According to the Los Angeles Times, this week the number 2 non-fiction best-seller is titled (get ready): The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.   Wow…”life-changing”…”magic”…those are some powerful words.

I took a break from my own closet overhaul, because I was so curious to learn more about this avant-garde approach to decluttering, which claims that the KonMari Method (named after the author)”…is not a mere set of rules on how to sort, organize, and put things away.  It is a guide to acquiring the right mind-set for creating order and becoming a tidy person.”

According to Japanese author Marie Kondo,  many people can’t tidy (her word for declutter) because they have never learned how. They might organize and keep things neat for a while, but their homes continue to overflow with “unnecessary items and they struggle to keep clutter under control with ineffective storage methods.”

Kondo asserts that if you only tidy a little each day, you’ll be tidying forever. Instead she recommends you:

– Begin by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely (in one category at a time).

– Visualize your destination. “Think in concrete terms so that you can vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter-free space.”

– Use only one criteria when deciding what to keep. Ask yourself: “Does this item spark joy?”

She adds: “A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is life-transforming.”

Although I found Kondo’s methodology a bit drastic at first, the more I read the more I began to agree that amassing “stuff” that I no longer need, nor care about, and storing it away where I can’t even see it —long after it has outlasted its purpose– seems almost irreverent.

I highly recommend this thought-provoking book, and I heartily agree with Ms. Kondo when she writes:   “The whole point in both discarding and keeping things is to be happy.”

As promised– click here to see my closet reveal!