For some people, keeping track of everything in their lives is a breeze. They wake up with their minds set to completing a wide array of tasks, coinciding with a routine that ensures their responsibilities are in order. They rarely overlook anything important because organizing seems to be already a part of their system.
On the other hand, there are those who have a hard time with such things. From keeping their closet organized to ensuring that they haven’t forgotten a certain chore, some people find it incredibly difficult to get into the groove of keeping things in order. Their clutter piles up in droves, and the act of dealing with it is daunting. More often than not, they end up feeling bad when they come home to a space they struggle to maintain, as they begin to compare themselves with people whose skills in upkeeping are innate.
Marie Kondo is one of the former. Even at a young age, Marie had taken a profound interest in tidying up after her mother began adopting the concept of fusui, a Japanese method similar to feng shui. She began to help out, cementing the practice of putting things in order. As she grew older, Marie’s love for organizing continued. When her peers would choose to run around and play, she would opt to tidy the bookshelf in their classroom. She would later end up becoming a shrine maiden at a Shinto shrine, where she was surrounded by the air of “purity, cleanliness, calm,” which she associated with the feeling she had after decluttering a room.
However, there came a time when she had a nervous breakdown over her obsession with throwing things away and keeping things tidy. She ended up fainting and was unconscious for two hours. When she finally woke up, she said she heard a mysterious voice that spoke to her about looking at her things more closely. This led to a change in her philosophy of tidying, shifting from just looking for things to throw away to finding and keeping the things that spark joy.
At the age of 19, she ended up becoming an organizing consultant, using her KonMari method to help the lives of her clients. Many of them have spoken up about how life-changing Marie’s counselling was, which involved five-hour meetings spread over half a year. From people leaving their dead-end jobs and eventually starting their own business to those finally making the decision to get divorced, Marie’s impact grows beyond the act of organizing one’s home as she believes “when you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order too.”
This ideology mirrors how a messy room or home can have a drastic effect on one’s psyche. There are also studies that found how a messy household may have a negative impact on children and adolescents. While not all clutter immediately means that depression is looming in one’s mind, it may also point towards a feeling of being overwhelmed. Clearing clutter has been found to help lessen feelings of irritation and distraction.
Marie’s philosophy of tidying up revolves around how a messy home is often just about unhappiness lurking within, and finally taking the steps towards addressing the clutter is inviting happiness inside. “Identifying the things that make you happy: that is the work of tidying,” she said.
Her KonMari method takes on six rules:
- Commit yourself to tidying up
- Imagine your ideal lifestyle
- Finishing discarding first
- Tidy by category, not by location
- Follow the right order
- Ask yourself if it sparks joy
Given how Marie’s books have sold millions of copies all around the world, the philosophy of keeping something if it sparks joy and discarding it when it doesn’t became a buzz throughout pop culture. While the idea seems simple enough, following through pushes people to really think about the things that they have. This can end up striking an unexpected chord within a person that can end up being more life-changing than they realize.
Sources:
- Teens with Messy Rooms: A Sign of Depression? – https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/well-being/messy-room-depression/
- The relationship between household chaos and child, parent, and family outcomes: a systematic scoping review – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-020-08587-8
- Marie Kondo is the maiden of mess (The Australian) – https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/marie-kondo-is-the-maiden-of-mess/news-story/bcf67ad21c7063456db7440b5afba67c
- The 6 Basic Rules of Tidying – https://konmari.com/about-the-konmari-method/
Bio:
Ever since she was nine, Abigail Adriatico has always known she’d be a writer. Decades later, her love for the craft has led to a degree in Communication from the University of Santo Tomas, and hundreds of written pieces kept in old notebooks, literary folios, news publications, and even geeky websites you’ve probably never heard of. With a bulky bag filled with sentimental trinkets and a mind buzzing with a plethora of random ideas, you’ll most likely find her in the corner of the room, writing her heart out on her notes app or on the first piece of paper she can grab—unless she finds you first. Then you’ll probably figure out why some people call her “a bee.”
