, or a survival kit would be a mistake. So yeah, I’d take hardcore minimalism with a grain of salt.

What she is 100% correct about is the necessity to sort through pictures, albums, and childhood nostalgia and the like. You don’t need 10 different versions of the same picture, or 30 drawings from when your children were young, if you have any, to elicit fond memories.
 
Azovka dijo:
Either way, the only downside to the Konmari method I could see is that - some things don’t necessarily “spark joy”, but might nonetheless be useful. While you can, and probably should sort out clothes, getting rid of stuff you’re indifferent to like a sleeping bag, or a flashlight, or a survival kit would be a mistake. So yeah, I’d take hardcore minimalism with a grain of salt.
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My understanding is that "joy" can also mean the job something does. Like most people don't absolutely love their kitchen sponges but they like having clean surfaces, so the fact that the sponges can do that means they spark joy.

From what I've seen a lot of the criticism she gets is from people taking that point too literally.
 
Hoi Polloi dijo:
My understanding is that "joy" can also mean the job something does. Like most people don't absolutely love their kitchen sponges but they like having clean surfaces, so the fact that the sponges can do that means they spark joy.

From what I've seen a lot of the criticism she gets is from people taking that point too literally.
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I one hundred per cent agree. Do my shopping tote bags specifically spark joy? No. But having them means I'm not asking for plastic bags at the shops and that makes me happy.

I think she also means if you're using tools that are so worn they aren't getting the job done well, that is frustrating. You don't know how well a new dish brush can spark joy til you've used a old one for too long...

However I do think we should fix whatever we can about our tools before defaulting to tossing and getting a new thing, and when you get the new thing try to be more conscious of sustainability in the future.

Also yay! this thread is in the Beauty Parlour now. Thanks, mods :)
 
Picked up Magic of Tidying Up from the library on a whim, it was one of those ubiquitous books that you figure you might as well read and see what all the fuss is about.

It's a tiny but lovely miracle that Kondo can use phrases like "Does this spark joy" or can propose actually thanking objects before giving them away and not sound like a spacy two-bit hippie.
 
Henry Bemis dijo:
It's a tiny but lovely miracle that Kondo can use phrases like "Does this spark joy" or can propose actually thanking objects before giving them away and not sound like a spacy two-bit hippie.
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It's an asian thing. Cringe shit said by westernes is something a asian person can say completely fine. That's why they have maid cafes and we don't.
It amazes me that people are this fascinated by her. You have to really be a messy retard to be "blessed" by her words. Not as if these things shouldn't fall naturally for a normal functional human being.

And bitch, my refrigerator doesn't spark joy. But I'm darn happy to have fresh food. Same with my vacuum.

As usual, people are retards, and she's smart for exploiting it.
 
There's another decluttering method called Swedish Death Cleaning. The objective is similar to KonMari, in that it is meant to bring happiness and a better sense of peace, however, it's focus is not yourself so much, but those you leave behind and what you will burden them with. Burdening others is not an act of love. Decluttering is a way to show love for others, and in doing so, making your environment less stressful and the time you have left on earth more liberating.
 
StrawberryDouche dijo:
There's another decluttering method called Swedish Death Cleaning. The objective is similar to KonMari, in that it is meant to bring happiness and a better sense of peace, however, it's focus is not yourself so much, but those you leave behind and what you will burden them with. Burdening others is not an act of love. Decluttering is a way to show love for others, and in doing so, making your environment less stressful and the time you have left on earth more liberating.
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EXCELLENT recommendation. I recently bought this book and it's a wayyyyyyyy less fussy approach to letting go of stuff. Marie Kondo's cutesy, serene, and extremely ridgid way of looking at purging junk never resonated with me.
 
Regarding people trying to declutter their closets but not wanting their discarded clothes to just end up in a landfill: consider donating to a non-profit org that helps people in need obtain jobs. Many of them request donations of clothing that would be appropriate for wearing to an interview or working in an office job. Dress For Success is one such non-profit that provides these services for women, while Career Gear offers similar services for men.
 
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