Spark Joy

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook (links to both over there-------------------->) you have seen that after finishing up Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up I started on her second book Spark Joy. Her books can be summed up with her quote, “Discarding is not the point; what matters is keeping those things that bring you joy. If you discard everything until you have nothing left but an empty house, I don’t think you’ll be happy living there. Our goal in tidying should be to create a living environment filled with the things we love.”

The goal is to go through your whole house, in very specific steps (KonMari), and only keep the things that "spark joy" for you. Which essentially means that you will be discarding a lot, but only so your house can end up sparking joy for you.

Spark Joy shows what the first book spelled out, but in much more detail and with illustrations. So while the second book is not a must have if you have read the first it does go to the next step and helpful for those who are not quite clear what Kondo was explaining in words when pictures are more helpful.

The book itself is a bit humorous, though not intended to be that way. I laughed several times when Kondo explained how socks don't like to be balled up and prefer to rest. Or how we need to welcome our house each day when we arrive home. How about wishing each of our items goodbye as we throw them away. I have to remind myself that she is from a different culture which does things differently. Otherwise it just seemed way too "new age" for me.

Starting with clothes you go through each and every piece you own (she recommends you only doing your own items - and letting others do theirs). If you decide you love that piece and it sparks joy, keep it. If not, get rid of it. Once you decide what to keep you fold it up in a certain way which really does save a whole lot of space in your drawers and looks more organized as well.

Then you move on to books, misc., and lastly memorabilia and photos. 

It seriously works. After one week of off and on work my bedroom is finally finished! This was my view this afternoon as I took a 5 second break towards the end of the task:         

This is my shirt drawer:

And my pants drawer (I think I can purge a couple more pairs!):

My bedroom looks amazing! The closet is completely organized, my dresser drawers have been thinned out and make it easy for putting clothing away now. My tween even peeked into the drawers and said "this looks fun!" and went straight to her room and started weeding through her clothing. I got rid of almost 1/2 my wardrobe (and donated it to the clothes closet at the church) and realized that most of what I had did not spark joy and was rarely, if ever, worn. What a waste of money and space that was. I think this will help me in my future purchases as well, really asking myself if something "sparks joy".

Now it's time for me to weed through my books. This will be a hard challenge!

This book was given to me by Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.