To KonMari or Not To KonMari...

In March I wrote about the KonMari decluttering method and how I applied it to my closet.  (http://teri-gonewalkabout2.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-sorta-konmari-closet.html )

This summer I actually bought the book and read it.  Then I read it again.

In doing that it really started making sense to me (and I also realized that way too many of the usually negative reviews of the book were written by people who didn’t actually READ the book but rather skimmed it).  I also think there is a lot of culture bias/misunderstanding among readers/reviewers.  And finally, I think there is a whole lot of cattiness out there.

So...can an organizing method created by a young minimalist Japanese woman living in a Tokyo apartment work for a middle aged American woman who is visually stimulated traveler and creative person living on 5 acres in a 2300 sq foot house with a 2 car garage and a shed?

You bet I can KonMari!

There are several aspects I really like about the KonMari method.  First, she does not tell you how much to discard...only that you should discard things that don’t work for you any more (“spark joy”).  Reminds me of the of the popular William Morris quote: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”  I like her thought that “we should be choosing what we want to KEEP, not what we want to get rid of”.

The ‘touch everything’ sorting method is brilliant.  You can’t breeze through and say “it’s all good” because after you’ve touched 50 shirts or 100 books it finally starts sinking in that you’ve got too much stuff.

She acknowledges that “the way each client puts it into practice will naturally differ because each individual is just as unique as the way he or she furnishes the house.”

Unique...that is how I will be doing the KonMari method.

Can’t wait to see how it works out...I’m starting today!