Some practical advice from a Japanese

It seems everybody sort of “knows” how to tidy up and clean a place (living space or office space).
But one person claims to have an almost magical method of making it stick.
If you laugh when you read this, you may have become infected. :wink:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing)
Marie Kondo
nytimes.com/2014/10/23/garde … kondo.html

人生がときめく片づけの魔法
近藤麻理恵
サンマーク出版(Sunmark Publishers)

I’m not going to lie. I’m really bad at cleaning and just kind of guess my through it all until stuff looks decently clean. It’s an embarrassment and a frequent source of aggravation for the mirses, but I just don’t know how to change. :frowning:

I’m a really disorganized person too, and it annoys me. When I clean up I feel a lot better. The problem is I can never find stuff when I’ve organised it “logically”.

I can endorse this particular bit of advice though:

I hate the modern obsession with loads of little bits of paper, most of which are produced and retained as “proof” that something happened. There must surely be a better way than that.

Bold is where my wife goes horribly wrong and can’t be changed. In my ever-so humble opinion.
Me? I think I’m already at the Kondo level. Perhaps I should start hiring out my services.

I just put nails in the walls and hang everything on them. It looks ridiculous but it works so well… one of the upsides to being a bachelor.

… and you’re STILL a bachelor, aren’t you?

I used to be very clean and organised until I married a Taiwanese woman, to whom housework was cleaning the floor daily, but letting all else slide. Later I realised that she needed but didn’t wear glasses, so she never saw the dirt. By then it was too late.

getting rid of stuff when you’re married is SOOO much harder than when you’re single, as both people have to agree that something is not needed any more. that’ll never happen for 99% of the stuff i regard as junk. Ergo, clutter and mess for all those IMPORTANT pieces of paper with expired passwords from 10 years ago, just in case.

Marie Kondo has become something of a sensation

I feel a compelling urge to watch this show after reading this article. Maybe instead of the Ted Bundy thing

This piece from the Daily Go Fuck Yourself seems to take some of the shine off it

I didn’t read this but I find the subtitle amusing in various ways

Yet, I soldier on

What if the book doesn’t spark joy in you? :thinking:

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Why is Kondo described as a ‘person of colour’? She’s whiter than the average Californian.

Anyway, she must be white, otherwise people wouldn’t be allowed to lay into her like that; there would be public lynchings as far as the eye can see.

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i find this whole white people this white people that which the sjw are currently using really weird. you can’t be an immigrant if you are white? only asian and black immigrants count? if your family are from greece or italy or russia then your background doesn’t count enough with these people? its bonkers.

It’s not really about cleaning in the organizing sense, the big thing is throw away stuff that don’t make you happy.

I discovered Marie Kondo a couple years ago, threw out/sold/donated a bunch of my shit, converted to vertical storage (which is awesome and I recommend it to everyone), and became a lot more conscious of my consumer habits. I no longer buy things if I don’t really and truly love or need it and can imagine myself getting rid of it just a year or so later.

So overall I had a net positive experience with her method. But I won’t watch her show because I just can’t stand Japanese people’s fake niceties…:neutral_face:

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Yup, bonkers. It just makes me giggle that they’re fonder of the word “white” than the KKK, and are incredibly enthusiastic about dividing the world into people who are white and people who are not.

Aaaannway … I’m just doing a bit of belated cleaning today, so I will take Ms Kondo’s advice to heart and sling some unused/neglected stuff in the trash.

Added to watchlist.

I was reading a New York Times article the other day and they used Marie Kondo’s name as a verb in the passive voice: something was Marie Kondo’d.

I thought that was pretty awesome, so I kept the newspaper. : D

Guy

I assume plastic bathtubs fall in the category of truly love and need?

To be fair, I got rid of lots of books to make room for a pool table and it sparked lots of joy. Until my mate broke a window and the number 10 ball when he was unhappy with his performance. Then it sparked a bit of annoyance.

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Next step is throwing your mate out the window, I guess?

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This sass…unprecedented.

I haven’t bought anything yet and probably won’t since I really don’t need it that much and it would take up so much space in my bathroom. But I’m already thinking about my next vacation and how I might make it bath-centered…

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I have a plastic bathtub for Bobby. It is stored hanging from a hook on the wall in the bathroom. No biggie. Takes no space, used once a month or less if I send him out for grooming. Out of the way, gives joy when used he cannot escape from his bath.

How big is Bobby?