When I’ve decluttered and organized in the past, the place where I always get stuck is when I try to decide, “Should I keep this or get rid of it?”
OK, there are times when what to keep or toss is pretty obvious: things that are broken or out of date. For example, it’s an easy decision to throw out user manuals for a printer I no longer own.
But there are so many things that fall into that grey area, in particular things that are still useful or that have sentimental value.
I’m using, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, which has gotten rave reviews by people I know who claim the book helped them achieve amazing results.
I admit I’ve been feeling hopeful but still a little skeptical.
In chapter 2, however, which addresses the actual hands on process of discarding, yay, there are two golden nuggets which I think are going to make all the difference:
- Discard by category: Collect everything in a particular category and put them in one place (for example, all my coffee mugs)
- Criteria for deciding what to keep: For item in the category, handle it and ask, “does this spark joy?” Only keep the things that spark joy.
Just reading this section in chapter 2 felt like such a relief. All that dread I carried with me in anticipation of making tough decisions floated away.
Not everyone may agree that the criteria, “does this spark joy?” is a good one for making “keep or throw out” decisions. In my case, I’ve become increasingly conscious of how much joy I get from the different things I do each day.
On my to do list, I note not only the importance of what I’m doing but the amount of joy I get from each activity. I do this because I’ve become fascinated with how I can make my day as joyful as possible. So I’m already in the habit of assessing things based on the joy I receive.
I’ll be testing Ms. Kondo’s process this weekend and I’ll be writing about my experience next week.
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