Why do I recommend you to read the book ‘‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying’’ by Marie Kondo?
Right from my childhood, I was fascinated by the daily routine of people in their 30s. By people in their 30s I mean, the ones who have finished their education and no longer studying and got into a workplace, or doing businesses, selling stuff, making money on a daily basis. The main reason was that I hated going to school. It just felt like a punishment to me. We were living in a small town in the southern part of India, and every time I walk past the streets on my way to school, there were these people I know, working in a shop or opening their stores. I indeed wanted to become an adult and start working as soon as possible, only to stop going to school every day. That is how I was wired at the age of 7. However, Marie Kondo, the author of the book ‘’Life-Changing Magic of Tidying’’ has a peculiar story from her childhood too.
Author‘s Introduction — Marie Kondo
Marie Kondo was born in Tokyo, Japan and is currently living in Los Angeles, USA. As a young kid, Marie was obsessed with organizing. While all her friends that age is happily playing, Marie loved to spend her time organizing bookshelves. From her own words, her love for organizing and tidying started at the age of 5 and her story of living with four other family members in a tiny house in Japan and her idealistic approach to life in Japan. It was great to learn about the fact that the Japanese Lifestyle is more indistinguishable from minimalistic living. Marie Kondo remembers that she fell in love with reading lifestyle magazines at a very young age and used to practice making their home look organized and tidy, basically every day. Kondo today is a world-renown expert in decluttering, organizing. She is an organizing consultant and has written 4 books. Kondo was once listed as one of the Top 100 Influential people in the world by TIMES Magazine, and she also hosts a show about tidying on Netflix. After getting married, she moved to the United States of America and is currently living with her family in Los Angeles.
Book Review:
From the sort of complaints and requests, she undertakes on a day to day to how and why to organize your surroundings, Marie Kondo’s Life-Changing Magic of Tidying is one book that has the potential to help and transform an unorganized person into a decluttered, and productive human being. Every single page consisted of an easier explanation about why is it important to declutter and how to easily and effectively transform your home into a place that sparks joy.
The book has 5 chapters and is 250 pages long, 241 to be exact. I would like to ask you one thing straight, when was the last time you have seen a young person with a deeper love to put her or his time and effort into cleaning their room and surroundings. I did not see a single person who has attention to detail when it comes to their surroundings. I am not complaining, it is just that Marie Kondo is truly different from the people I met. Including myself, I believe that we all love to be carefree at a young age, and most of the ties, we take all the hard work our parents do at our homes for granted. Cleaning a room, keeping the shelves organized, being involved in housework is not cool for a teenager to do in my experience. Keeping the home organized and tidy is an impossible task even for a lot of homemakers. Marie Kondo admits that it is not an easy job to keep your house tidy and as any experienced organizing professional, she shares her immense knowledge on the subject with plenty of effective ways to overcome the inefficiency.
Firstly, I am confident in saying that the paperback I bought is a lifestyle magazine. Truly, because this book has the potential to make the readers happy, confident and productive. Throughout the book, Kondo has gracefully disdained a lot of information associated with cleaning and organizing while explaining a result-oriented way of organizing. I was surprised to read a few of the analogies she brought up in regards to tidying.
If I have to give you an insight into the contents of the book, I would say that the journey of reading this book starts with knowing who Kondo was as a child and her upbringing and her interest and her experiences cleaning her room and dealing with her family whom she describes as a bit untidy. She has explained the importance of giving our attention to the tasks such as tidying. Moreover, there was a clear explanation about the struggles people face to keep up with the idea of having their house tidy. Along with that, there was this ‘’how to do it the right way’’ guidance, so you achieve your dream of having a clean and organized home for yourself and become free and happy. Marie Kondo nailed it when it comes to providing solutions, techniques to practice. The book sounds like reassurance and facilitates the readers to take up the hard decisions. Her explanation on why do we need to take the hard decisions was on point. The decisions I mean, things like discarding stuff, and not involving family while doing it and how to sort your work for better results and how to change your life and do what you love to do by storing things in order and capitalizing your time on your most productive pursuit.
In simple terms, tidying is undoubtedly life-changing. So, go experience it, and I am pretty sure that you will love yourself for taking action.
