The little things: How tidying up can change your life

The important things in life are really the little things, the boring things. It’s stuff like paying the bills or working a minimum wage job. The big things only build on little ones. People’s lives are governed by their sleep, exercise, diet and environment. One of the little things that I think college students (myself included) tend to neglect is tidying up their environment. So this week, I decided to find an all inclusive guide, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo.

This book is very interesting because it is a very technical guide on something most people consider common sense. Tidying up is something that many began to do as toddlers with their toys, so most people mistakenly believe that they know how to do it right. Kondo, however, has a very different approach.

Marie Kondo works full time as a cleaning consultant in Japan. Her advice to clients is to “Start by discarding. Then organize your space, thoroughly, completely, in one go.” This is contrary to most methods which advocate for a slow and progressive approach, but Kondo’s results are evidence that her approach works. She has never had a client rebound into an unorganized home. 

Some of Kondo’s other unorthodox approaches are her anti-storage container stance. She argues that “Putting things away only creates the illusion that the clutter has been solved.” The truth is that most people just have too much stuff. So much stuff that it is not taken care of or cherished or even used. To determine if clients should keep an item or not she asks this question: “Does it spark joy?” If the answer is no it goes in the discard pile. This includes gifts that you faked liking or things that are expensive but were never used. Kondo is ruthless in her approach to discarding.

I found her viewpoint on objects very interesting though. Her perspective of tidying up is, of course, non-Western. She thinks about objects in a different way than the Western culture views them. She writes about them needing rest, or appreciation and thankfulness. This is starkly different from the American perspective of cheap and disposable items. Kondo instead advocates for really taking care of and loving what you have.

Kondo sees that tidying up is life-changing. It is one of those keystone or atomic habits that can dramatically improve someone's whole life. It changes their perspective of the world, making a space that was once chaotic and disruptive, orderly and calm. In the first chapter of the book she writes, “When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order too.” How your life is structured really comes down to the little things that can end up changing a lot.

By Sierra Lastine