Generally speaking, when it comes to spring cleaning, my approach is predictable: I buy a dozen new Rubbermaid containers and quickly triage the situation. Anything that’s overtly unseasonal (Christmas lights) gets banished to the shed. Items beyond repair get tossed into recycling. And everything I am unsure of (over-the-knee waterproof boots) gets tucked away tidily in a plastic storage container, shoved into the basement, likely never to be seen again.
Then I vacuum, dust and cheerfully high-five myself. Three months from now, I’ll do it all over again.
According to Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo, bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I am doing it all wrong. The “warrior princess in the war on clutter,” as The London Times calls her, should know. Her private consultancy, which teaches people how to tidy is so overwhelmed that she’s stopped taking new clients and her book, translated from the Japanese version, has sold more than two million copies.
Kondo contends that if I were to properly organize my home and belongings, I would only have to do a major overhaul once in my life — that’s right — once! Plus, the results would be nothing less than transformational in terms of my lifestyle and happiness. Her revolutionary KonMari method is charmingly unorthodox (she apologizes to socks folded in a stifling manner) but easy to follow, with nuggets of wisdom for anyone embarking on the ritual of decluttering.
Take my trio of carved owl knickknacks, for example. They’ve barely escaped the Rubbermaid treatment for the last six seasons. Rescued from a thrift shop, these homely guys have no purpose whatsoever. But something about them and their hopeful stares forever charm me. I feel a little lighter when the owls are around.
Kondo would argue that the owls “spark joy” in me, and therefore, according to her tidying manifesto, they are granted reprieve. In fact, I’d be better off getting rid of the microwave, in terms of heartfelt satisfaction in my surroundings.
The KonMari method is a disciplined system, which starts with ruthless discarding (clothes first, then books, papers, miscellany and mementos) and ends with putting your house and life back in order. As basic needs are met in each category, deciding what to hang on to is based primarily on what instinctively makes your heart sing.
As for standard storage methods and people like me, who swear by them? Kondo doesn’t mince words.
“Storage experts are hoarders,” she writes, full stop.
