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Kondo is back with more tidying advice in 'Spark Joy'

14 Comments
By KATHERINE ROTH

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14 Comments
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I need to get this for my wife, our house has gotten pretty cluttered, I have tried my darndest to get her to see we need to tidy up some, trying to lead by example but with limited success........

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Most of the Japanese homes I've been into look like deathtraps, they are so cluttered. KonMarie needs to spend more time educating her compatriots!

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My wife has gotten into minimalism. She drastically reduced her wardrobe and wants me to do the same. I allowed her to cull my t-shirts and bicycle / hiking wear. It sure makes putting things away easier when you have less things to put away. But I am a pack rat by nature, so it is difficult. She wants to attack my sweaters and sweatshirts next... I am trying to resist because they cost way more than a t-shirt.

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Her next book will be to show how to wipe your back side the way she feels is correct.

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I am a minimalist too. Simplicity is the old zen garden way.

If you have not worn something in a year to account for a return of the new year, give it away or chuck it. I sold cameras, videos and musical instruments etc. The two of us can move by just renting a small van.

@massiou: Why did you buy her books?

@kyushu: Funny boy.

@the woman with the immaculate couch...why isn't it covered with plastic like all my Italian Friend's sofas in NY? It looks like their couches, so should be treated like their couches.

Babies do not need a lot of stuff. She has a lot to learn.

Little miss prissy must have an interesting refrigerator.

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There's getting rid of clutter... and there's what this young lady does, which is scary to a collector such as myself. Truth be told there are things I have which date from my childhood because they are the things that helped make me what I am today. Without them I'd be as empty as Marie's home. Then again my home is bigger than most Japanese homes.

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She represents so well the lamentable intellectual level of the book industry in Japan.

On top of that, she does a wonderful job in portraying Japan as a wonderful patriarchal society where a woman must be the one having skills to fold clothes and tidy up the house for mister husband, who contemplates her with delicacy as being so cool doing that. Welcome to 2016 Japan.

Author of the international best-seller

Numbers to back up that claim please....

“make sure you put a lot of love through your palms,” she said.

I mean, those people are unreal. Really.... What a hell this is supposed to even mean?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I'm a minimalist. I don't care about possessions. I have a lot of them, but my whole house could burn down, and as long as my wife and kids were ok, almost nothing in the house matters - I'd miss some pictures, but that's about it. Possessions are nothing, experiences are everything.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

The memories of experiences fade as time passes Strangerland... A souvenir or something from a holiday or some great experience will keep those memories alive even when we're gone as we allow others to take joy in them. Photos are fine, but you can't touch what's in them. Maybe I'm a 'pack rat', but I like to have things I can pick up and rekindle those memories. I'd need a large house in Japan lol

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sounds like a bit of a neat-freak. But this obsessive tidying won't really protect people from fear or the bitterness of alienation. It's popularity is a symptom of some kind of neurosis. Wire hangers anyone?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I wouldn't call myself a minimalist but I've spent my whole life moving so I've spent a lot of time chucking things out I didn't really need.

I've read her book and found most of her suggestions to be quite sound (and common sense really).

If a thing isn't being used, practical, are extras, doesn't or no longer "brings you a lot of happiness" then get rid of it. The only things I couldn't part with at all were pictures (but that's because they bring me a lot of joy.)

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daitohack, a one second search on google would send you to the following link :

http://www.mariekondobooks.com/

... where you will find that her books have sold over 5 million copies.

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