This is crap. It's also not very Japanese... the assertion that your apartment already has all the organizational equipment you need is utter bullshit if you've ever visited or lived in an apartment in Tokyo (that costs less than 5k USD a month). Even in less crowded places, there's usually a practical need for extra shelving, hanging space, etc. in order to keep enough clothes and related items around unless you live alone and lead a rather spartan lifestyle. I'm currently managing it, but only barely, and with a bare minimum of... everything.
It doesn't help that consumption here is positively rampant. Without making a value judgement, I'll just leave it here that shopping is a major form of entertainment.
This is the same kind of self-improvement crap that sells so well in the US. Don't make the mistake of thinking Japan doesn't have it too.
So, really, the only objection I have here is the idea that it's a "Japanese art." That's marketing; effective marketing, but like most effective marketing, it's a lie. I got rid of most of my stuff to move here, which was actually one of my goals, and I'm very pleased with it; however, the "joy" tenet is misguided, and the general lack of space in Japan has NOT inspired minimalism. It's inspired clutter and the avoidance of the home as a place to entertain and relax.
Again: Not a value judgment. Just observations from an American living in Japan and surrounded by the culture and people this piece misrepresents.
I've seen people who's idea of "organizing" is to Buy More Things. That advice, in my head, was trying to stop those people from Buying More Things in order to unclutter the house.
> the assertion that your apartment already has all the organizational equipment you need is utter bullshit
It's not if you need to declutter. Organizational equipment is there for you to put even more crap inside. If you get rid of the crap you almost always have lots of empty organizational stuff.
My wife and I do a full clean out every year. Our key phrase is "Be ruthless". Some things are obvious tossers, some are obvious keepers, and if it comes to a discussion usually just saying "be ruthless" to the other is enough to force the decision.
It's frightening how much stuff you can collect over the year but also how much stuff you kept last year that you no longer care about.
On the other hand, if it's my closet or the landfill (as opposed to reselling, and the associated depreciation and opportunity costs) I'm not in a rush to toss things.
Unless there are circumstances like an impending move, or I am running out of space in the closet.
It's kind of a difficult line to walk. I used to keep way too much stuff. But just yesterday I pulled equipment (tools, a VGA cable, a prototyping board) out of the back of my closet that I hadn't used in four or five years, and was able to save myself a couple hundred bucks (computer repair). That VGA cable occupies very little space.
I would advise you to not completely rule out the tax that every item you own has. Even just looking at a drawer that is full of odds and ends can be stressful. With that said I am all in favor of re-selling things, then someone can get use out of them and overall waste in the system is reduced. Now I just need to sell my $300 jambox that I only used 10 times...
I have never found a drawer full of "odds and ends" stressful: I can see how you might, but from my perspective seeing that drawer is satisfying and soothing, as it means that I'm more likely to have whatever it is that I might need. The tax is only in "whether or not you can find it", which some people have also cited as being stressful, especially when you are trying to find something you know you own but are unable to do so; but, once you realize that throwing something away means you can't find it, it becomes acceptable to sometimes fail to find something and end up with two of them. The secret is just to make certain that the stuff that you don't use often is the stuff most likely to be lost. (Of course, if you can find someone else who will find these things valuable, I'm all for giving the objects away.)
I imagine that how organized the unused stuff is would be a factor in how high the tax is. If you can't remember that you own it and where it is when you need it, there's no usefulness to having it. If it's getting in the way of finding other stuff, the value becomes negative.
In large quantities, stuff taxes also include how large a dwelling you need and how difficult it is to move.
Studying abroad made me more aware that there are penalties for not having stuff, too. It was mostly basic cooking implements that I missed, and also things that are just useful to have around, like tape and plastic wrap.
I'm definitely aware of that. But I am also avoiding the other extreme. For years I was cutting "stuff", largely because I was moving constantly. Then I bought a small house and stopped living with other people, and found that a barren house is its own brand of distressing.
I'm not very good at creating a "warm" house, but one thing I do know is that empty rooms and bare walls are not it! So I am not afraid to have a little extra "stuff", for example my $10 pair of ice skates. What little annoyance they provide (Where does one KEEP ice skates!?) is easily repaid by the fun they provide pond skating each winter.
Reading your post, I imagined the ice skates as wall decorations. Just a nail needed, and maybe an old frame or some of that fancy ricepaper sticky tape.
First, you can donate many things to other people who will get use out of it. My house has two recycling bins: one for the traditional recyclables, and one for the stuff to donate to AmVets or Goodwill or the Salvation Army or whatever.
Second, I also feel the tremendous amount of waste going on with so many things that have piled up in my house (against my will in the first place). And many of them would not survive a trip through the Goodwill.
One reason I want to go live on Mars is that I'll never come in from working on the fields to find a bunch of new junk in my hab.
The "ruthless" spring clean is a similar tradition in our household. Now, if only we hadn't bought all the stuff we "no longer care about" in the first place.
I do this with Amazon wishlists. The side benefit is that often things from that list end up as Christmas or birthday presents so I get to both stop buying so much myself, but receive some of them anyway.
Me too. I add stuff to my wishlist throughout the year, then one month before Christmas and my birthday I go through and remove all the items I no longer want. Plenty stays on, of course, but plenty is also like "Ehhhh...I wouldn't actually do much with that", "Ehhh, I ended up seeing that elsewhere and don't care to own it", etc.
I do this for all my old technology books. Like most of you I was sure there was a nugget of knowledge I could still extract from some old book so I kept them for a long time. In one day I bar-code scanned in all of the UPCs and saved them in a wish list. If the book was available cheap then it went in the paper recycling bin. I told myself that if I really want that OLD book back it is available for $1+s&h used. I cleaned up a lot of shelf space and still have my books available on a few days notice.
PS-I have never needed to buy anything back from my old book wish list.
I've been trying to convince my wife's family that I don't want birthday or Christmas presents for years. No such luck... I end up having to put a bunch of useless crap on my amazon wishlist just to keep them happy.
The trick is to request non-physical stuff. As an example, request a track day on a race car track (if you're into cars). That way, you get an interesting experience and no/reduced clutter.
I always ask for Kiva or Watsi gift cards/donations in my name, and make it very clear that any other gifts will get sold or returned to fund those two things.
To be fair, half of the stuff I throw out when cleaning each year is stuff that I already got my use out of: old tshirts that are getting frayed, worn socks, old underwear, old towels, inner shower curtain, clothes that no longer fit right, worn/stained bedding, stacks of papers, half filled notebooks, felt pens that have the tip worn down (I write too hard/poorly), etc.
What's amazing to me is the volume of "long term consumables" I seem to go through - eg, things that I'm not wearing out on a weekly rate, but nevertheless, and wearing out on a quarterly/yearly rate.
Couple that with things that I realize need replacing (old dishwear that's accumulated stains/damage/missing pieces), that I've lost a bunch of silverware but still have a pile of spoons, etc and you end up with a fairly sizable selection of stuff every year, even though all of it makes sense both to have bought in the past and to get rid of now.
I have a pretty simple rule with my stuff, which works because I mostly live out of a suitcase. Since I kind of relocate somewhat often, almost all my belongings end up in boxes regularly. If something hasn't left a suitcase I have with me by the time I'm packing again, I sell/donate/chuck it.
If I'm in a place longer than 3 months, that's the other time I audit all my boxes and see if an item has been there since I moved in. I either try to put it to use right away (if I'd just forgotten about it) or get rid of it if it's not immediately useful. I am really ruthless with my stuff if I'm living in a big city or in the states, where I can re-acquire a similar item on short notice (nearby store or amazon) when needed.
Winter-wear is the only exception to this rule - a single thick jacket, pair of gloves and two sweaters stay in my possession despite not being used for months, for obvious reasons.
Edit: With this rule, I find I own less and less stuff every year, and I have rarely missed anything I've discarded due to this rule (I do miss things I had to discard for other reasons, like when I couldn't afford to reasonably transport my home theater system across continents).
Right this moment, my mom's going through my old school books and papers - work I did from ages 7-16. I still have C64 printouts from the 80s, old BASIC listings and graphics. And lots more besides.
These are the equivalent of old family photos. You can't capture these things electronically! There's no way to run your fingers over the curves and grooves of decades-old handwriting, to hold a sheaf of printouts to your nose and have the scent of Epson dot matrix ink bring back memories of days long-gone.
This is personal history, a record of who I once was. If I'd thrown it all out, who would I be now?
>For Ms. Kondo’s instruction on sorting papers is perhaps the most liberating of all her maxims: Just throw them all away....
>“There is nothing more annoying than papers,” she says firmly. “After all, they will never spark joy, no matter how carefully you keep them.”
Strongly agree with this. Scanning every document I owned, then discarding the originals (save for things like my birth certificate, social security card, etc.) was one of the most liberating things I have ever done.
Now, I scan every piece of paper I have collected over a month, then shred and recycle.
I have had great success with a small filing box, perhaps the size of a backpack. I toss half-important documents in there (vehicle service records, key receipts, contracts) and forget about them.
Every couple of years I spend ten minutes flipping through. Documents that are laughably obsolete are promptly tossed, and the box goes back into the back of the closet.
Perhaps an important circumstance is how little paper I deal with, though. There is no temptation to file all my bank records, for example, because they are already all electronic.
Completely agreed. I picked up a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 [1] a few years ago and got rid of probably a foot stack of paper in total. It works wonders at eliminating that existential hopelessness too much clutter sometimes brings.
I dunno about others, but I use TaxACT to file my taxes and it spits out a PDF of my full return. My W2s are delivered as PDFs through my employer's internal site. Everything else (student loan interest, investments, etc) is downloadable. The only tax document that doesn't come electronically is the mortgage interest statement from my (crappy) servicer so I scan it and shred it. Hopefully that gets fixed next year when I refinance.
Ah, I see. My taxes are complicated enough to require a CPA, which means I get a thick envelope full of papers back from him that I promptly stick in a box and hope never to look at again. (Until recently when I started working on thr mortgage preapproval process.)
I clean out my belongings at the end of every month, and it is surprisingly refreshing to see how much unused stuff has been cleared out of my home.
But I guess it's easier to live a lifestyle as a 24-year-old where I can pack up and move to a new location easily... I imagine it's more difficult for older people that have more items of sentimental value.
I'm 32 and have become less sentimental over time. I went through an aggressive cleaning spree about six months ago, and gave away about 1/3 of my belongings.
33, never been very sentimental and I don't own much stuff, but there are those weird little things. Sitting here in my office is the manual film camera I used during photography class in college. I've been meaning to put on eBay. It hasn't been used in many years and I could always get another camera, if I wanted one. And I wouldn't even want this model again, if I were starting from scratch. But once it's gone, I'll never have this camera again. I don't know why that matters, but it somehow does.
Camera gear is the only part of my collection of stuff that is growing, but—on the plus side of things—I actually make use of all five cameras that I own:
* Fuji medium format film rangefinder
* Leica M6 35mm film rangefinder
* Hasselblad 501CM medium format film SLR
* Fuji X-T1 SLR-style digital mirrorless
* Fuji X100s digital rangefinder
I can't imagine needing or wanting to buy another camera without paring down on my existing collection[1].
On another note, you should run a roll of film through it just for fun. I've been compiling a list of available types of film, along with darkrooms and film labs where you can have it developed here: http://www.ishootfilm.org
[1] Except for a 4x5 large format camera, which I've been drooling over for months. Still, they're sufficiently impractical that I've resisted the urge.
Hmm, yes, have a Mamiya medium format SLR, M6, X100s, but 4x5 is a bit small, have a 5x7. Film cameras are much more interesting, you can have more - borrowing a Hasselblad Xpan at the minute.
I'd definitely rather have a 5x7 or 8x10 than a 4x5, but film availability for 5x7 seems...limited. I only know of ten film stocks available in a 5x7 format[1] vs. 25 for 4x5[2] (including some C-41 and E-6) and 19 for 8x10[3] (again including C-41 and E-6).
And then, of course, 4x5 seems moderately impractical, and 8x10 only more so ;)
There is more 5x7 than that - Fuji still make some http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/film-analog/film/sheet-fi... and Kodak Portra is available for special order, and thats just the colour ones. You used to get a bunch in half plate and European metric sizes too, although less now. (I also have an 8x8 back for my camera and cut down 8x10...)
22, and remember being a kid and finding sentimental value in many, many more things than I do now. Part of it might be that the novelty of having things at all wears off over time.
As I've gotten older I've come to realize that very few of my own posessions actually mean anything. In my twenties the things I owned had a very strong sentimental value. In my late thirties I can't think of very many things that fall into that category.
The stuff that means the most to me would look like junk to anyone else: an origami crane, inexpertly folded; a used sock with buttons sewn on it; a styrofoam heart with tissue paper and googly eyes glued to it; a few really bad pencil drawings... Handmade by my children, and given to me with love. I'll never part with them.
slightly OT, but I remember seeing the blog of some guy who got rid of everything he owned except for a laptop, a kindle, and some clothes, does anybody remember this person?
I've always been fascinated at having as little junk as possible, especially since I've been moving very often recently.
Not the same guy, but figured I might as well put this here. I've been living on what can fit in a suitcase for the past... year or so? Especially now that most of our valuable possessions — photos, writing, music, video — can be digitized, it's awfully liberating to pare your physical inventory down to the bare minimum.
I'm doing this for travel purposes, but the end result is mostly the same, I think.
I've been living out of a suitcase for the most part, but recently I've been developing my hobby of cooking, and now I'm anchored down by a huge pile of heavy, expensive kitchen items.
It's funny, but the kitchen is my main reason for thinking about getting a house now... I'm turning 40 at the end of the year, and though I had a house with an ex-wife, I was only there on the weekends for the most part. Though I like having a big entertainment center, I could live without it... and all the extra "stuff" I could easily pair down.
My kitchen, however is quite a bit different... I have the assortment of pots, pans, utensils and even gadgets that I actually use pretty regularly. I'm actually about out of space in my kitchen now, and thinking it might be time to look into getting a house again. That, or might get a nice armoire or wardrobe to expand my storage near the kitchen with.
Kind of same here. The only things I really keep is my laptop, phones and iPad (all for work/dev purposes). My Credit cards and such trinkets. Some papers like visas and other seemingly important things. And a couple of pairs of clothes. And a backback to fit it all in.
In around a month or so I will discard most everything (again) due to moving (and sadly, bedbug paranoia).
I did this but didn't blog about it. I got rid of everything that didn't fit in my backpack and traveled for six months.
This is a very practical way of traveling or moving but not something I'd do long term. You sacrifice efficiency (eg doing laundry every few days vs once every 1-2 weeks) and ability. There are just some things you can't fit into a backpack, eg tools, kitchenware and appliances, and furniture.
If Marie Kondo can show me how to fold a king-size fitted sheet properly, I'll suggest that's a feat worthy of nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physics...
Been following this method for a few years, and worked really well. I also suggest just not buying fitted sheets if you make your bed everything morning.
If you have a compulsive reading disorder[1] and need to shed books, consider http://www.books4cause.com/ -- they will pick up your books and provide a tax deduction receipt. The last time I dealt with them was 176 books, no problem. My local (Queens, NY) libraries weren't so friendly.
The median value of a used book is $0. Most people don't want your book at all. The only way bookstores make money is by having exactly the book you want when you want it.
Libraries have a hard enough time getting rid of yesterday's books; they don't want yours to add to their problems. Libraries are places of learning, not museums for books.
I just chuck most books to the Goodwill or Amvets.
Why? What are the "incredible" benefits that you imagine? This is about taking things that once brought you enough "joy" that you bought them and moving them from closets to landfills, probably making room to buy some more joy.
I'm not saying that tidying up is a bad idea--I think it's a good idea--but I'm not sure what imagined consequences have filled you with such rapture.
Or more. After clearing out more space in your home, and thinking "mindfully" about what you like and don't like, you could just as easily become more interested in acquiring new things than if your home were already "full" and you weren't thinking about things. You could be right, and I'm somewhat curious to know, but I'm not aware of any evidence either way, and I'm skeptical that such certain claims may be based more on a fashionable type of utopian theory than on real-world evidence.
Well, I’m not that guy, and I’m not sure I share his opinion, either, but I can imagine a few of the benefits he’s thinking of:
1. People who have fewer things are not as likely to be consuming a lot of things, so they may create less waste, which preserves energy, reduces landfill use, etc.
2. This attitude may contribute to an overall less materialistic society, which could mean things like fewer ads / web tracking (because there’d be less incentive for the advertisers)
"probably making room to buy some more joy" -- that sounds like a stereotypical american interpretation of it. It might also be what the journalist had in mind, but not what the author of the methodology describes.
I disagree. You shouldn't be tying your emotions to physical objects. That's the very pro-consumer approach that leads to us accumulating junk. You need to be far more practical about it, such as "If I haven't used something within X months I get rid of it" and "Before buying something wait a week and see if I still want it"
As North America increasingly moves toward a more urban, condo lifestyle, I think this sort of attitude will become the norm. The alternative is simply impossible. There's not enough space.
Nice methodology described (well, maybe methodology is too heavy a word) by I disliked all the BS self-references and attempts at jokes by the journalist. Either cover your subject with respect or don't.
It doesn't help that consumption here is positively rampant. Without making a value judgement, I'll just leave it here that shopping is a major form of entertainment.
This is the same kind of self-improvement crap that sells so well in the US. Don't make the mistake of thinking Japan doesn't have it too.
So, really, the only objection I have here is the idea that it's a "Japanese art." That's marketing; effective marketing, but like most effective marketing, it's a lie. I got rid of most of my stuff to move here, which was actually one of my goals, and I'm very pleased with it; however, the "joy" tenet is misguided, and the general lack of space in Japan has NOT inspired minimalism. It's inspired clutter and the avoidance of the home as a place to entertain and relax.
Again: Not a value judgment. Just observations from an American living in Japan and surrounded by the culture and people this piece misrepresents.