The Joy of Decluttering

Spring and summer are the ideal times to go through the house with decluttering and sprucing up the space in mind. As warmer weather brings more people outside, consider hosting a neighborhood yard sale that will bring the benefits of cleaning up your home and adding some dollars to the family bank account, and socializing with neighbors and those who drop by. Here writer Cheryl Maguire shares her experience with the process.

Does this spark joy?

“Does this spark joy?” I asked myself. Cradling an apple spice candle in my hand, I sniffed the top of it.

“The scent is gone probably from sitting in the attic for 15 years,” I thought. “It definitely isn’t sparking any joy.” I tossed it in the overflowing trash pile.
Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up had been a best seller for 86 weeks when I first discovered it. That discovery prompted a month-long marathon decluttering of my house. I emptied every drawer, closet and bin, winding up with eleven bags for donation and ten for the garbage.

I consider myself a “neat freak,” yet if I wrote a book about my habits, it would end up in the clearance bin. When my three children eat a meal, I’m right there wiping away the crumbs. Labeled bins hold their toys, clothes and sports gear. If they don’t put their things in the proper place, they know they’re going to deal with my wrath.

Understand your relationship to material items

When I first heard of this book, I couldn’t figure out how she sold so many copies of a book about the least exciting topic I can think of. But as I read her book, I hung on every word. It was more captivating than the psychological thrillers I usually read. The deeper I delved, the clearer the central theme of the book became — to have readers understand their relationship to material items.

Kondo writes, “Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved.” Even though everything I own is neatly stacked or stored in a bin, I rarely get rid of things. I definitely was under the delusion I was living a clutter-free life.

“You will never use spare buttons,” Kondo writes. I’ve never sewed a button on a shirt in my life, so why did I have a pile of buttons in my drawer?
“If you see a (cable or electrical) cord and wonder what on earth it’s for, chances are you’ll never use it again,” Kondo writes. When I looked at my bag full of unidentified cords, I realized I had not used any of cords since I created the collection. I could no longer ignore the clutter.

Finding your pattern to keeping things

Kondo’s book got me to think about how I acquired each object I owned and why I held on to it. I realized that there was a pattern to why I kept items. I worried I might need them in the future or felt guilty about never using them.

It was time for me to initiate step one in her book: “Start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely.” The process of discarding, according to Kondo, should focus on, “What we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.” She suggests you do this by holding each item you own and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?”

At first this question seemed ridiculous to me, but I tried it despite my misgivings.

The magic effect of tidying

“If you only keep the items which spark joy, then you surround yourself with things that make you happy,” Kondo says. This reorganization of your material things can lead to a transformation in your life and perception.

For me, the biggest transformation came through discarding my unused items and unworn clothing. Kondo refers to this as “The magic effect of tidying.”
As you discard something, Kondo recommends saying to that item, “Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me.” This simple reframing thought process helped me to take my unworn red shirt with the tags on it and place it in the donation pile. When you’re done with the tidying, Kondo writes, “You can see quite clearly what you need in your life and what you don’t, and what you should and shouldn’t do.”

She says it will increase your confidence since the process involves making decisions about whether or not to keep items. You are also forced to confront the decisions you made in selecting your possessions and to hopefully learn from poor decisions.

Accomplishment, pride and transformation

When I finished tidying, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Opening a drawer and finding a pen without any useless buttons gave me pride in my ability to get rid of unnecessary things. I experienced a life transformation as well. In the fourth grade I wrote my first book which my teacher typed using a typewriter and a cloth to create a cover. I found this book while cleaning. It was a reminder of my love for writing which I had dabbled in throughout the years.

This spurred my decision to actively pursue freelance writing. Being a stay-at-home mom can feel isolating. Writing has allowed me to meet other people and feel connected; and has also resulted in a steady career writing for publication.

Like Kondo says, I put my space in order, in a way that changed my life forever.