I read Ms. Kondo's book out of curiosity about a month ago. If you're just looking for some new tidying ideas/tips, don't bother with the book - it's written in more of a self-help style that regurgitates the same simple points ad nauseum.<p>There are really only a few practical tips in the book:<p>- Don't be afraid to do a big purge. Your stuff is just that, stuff.<p>- Do the big purge all at once. "Ongoing" tidiness should simply be putting your stuff away, not constantly revisiting different parts of your home looking for stuff you can throw away.<p>- Look up "konmari folding" on YouTube for a new idea about how to fold and store your clothes. For those who are already fairly tidy, this is the only real "new" idea in the book that may interest you.<p>- Be affluent enough to have these problems in the first place. None of the advice is for people who are simply slobs, it's for people who have accumulated too much stuff and who feel it dragging down their life.
I am all for tidying up. One should not forget though, that there are many reasons for why things end up the way they do (as in, cluttered and untidy). I don't think that it 'just happens' that your house fills itself with things that you never will use. Sure, we can blame consumer culture and capitalistic indoctrination. But if we're honest, most of the stuff that we buy is because we hope that it will change us as a person and that we can fill that emptiness that lingers inside.<p>In the end, buying will not change lives as much as we think. Change has to come from within and from connecting with others. I really doubt that "300,000 things" will achieve that change.<p>I think the authors of <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.theminimalists.com</a> have some great answers regarding the question "if not consumerism, what will add value to my life?". While most of you already know the answer "friends, health, passion, etc.", and are tired of the platitudes, I am sure that it is easy to forget the values in a world surrounded by messages of consumption. If you are interested, I would recommend starting with this article <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com/21days/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theminimalists.com/21days/</a> about how the authors Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus got started on their journey to minimalism.
To give people an idea of what someone else found most interesting or novel in the book:<p>-- The "spark of joy" test (hold the object in your hand and ask yourself, does this thing give me a spark of joy? if not, get rid of it)<p>-- The consistent idea of respect for your things. This reminds me of older generations that more consistently mended clothing and fixed small home appliances. They understood that value of treating their possessions nicely (folding them well, storing them correctly) because it saved them time and money in later care. Many of us don't understand how to maintain our stuff -- we just get new socks when there's a little hole in the old one or wear the sock until the little hole is too big to fix. Kondo's book doesn't address fixing things, but it does address proper storage so that clothing lasts and performs better.<p>-- Honestly, I love her folding methods and my sock and underwear space went from 2 drawers to 1. All my shirts now fit on one shelf as well. As someone who needs to see everything in order to process that totality, I was always accused of being messy before, because I'd rather keep all things things in view instead of in some stupid "storage solution." Now I can keep it all visible and look neat. Now how could I do this in my office?!
> This is fine as reference material, but casual readers may find themselves wishing the author were as economical with words as she is with possessions.
I have been hoping someone writes the digital equivalent of a 'tidying up' book. How to organize your files (or how to enable efficient searches), how to keep track of your digital possesions, whether to discard them or just store them on Amazon Glacier, proven strategies for storing logins & passwords, etc. Preferably written for techies.<p>We all have some sort of either adhoc or (rarely) a well-planned system of digital organization, but having a nicely written guide would be great for some things we haven't thought about (e.g., useful scripts, clever tricks, backup strategies, etc).<p>I've looked online for tips and tricks, but I haven't come up with much.
Rather than spending their time clearing out their rubbish I think most people would be better off learning to be more discerning about what they allow into their lives in the first place.
I think this book is about cultivating a home with exactly what you need, or essentialism; to view it as purely a self-help text on the aesthetic of minimalism is a loss to the reader, and overlooks the relationship between Zen and Japanese culture.<p>I was offered some advice last year by a monk who had been living at a monastery that resonated when I read this book:<p>"Our surroundings have a profound impact on our psyche. If you want to do good deeds, consider surrounding yourself with good people. If you want to work hard, consider surrounding yourself with hard workers.<p>And if you’re feeling sad, down, and kind of messy? Clean your room."
> The average American home contains around 300,000 “things”<p>If I broke everything down into its components, that figure wouldn't even be close. In fact, I know of so few people who would come close, I'd question where this figure came from. I'm not in the US, btw.
This book is very good for people who try to fill the hole in their hearts with shopping or having things. I don't think there's a huge match there to HN's audience.