I have heard so many rave reviews of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and have been meaning to start it for a number of weeks. But I wanted to wait until I had enough margin in my life to actually put the book into practice, not just read it and wish I could follow through with it! 
So since I have a quieter week this week, I decided to dive into it - and to be brave enough to blog my thoughts as I read it. (The book is broken up into five different parts, so I'll be reading one part per day this week and blogging my thoughts fresh after reading it.)
Why Can't I Keep My House in Order?
The first section was called Why Can't I Keep My House in Order? And it started out with a bang - not only by making a case for why you need to tidy up your space ("When you put your life in order, you put your affairs and past in order, too.") but on why you need to completely rethink your approach ("Success is 90 percent dependent upon our mindset.")
Marie Kondo, the author, did a great job of convincing readers to give her methods a try. She also did a fantastic job persuading readers why other organizational methods such as doing a little bit at a time, just don't work well.
"If you tidy up in one shot rather than little by little, you can dramatically change your mindset."
Part of me loved her sort of all or nothing approach. I loved that she promises that once you overhaul your home with her methods, it will not only transform your life, but that you will never need to do such an overhaul again.
That alone was pretty impressive to me. We live fairly clutter-free, minimalist lives - or so I thought before I dug into my kitchen today (more on that in my Homemaking Challenge report post tonight!) - but I have to stay on top of the clutter. This means that I have to go through our house regularly and clear out clutter and this also means that at least once a year, I do a thorough top to bottom house decluttering.
So I'm very curious to read more and hear how Marie makes good on claims that once you've done this whole house tidying, you don't need to do much maintenance. If she could save me from needing to spend a week decluttering every year, I would be all over that.
"The KonMari Method I describe in this book is not a mere set of rules on how to sort, organize, and put things away. It is a guide to acquiring the right mindset for creating order and becoming a tidy person."
One particular nugget in this first section intrigued me and that was the suggestion to tidy by category, not by location. Instead of tidying the girl's room or the living room, she suggests tackling clothing and then books and so forth.
I'm still not sure how that all works out - especially because I feel like I have a number of items that would fall under the miscellaneous category. Again, I'll wait to see how she fleshes the details out more on this.
"People cannot change their habits without first changing their thinking."
So far, I'm loving the book. It's inspiring me, it's challenging me, and it's leaving me hungry for more. I can't wait to read tomorrow's section and let you know what I think of it!
If you read pages 1-33 today, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you read! Tell us in the comments.
